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Every pope since Pope John Paul II has made God’s mercy a hallmark of his pontificate. Pope Leo XIV, who leaves today on an eleven-day journey to Africa, is just getting started.
After greeting pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father briefly referenced Divine Mercy Sunday in his Regina Caeli message, noting that it was founded by John Paul II. “The Sunday Eucharist is indispensable to the Christian life,” he continued. “It is through the Eucharist that our hands become the hands of the Risen One, giving witness to his presence, mercy, and peace.”
Leo has not been shy about invoking God’s mercy. When he closed the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of the Jubilee Year on January 6, he noted that “the gate” of God’s mercy will never be shut; God “will always sustain the weary, raise up those who have fallen,” and offer “good things” to those who place their trust in him.
<h2>God’s Eternal Mercy</h2>
Divine Mercy isn’t new, but the Catholic Church’s emphasis on it is. God has always loved us with an incomprehensible passion. He is always ready to forgive us if we only turn to him with our whole heart, especially when we trust Jesus with fearless abandon.
Catholic teaching holds that mercy is God’s greatest attribute. We can’t fully understand who God is without reflecting on his mercy—his radical love, forgiveness, and kindness toward those who don’t deserve it, which is to say all of us! Justice means giving us what we deserve. The truth is that we all deserve hell. However, mercy goes further, offering what we truly need: second chances, healing, and hope.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “God reveals his fatherly omnipotence by the way he takes care of our needs . . . above all by his mercy” (270), and more directly, that “the gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners” (1846).
Scripture teaches that God forgives those who truly repent and turn back to him: “If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing” (1 John 1:9). This promise is echoed in Acts 3:19, which calls us to “repent . . . and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away,” showing that conversion opens the door to God’s mercy and forgiveness.
The Catechism emphasizes that no sin is beyond God’s forgiveness if we turn back to him with a sincere heart. It states, “There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive. . . . There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest” (982), underscoring that God’s mercy is always greater than our sin.
A Time for Mercy
This message took on special importance in our time through a young Polish nun named St. Faustina Kowalska. From 1931 to 1938, the young mystic experienced powerful visions of Jesus, who spoke to her about his mercy and asked her to share that message with the world. He entrusted her with a remarkable mission: “You will prepare the world for my final coming.”
Faustina didn’t travel the world or preach to the masses. Instead, she followed Jesus’ instructions to commission a painting of him as she saw him—with red and pale rays coming from his heart—with the words “Jesus I trust in You” at the bottom. Faustina wrote about her experiences in a diary, describing her conversations with Jesus and his call for people to trust him. Her diary has become one of the most important spiritual works of modern times.
Faustina’s message may not have gained traction without Pope St. John Paul II. As the archbishop of Kraków, he opened her cause for sainthood in the 1960s. Later, as pope, he continued to shepherd her cause, finally canonizing her on April 30, 2000, as the first saint of the new millennium.
In a despairing world, John Paul declared, no one is too far from God to be forgiven. “There is nothing that man needs more than Divine Mercy,” he said in 1997.
Following in his footsteps, Pope Benedict XVI taught that God’s mercy and justice are not contradictory, but complementary aspects of divine love, with mercy as the supreme, crowning attribute that fulfills justice. In his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi, he taught that “grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. . . . Both justice and grace must be seen in their proper relationship to each other” (44).
Then came Pope Francis, who surprised many by how forcefully he focused on mercy. During his Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, churches around the world opened special Holy Doors as a sign that God’s mercy is open to everyone. Francis also encouraged people to go to confession so they could personally experience God’s mercy.
When Francis canonized Mother Teresa during the Year of Mercy, he hailed her as an “icon of the Good Samaritan,” calling her a model and “generous dispenser of divine mercy.”
With Pope Leo, it’s clear that the Church’s focus on mercy isn’t going away. In fact, I believe that it will grow stronger, because Jesus has made it clear that the Magisterium is to play a central role in preparing the world for his final coming.
Leo mentioned Faustina’s apparitions in his address to Polish pilgrims to Rome in February, and in last year’s apostolic letter on the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, he wrote, “In the face of disasters, wars and misery, we bear witness to God’s mercy to those who doubt him only when they experience his mercy through us.”
It’s fair to expect that the American pope will continue to emphasize Divine Mercy because, as John Paul II taught, it’s what the world needs most.
<h2>Justice vs. Mercy</h2>
Some Catholic pundits believe that the world needs more of God’s justice. Justice will come. We must first try to wrap our minds around the fact that God’s love for his people is simply beyond us. The Lord’s love for us—demonstrated by his death on the cross—is simply not logical. It’s a supernatural love.
Divine Mercy, in a sense, refutes <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/pelagianism-old-heresy-still-attractive">Pelagianism</a>, the heresy named after Pelagius, a fifth-century monk who taught that human beings can achieve holiness and salvation through their own efforts, without the need for God’s grace. The Church rejects this idea because it contradicts core Christian teaching about sin and grace. Pelagianism denies the reality of original sin and the absolute necessity of grace. Catholic teaching holds that we are wounded by sin and depend entirely on God’s grace, especially through Jesus Christ, for salvation.
Divine Mercy challenges us to ponder God’s mercy more deeply, to abandon ourselves to it, and to incorporate it into our own lives. As we forgive, we will be forgiven.
In the end, the message Jesus gave Faustina is one of hope. It reminds us that no matter how far we’ve strayed, Jesus longs for us to come back. No one is beyond God’s love.
If we can incorporate this teaching into our own lives, even in small ways, it will transform us and the whole world.

Pope Leo and Divine Mercy

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Where did Jesus appear alive between his resurrection and ascension? And who were the witnesses, beyond just the holy women and the apostles? It can be very confusing. So we will lay it out in an orderly manner.
Jesus had repeatedly informed his disciples in advance of his death and resurrection, “And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Luke 18:33).
Luke summarizes Jesus’ activity before his ascension into heaven. “Jesus presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
We will start with a brief summary of the twelve places and events. We will continue with more detailed information.
<h2>Short Summary of Resurrection Appearances
Summary of Places and Events</h2>
<ol>
<li> At the Tomb — To Mary Magdalene alone (Mark 16:9; John 20:11-18)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li> Leaving the Tomb — To Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (Matt. 28:1, 9-10)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li> To Simon Peter — Unspecified location (Luke 24:34, 1 Cor. 15:5)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li> Road to Emmaus — Appeared “under different form” to Cleopas and his companion (Mark 16:12-13, Luke 24:1-35)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="5">
<li> Upper Room in Jerusalem — All the apostles “and those with them,” excluding Thomas (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:33, 36-43; John 20:19-23)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="6">
<li>Upper Room — Eight days later with Thomas (John 20:24, 1 Cor. 15:5)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="7">
<li> To Galilee, 90 miles north — “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Matt. 26:32, 28:10; Mark 14:28)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="8">
<li>Shore of Galilee — Peter and six disciples go fishing (John 21:1-24)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="9">
<li> Mount Tabor (Transfiguration) — The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="10">
<li> 500 brethren — Probably around Capernaum, where he had lived, taught, and healed and fed 5,000 men (1 Cor. 15:6)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="11">
<li> To James, probably in Galilee — “James the Lord’s brother,” kinsman of Jesus, and the first appointed bishop of Jerusalem (Matt. 13:55; Acts 12:17, 15:13; Gal. 1:19)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="12">
<li> Mount of Olives — Ascension (Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53, Acts 1:6-12, 1 Cor. 15:7)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="13">
<li> Road to Damascus — To Paul—“as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (Acts 9:1-6, 1 Cor. 15:8)</li>
</ol>
<h2>Resurrection Appearances 
People, Other Witnesses, and Sites</h2>
<ol>
<li> Jesus’ Mother Mary</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>It is a pious and worthy tradition that Jesus’ mother was the first witness of his resurrection.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Pope St. John Paul II echoes many others in saying the Gospels’ silence “must not lead to the conclusion that after the Resurrection Christ did not appear to Mary.” And “it is legitimate to think that the Mother was probably the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheSpiritualExercisesIgnatius">we read</a>, “He appeared to the Virgin Mary. This, although it is not said in Scripture, is included in saying that he appeared to so many others” (160)</li>
</ul>
<ol start="2">
<li> God the Father and the Holy Spirit</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Acts 2:24: “God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Galatians 1:1: “Paul, an apostle . . . through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="3">
<li> Angels at the Tomb</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Matthew 28:1-2: “After the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Matthew 28:10: “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay’.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="4">
<li>Mary Magdalene and the “Gardener”</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Mark 16:9: “When he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>John 20:11-16: “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. . . . She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher).”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="5">
<li>Roman Soldiers</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Matthew 28:2-4: “An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Matthew 28:12-13 “They gave a sum of money to the soldiers and said, ‘Tell people, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="4">
<li> Souls in Hades</li>
</ol>
Editor’s note: Granted, not strictly after he rose from the dead.
<ul>
<li>Apostles’ Creed: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day, he rose again from the dead.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>1 Peter 3:19-20: “He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>1 Peter 4:6: “This is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>CCC 632: “Presuppose[s] that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. . . . Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the good news to the spirits imprisoned there.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="5">
<li> Satan</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Satan did not understand the Resurrection beforehand, or he would not have participated in Christ’s crucifixion.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 2:8: “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Though Scripture is silent on Satan and the Resurrection, he was surely and instantly aware of it. At that moment, he was utterly surprised and horrified to learn that the crucified one had risen. Satan realized he had lost. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the works of the devil were destroyed (1 John 3:8).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Scripture uses a metaphor taken from a Roman military triumph. Having stripped the devil and his minions of their power, Jesus made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession. Colossians 2:15: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="8">
<li> Peter and John running to the tomb</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>John 20:6-8: “Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="9">
<li> Thomas the Doubter</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>John 20:24-28: “Thomas . . . was not with them when Jesus came [the first time]. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="10">
<li> Cephas, then to the Twelve</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:4-5: “That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Paul omits the resurrected Christ’s appearance to the holy women, mentioning only men, since by Jewish law, only men’s testimony was accepted as valid in legal matters.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>“The Twelve” had become an official title for those chosen as Apostles, and it was used even after Judas&#8217;s death.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The Apostles would not willingly suffer horrific martyrdoms for a lie. Being convinced of the truth, they gave their lives as their final witness to the resurrection.</li>
</ul>
<ol start="11">
<li> 500 brethren at one time (probably over 1,500, including women and children)</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:6: “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The 500 men who saw Jesus are not identified.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Likely, they were his followers in Galilee for whom he multiplied the loaves and fish for 5,000 men “besides the women and children” (Matt. 14:21), probably totaling 20,000 in all. So, with the resurrection appearance, there were probably 2,000 people, including women and children.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>News spread rapidly in Galilee, and those to whom he had preached, whom he had fed, and whom he had healed rushed to see Jesus alive, after hearing he had been crucified and risen from the dead.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Some of the younger children present may have still been living witnesses to the Resurrection until the end of the first century.</li>
</ul>
<ol start="12">
<li> James, the brother of the Lord</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:7: “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We are not told where or when Jesus appeared to his relative James, though it was probably while in Galilee, since they lived in Nazareth.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The appearance to James is significant since he is one of “the brothers of the Lord” (Matt 13:55; Gal 1:19). Until the end of Jesus’ life, “not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7:5).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Due to the Resurrection—and likely because of this appearance to James—the brothers experienced a profound conversion and became believers. They were present in the Upper Room praying with the 120 before Pentecost. Acts 1:14: “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="13">
<li>Two Men on the Road to Emmaus</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>A disciple named Cleopas, with his unnamed companion, is joined by Jesus on the way to Emmaus. This appearance took place on the morning of the resurrection.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In Luke 24:13-35, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him,” and in Mark 16:12, “he appeared in another form.” They eventually recognized him in “the breaking of the bread,” when Jesus took, broke, blessed, and gave. These four verbs are used in the multiplication of loaves and in the institution of the Eucharist (Matt 26:26, Mark 6:43, Luke 24:30).</li>
</ul>
<ol start="14">
<li>Matthias (the eyewitness who took Judas’s place)</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Acts 1:21-26: “‘One of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.’ . . . And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was enrolled with the eleven apostles.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="15">
<li>Resurrected bodies come out of their tombs</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Matthew 27:52-53: When Jesus “yielded up his spirit” on the cross, “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.”</li>
</ul>
<ol start="16">
<li> St. Paul on the Road to Damascus, about three years after the Resurrection</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:8: “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”</li>
</ul>
And so we join this happy throng of original witnesses! He is risen! We are a resurrection people, and “Hallelujah” is our song!

Jesus’ Post-Resurrection To-Do List

How can Catholics ask Protestants to be in communion with the Pope, when there have been so many schisms?

I don’t understand the teaching of no salvation outside the Catholic Church?

How do I explain Papal Authority? When should we listen to the Pope?

What do Catholics believe are necessary beliefs to be Christian?

I struggle with the teaching of Mary’s Virginity based on Matthew 1:24-25?

Is Catholic doctrine found in the Bible?

I’m confused by the belief in Sacrament of the anointing of the sick? I’ve heard different perspectives on going to Heaven with last rites?

What Catholic Doctrine Troubles You?

My non-Catholic friend asks how can the Catholic Church be infallible when it has flip-flopped on issues. The issue he cites is the Church endorsement of burning heretics, and then later saying we shouldn’t.

I’ve heard you say that worship is sacrifice. But my Protestant friend says they do sacrifice — sacrifice of praise.

I’m not Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox because it is so confusing. So I just identify as a Christian.

I’m considering Catholicism but I have some concerns. My SDA friend sent me a document saying the papacy was the beast of Revelation. Also I feel like the Catholic Church is not as welcoming to the LGBT community.

&#8220;How can the Catholic Church be infallible?&#8221; This question addresses concerns about the Church&#8217;s historical positions, including its past endorsement of burning heretics. Other topics include the nature of worship as sacrifice and the confusion some feel about identifying as a Christian amidst various denominations. Additionally, there are discussions about the papacy and its perception within the context of modern issues.
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How Can the Catholic Church Be Infallible? Heresy and Worship

<div>What do you tell someone who says they don't feel the presence of Jesus in the Holy Mass?</div><div>Is the person you talking to a non-Catholic Christian or a Catholic Christian?
If a non-Catholic Christian, he obviously has years of formation of one sort or another in which he&#8217;s been taught and reaffirmed that the Mass is, at the very least, not what the Catholic Church says it is, namely, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-sacrifice-of-the-mass">making present anew the one Paschal Sacrifice of Jesus Christ</a> that culminated in everlasting glory in the heavenly sanctuary.
Perhaps then start with what we have in common with him, namely, the proclamation of God’s word from Sacred Scripture during the Liturgy of the Word, i.e., the first and second readings, the responsorial psalm, and the Gospel. Remind him too that Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20), which we know is true by faith, even if we don’t always feel it, e.g., experience God&#8217;s consoling peace.
And then encourage him to read more about Catholicism in general and the Mass in particular, such as in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or continue to come to Mass. And continue to pray for him in any event. His not feeling Christ’s presence at Mass likely stems from his long standing aversion to things Catholic.
If the person is Catholic, I’d encourage him to spend some time in quiet prayer before <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-real-presence">Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament</a>, asking him to help him grow in his awareness of Christ&#8217;s eucharistic reality in particular and the sublimity of the Mass in general. In addition, tell the person that even the most faithful Catholics won’t always feel God’s presence during Mass, but that we need to persevere anyway, because we know it’s true.
Encourage him also to cultivate good fellowship with good Catholics, because that’s a key way the Lord loves us and deepens our faith—by providing us with good brothers and sisters in Christ to help sustain is along the journey to heaven.
</div>

Not Feeling the Presence of Jesus at Mass?

In this episode Trent takes a look at how LGBT ideology and its views of sex harm the good of friendship.

How LGBT Ideology Ruins Friendship

<div>Can a layperson have a permanent key to the tabernacle in order to get hosts to take to homebound people?</div><div>The Code of Canon Law:
<blockquote>The person responsible for the church or oratory is to take care that the key of the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved is safeguarded most diligently (can. 938 §5).</blockquote>
General Instruction of the Roman Missal:
<blockquote>The one tabernacle should be immovable, be made of solid and inviolable material that is not transparent, and be locked in such a way that the danger of profanation is prevented to the greatest extent possible (314).</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.romanrite.com/nullo.html">Nullo Unquam Tempore</a>
<blockquote>The key of the tabernacle, in which the Most Holy Sacrament is kept, should be guarded with the utmost diligence, its custody resting as a grave burden of conscience on the priest who has charge of the church or oratory.
The key of the tabernacle must be most diligently kept by a priest. All the cautions mentioned up to the present will be in vain, if the chief caution, namely, the safe-keeping of the key of the tabernacle be neglected. . . . The key must be kept by the rector at home, or always carried about by him, care being taken against losing it; or let it be kept in the sacristy in a safe and secret place, under lock and key, the second key being kept by the rector as above. . . .
If he leaves the key in the sacristy under another key; he can give this latter to the sacristan during such time as he is absent and the key of the tabernacle may be needed.</blockquote>
The documents of the Church are very clear that there are not to be other keys to the tabernacle floating around. The actual key to the tabernacle must always be kept at the church. If someone has need of the tabernacle key, then it should be kept in a location under another key or code that the individual can have access to rather than keeping the tabernacle key. After all, if the person holding onto a key were to lose it, it is easier and simpler to change where the tabernacle key is kept than to change the lock for the tabernacle.
</div>

How Should the Tabernacle Key Be Handled?

<div>Let’s say I’m being abused by my spouse. Since the Catholic Church doesn’t allow divorce, but a civil divorce is necessary for an annulment, what should I do?</div><div>The Church does not forbid a civil divorce when it is sadly necessary to protect one or both of the parties. However, the Church does not recognize a civil divorce as ending the bond of marriage. Thus there is the necessity of an annulment, which determines that there was never a true marriage in the first place. The marriage bond can never be broken by a civil decree, and the Church annulment does not break the bond, it simply declares that the bond never actually existed morally.
</div>

What Should I Do if My Spouse Is Abusive?

The first time I tried to see the Shroud of Turin was in 1992, but I forgot my x-ray specs, so I caught only a glimpse of a stone box tucked in a badly lit chapel of that city&#8217;s Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. I fared better in 1998, when the Shroud was exhibited for the first time in two decades. As I stood in front of the yellowed cloth, stretched and lit in its bulletproof case above the altar, I had a strong and perhaps absurd urge, which at first I resisted. Then I gave in.
I genuflected.
If, as some modern researchers have concluded, the Shroud is a medieval forgery, then I committed gross idolatry that day. On the other hand, and happily for my immortal soul, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/30/shroud-turin-display/2038295/">a 2013 study</a> by Italian scientists called into question the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin#Official_announcement">1988 carbon-dating</a> that placed the Shroud’s origin sometime in the Middle Ages—confirming a long suspicion among Shroud-watchers that residue from a 1532 fire had contaminated those findings—and suggested instead that the cloth dates to a time between 300 B.C and A.D. 400.
Even if the Shroud were not Christ’s burial linen, its origin would still be one of the world’s great mysteries. Its image of a body bearing the marks of torture and crucifixion was not painted on or burned in; it’s not berry juice or coffee or Sharpie. Indeed, we’re not sure how it was created; all we know is that no known ancient technique can account for it. The best modern effort to reproduce it used high-powered UV lasers to create faint radiation burns in strips of cloth.
Medieval artists didn’t have laser guns. Neither did they have cameras—and yet the Shroud image is essentially a photographic negative. Long tradition had identified the Shroud as Christ’s burial cloth, but not until the invention of photography in the mid-nineteenth century, which let us look at a negative image of it, were all of its stunning details revealed: front and rear impressions of an adult male laid out in a burial posture, evidence of traumatic wounds at his face, forehead, wrists, feet, and back.
Over the past few decades, forensic analysis has turned up other tantalizing links between the Shroud and the Crucifixion. The weave of the cloth, remnants of bloodstains, traces of stone, soil, and pollen, perhaps even impressions of first-century coins over the figure’s eyes, if accurate, all support or at least do not contradict the Shroud’s identity as a 2,000-year-old burial cloth from the region of Judea.
Now, there is no shortage of Shroud websites (there’s even <a href="http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/03/31/new-high-def-app-offers-view-of-shroud-of-turin-58581">an iPad app</a>) and <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=shroud+of+turin+&amp;aq=f&amp;oq=shroud+of+tu&amp;aqs=chrome.0.59l4j60l2.1576j0&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">no great trick</a> to finding them. The intricacies of Shroud study can exhaust even the most obsessive information hounds. So rather than multiply hyperlinks and factoids, I will leave you to your own curiosity.
But I do want to muse for a moment on how a good Catholic ought to think about the Shroud.
The Church, characteristically, takes no official position on it—just as it takes no position on the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe, or on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/doubt-the-real-presence-try-a-blood-miracle">Eucharistic miracles</a>. But the Shroud has enjoyed a place of honor for centuries, and recent popes have approved and even <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/travels/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_24051998_sindone_en.html">encouraged devotion</a> based on it. Even if it is not Christ’s burial cloth, even if it is not a relic but just an icon, it’s still a compelling mystery and a spiritually profitable reminder of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our faith is in things unseen, after all; we believe what the Lord revealed because he first opened our eyes and because the Church he founded attests to that revelation—not because Exhibit A contains the DNA proof of it.
But what if it is Christ’s burial cloth? Then it is nothing less than the most singular and splendid thing on earth. Then it is a magnificent sign of God’s mercy, not only because it depicts his greatest act of mercy, but because, even though our faith is in things unseen, he gives us something we can see anyway. This is in keeping with his past M.O. He gave us prophets, miracles, the Incarnation, the Church; many times he has sent his mother and his saints to renew our belief. Salvation history is chock-full of these aids to faith, both for the whole Church and in our own little lives.
But just in case we still didn’t get the message, he gave us “Exhibit A: Resurrection,” too. A huge, glowing neon arrow pointing to the good news. Isn&#8217;t that what a God of perfect love and inexhaustible mercy would do?
This is why I choose to believe in the Shroud: not because of what scientists say about it but because of what it says about God.

Making Sense of the Shroud

Once upon a time, there was a Twitter thread of atheists and theists going back and forth that gained a bit of attention. An atheist asked, “Dear theists: What is the mass of God?”
A priest responded, “What is the circumference of red?” To put it another way, to demand measurements of God’s physical qualities is, in the words of the priest, “asking about a property of something that doesn’t possess that property.”
Seeing a gotcha moment in his grasp, another atheist retorted, “Then how did God wrestle with Jacob if he has no physical body?&#8221; (Gen. 32:22-32).
The priest left the conversation with, “I’m sure the Creator can figure out a temporary thing.”
Genesis 32:24 tells us about “a man” who wrestled with Jacob all night. But verse 28 seems to identify the “man” as God. The “man” tells Jacob that Jacob’s new name will be Israel because Jacob had “striven with God.” Jacob seems to believe he wrestled with God, for he says, “I have seen God face to face” (v. 30).
So how does Jacob wrestle with God if God is immaterial? Is this a gotcha moment for the atheist?
No, it’s not! There are several ways we can respond to this challenge.
One possible response is that of the priest: “I’m sure the Creator can figure out a temporary thing.” God is omnipotent, which means he can do anything that doesn’t involve a logical contradiction. Manifesting himself in a material form doesn’t involve a logical contradiction. Therefore, it could be that God temporarily manifested himself as a “man” and wrestled with Jacob.
This is not out of bounds for his omnipotence. Nor would it contradict the claim that God is immaterial.
In order for there to be a contradiction, God taking human form would have to logically entail the claim that God in his divine nature is both immaterial and material at the same time and in the same respect. But God temporarily creating a physical body that he takes on to wrestle with Jacob doesn’t entail that God’s divine nature is both immaterial and material at the same time and in the same respect.
The temporary material form that God creates and uses to manifest himself is entirely on the side of creation and has no bearing on God’s divine essence, which is immaterial. God’s divine nature is infinite being, and the body he creates and takes on is finite being. The finite can’t possibly affect the infinite. Therefore, the temporary material form that God creates and uses to wrestle Jacob doesn’t entail that God in his divine nature has mass.
St. Thomas Aquinas offers another possible take. In response to the claim that we can see the divine essence in this life, which some support with Jacob saying, “I have seen God face to face” (Gen. 32:30), Aquinas states,
<blockquote>A man is said in the Scriptures to see God in the sense that certain figures are formed in the senses or imagination, according to some similitude representing in part the divinity. So, when Jacob says, &#8220;I have seen God face to face,&#8221; this does not mean the divine essence, but some figure representing God (ST I:12:11 ad 1).</blockquote>
Aquinas then explains this event as a form of prophecy—it’s possible that Jacob didn’t actually physically wrestle with a material figure. Rather, he experienced a vision in which he wrestled with a man and he received what Aquinas calls the “prophetic current” (ST II-II:174:1 ad 3). On this reading, the “Does God have mass?” question becomes irrelevant.
But what about Jacob’s thigh that was put out of joint (v. 25)? We’re told that Jacob was “limping because of his thigh” when the sun rose (v. 31). Well, God can make Jacob’s thigh be out of joint without an actual physical wrestling match, just as he struck Zacharias dumb shortly before Jesus&#8217; birth (Luke 1:20).
Another response that makes the “Does God have mass?” question irrelevant is that the “man” was not God, but an angel—a created intelligent being that’s pure spirit. Aquinas is sympathetic to this reading (see ST Appendix 2:3; ST Suppl. 15:3 ad 1). For support, some appeal to Hosea 12:4, which reads, “He [Jacob] strove with the angel and prevailed, he wept and sought his favor.”
Now, a glaring obstacle to this reading is that the passage in question (Gen. 32:22-32) identifies as God the “man” who wrestles with and speaks to Jacob. How can an angel speak in the place of God?
It’s not uncommon for the Bible to speak of an action as being performed by someone even though the action was really performed by a representative. Consider, for example, Moses’ reception of the Commandments. Moses tells the Israelites that he received the Commandments from God: “God spoke all these words saying . . .” (Exod. 20:1; cf. Deut. 5:5). Yet Paul says in Galatians 3:19 that the Law was “ordained by angels through an intermediary,” the intermediary being Moses. Stephen addresses the Jewish council as “you who received the law as delivered by angels” (Acts 7:53). The same idea is found in Hebrews 2:2 and in Josephus’s Antiquities (15, 136).
The same principle is found elsewhere in the Bible, too. Stephen says Moses built the tabernacle in the wilderness (Acts 7:44), but Moses didn’t actually build it with his own hands. Other Israelites did. Similarly, Stephen says just a few verses later in the same chapter, verse 47, that Solomon built the temple, knowing that Solomon didn’t actually build it himself.
That the Bible speaks of actions being performed by someone even though those actions were really performed by a representative provides a possible explanation as to why the author of Genesis describes what the angel does as the actions of God.
There’s yet another possible response, which is very ancient: the “man” is a pre-incarnate Christ.
It differs from our first response in this article only in that it specifies God the Son as the one who acts in and through the temporary material form that he creates and manipulates to wrestle with Jacob.
Recall from above that Hosea 12:4 identifies the “man” who wrestled with Jacob as “the angel.” “Angel” translates the Hebrew word malak and the Greek word aggelos, both of which simply mean “messenger.” Since Christ is the Father’s messenger (John 8:38-42), so it’s argued, Christ can be described as an “angel” without any implications of him being a created being (as Jehovah’s Witnesses believe).
This doesn’t mean the Second Person of the Trinity permanently united to himself a human nature, as he did when he was conceived in the Blessed Virgin Mary’s womb. Theologians call such a permanent uniting the “hypostatic union”—the union of two natures, human and divine, to the one divine person, the Second Person of the Trinity. Rather, this “pre-incarnate” view states the Second Person of the Trinity simply manifested himself temporarily by creating and using a material form, without uniting the material form to his divine nature in his person.
Augustine doesn’t adopt this view, but he does indicate that it was understood this way during his time. In <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160372.htm">Sermon 72</a> on the New Testament, after referring to the individual whom Jacob wrestled with as “the angel” four times, he writes, “So then that angel, who is understood to be the Lord Jesus, says to Jacob.” This view has a robust <a href="https://taylormarshall.com/2015/01/is-the-angel-of-the-lord-the-pre-incarnate-christ.html">pedigree</a>.
But what about the Incarnation? Don’t we say the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity united to his person a human nature? And doesn’t that mean that God ends up having mass while also being immaterial?
Our explanation here is similar to the one above, but also a little different. It’s true that God the Son permanently made a human nature his own, such that we can say God the Son has two natures: divine and human—unlike the case above, where God creates and takes on a material form to manifest himself.
Having a human nature, God the Son can do and experience things that go with being human. And we can say such things about him—for instance, “God the Son suffered, died, and rose from the dead”—and they’ll really be true. Similarly, we can say, “God the Son has mass,” and that statement will really be true, too.
But these things are true only by virtue of the human nature that God assumed to himself, which can’t affect his divine nature any more than any other creature can affect infinite divine being. Therefore, to speak of God the Son having mass via the Incarnation doesn’t entail that God the Son is both material and not immaterial in the same respect at the same time.
Regardless of which explanation you take, each one plausibly escapes the atheist’s trap. There’s no inconsistency between what the Bible says about God and what we know from reason. Contrary to what an atheist might think, there’s no gotcha moment here.

How God Can Wrestle Without a Body

Why Did the church kill off weekly fasting?

I have heard the Church banned jousting. Does that mean we can’t do that at Medieval Times?

Is it acceptable for Catholics to believe in the limbo of the infants?

How do I articulate the Catholic position that it is not faith alone that saves, without sounding like our works save us?

Modeling Jesus in Dating Before Marriage

I’ve been going through some ongoing stalking, hacking, and financial fraud. I thought I could go to the Church for help but they don’t seem to be able to offer me support. What are the pastoral duties of a priest? I’ve been thinking of leaving the Cat...

Why is it the norm in the US to receive communion in the hand and standing? Why did it change from what seems to be a more reverent posture?

How can the Church hold up Mary and Joseph as an ideal marriage, when they did not consummate and therefore it would not have had a sacramental marriage?

When should you leave your parish for another parish based on your priest teaching false things? My priest is very loving and kind, but is not on board with some doctrines and some sexual teaching of the Church?

&#8220;Why did the Church end weekly fasting?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the evolution of Church practices, alongside inquiries about the Church&#8217;s stance on jousting, the concept of limbo for infants, and the pastoral duties of priests. These topics reflect the diverse concerns and curiosities within the Catholic faith today.
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Why Did the Church End Weekly Fasting? Communion and Mary

James White’s Gish Gallop (Debater’s Tactic)

<div>When did our Catholic Church first start formal confessions?</div><div>Following his Resurrection, Jesus instituted the sacrament of reconciliation (confession), giving his apostles the power to absolve the faithful of their sins (John 20:21-23).
As we note in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/confession">our tract on the subject</a>:
<blockquote>Over time, the forms in which the sacrament has been administered have changed. In the early Church, publicly known sins (such as apostasy) were often confessed openly in church, though private confession to a priest was always an option for privately committed sins. Still, confession was not just something done in silence to God alone, but something done &#8220;in church,&#8221; as the Didache (A.D. 70) indicates.</blockquote>
For more on this subject, see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/confession">our aforementioned tract</a>.
</div>

The Sacrament of Confession Began with Jesus?

Islam teaches that Jesus was not crucified. Instead, Muslims believe he was raised bodily to heaven by God. You may encounter this objection to the Christian faith when you engage in discussions with Muslim apologists.
This argument finds its roots in the Quran:
<blockquote>That they said (in boast), &#8220;We killed <a title="Christ" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ">Christ</a> Jesus the son of <a title="Mary (mother of Jesus)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(mother_of_Jesus)">Mary</a>, the <a title="Messengers of Islam" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messengers_of_Islam">Messenger</a> of <a title="Allah" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah">Allah</a>&#8220;; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise (4:157-158).</blockquote>
Opinions vary, but generally you will encounter one of these three conclusions when speaking with Muslims about the Crucifixion:
<ol>
<li>Jesus survived the Crucifixion.</li>
<li>God made someone else look like Jesus.</li>
<li>The Crucifixion simply did not occur.</li>
</ol>
As we will see, there is no good evidence to support any of these conclusions.
<h2>1. Jesus survived the Crucifixion.</h2>
In the Islamic view, Jesus’ death on the cross would have meant triumph for his enemies, but as the verse from the Quran states, “for of a surety they killed him not.” If the Crucifixion did happen, then Jesus must have survived the ordeal. This is not supported by the available evidence. All four Gospels describe the events in such a way that there can be no doubt Jesus died as the result of having been crucified.
In Matthew 27, Joseph of Arimathea asks for the body of Jesus in order to provide a proper burial, and Pontius Pilate grants his request. The Romans who handled the transfer would have known for sure that Jesus was dead. Even the Pharisees knew this and requested that the tomb be guarded so the disciples could not steal the body and falsely claim he had risen (vv. 45-66).
Mark and Luke record the event in much the same way. Mark, however, reveals another detail: in Mark&#8217;s Gospel, Pilate specifically asks for confirmation that Jesus is dead before handing the body over to Joseph of Arimathea  (15:44-45).
John’s Gospel also reveals a critical detail. According to him, Roman soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified. When they had seen that Jesus was already dead, they instead pierced his side with a spear. Then, consistent with the other Gospels, his body was given to Joseph for burial.
<h2>2. God made someone else look like Jesus.</h2>
This is also known as the Crucifixion Substitute Theory. Most Muslims believe that Jesus was raised to heaven by God and that another person made to look like him was crucified in his place. Muslim scholars have debated the identity of the substitute, with the most popular contender being Judas Iscariot.
One popular source that some Muslim apologists point to is the so-called “Gospel of Barnabas.” This document claims to have been written down by the disciple Barnabas at the request of Jesus himself. In it, the author claims that Judas was transformed by God into the likeness of Jesus and then crucified.
The only problem for the Muslim apologist is that scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement that the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-the-gospel-of-barnabas-is-a-medieval-fake">Gospel of Barnabas</a> is a medieval forgery. The list of anachronisms and historical blunders it contains is expansive, and evidence for it prior to medieval times is virtually non-existent.
<h2>3. The Crucifixion simply did not occur.</h2>
The third and most popular objection to the Crucifixion among Muslim apologists is the argument that it never happened. In their view, the Gospel accounts of the event were corrupted and are laden with errors and falsehoods.
But the evidence for Jesus’ death on the cross can be verified by sources outside the New Testament. The early Church Fathers were unanimous on this point. Ignatius of Antioch, writing early in the second century, tells us,
<blockquote>He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and power of God; that he was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him; and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross] for us in his flesh. Of this fruit we are by his divinely blessed passion, that he might set up a standard for all ages, through his resurrection, to all his holy and faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of his Church (Letter to the Smyrneans, chapter 1).</blockquote>
Ignatius tells us that Jesus was certainly nailed to the cross. The term “through his resurrection” implies that he did die.
Another example from the early second century comes to us from St. Polycarp, who wrote,
<blockquote>For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. . . . Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree (Letter to the Philippians, chapters 7, 8).</blockquote>
There are many more quotes like these from early Christian writers. If the Muslim apologist is not willing to accept these quotes because they are from Christian sources, then consider this account from the Jewish historian <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/josephus-the-ancient-historian-gets-a-little-touchy">Josephus</a>:
<blockquote>Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principle men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first ceased not so to do; and the race of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct even now (J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 55).</blockquote>
Tacitus, a Roman historian and senator, also confirms the historicity of the Crucifixion:
<blockquote>Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular (Annals, 15.44, translation from Latin by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb).</blockquote>
These two accounts from non-Christian sources have nothing to gain by propagating a falsehood. The Quran, on the other hand, does stand to gain by denying the Crucifixion.
Muslims reject the Christian Trinitarian view of God, and consequently that Jesus was God incarnate.  They also reject the idea that Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind when he suffered on the cross by denying the Crucifixion altogether. But as I have demonstrated here, the evidence for the historicity of the Crucifixion is overwhelmingly on our side.

Refuting Muslim Arguments Against the Crucifixion

<div>Is Matthew 20:25-26 a contradiction to Matthew 16:18?</div><div>No. Actually, the passages are harmonious. In Matthew 16:18-19, Jesus makes clear that Peter is the visible head of his Church. And in Matthew 20:25-26, Jesus explains to Peter and the other apostles what kind of leaders they should be. That is, regarding their authority, they should not “lord it over” their brothers and sisters, as do Gentile rulers. Instead, they should have the attitude of a servant in exercising his authority, looking out for the genuine good of those whom he serves.
Consequently, one of the titles popes have long embraced is <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13737a.htm">“Servant of the Servants of God.”</a>
</div>

No Contradiction in Matthew

We couldn&#8217;t get him to name any names, but we did get Jimmy Akin to explain what the Bible has to say about the nature of the anti-Christ. Without doubt many will be surprised by just how little the anti-Christ is mentioned in the Bible, and that it is probably more accurate to talk about &#8220;anti-Christs.&#8221;

Who Is the Anti-Christ?

Daybreakers (2009) was the most expensive movie I ever watched. It was on a flight I had to rebook because I had missed the original one. It is a gem of wisdom—an apologetic for the Church&#8217;s attitude toward perversion of all kinds and a horror movie that features hope front and center.
It has at least three important Christian themes:
<ol>
<li>Sin makes us hypocrites as we despise those who go farther than us, without admitting that we are guilty of the same thing.</li>
<li>Dying to ourselves, though painful, is better than the living death that is sin.</li>
<li>Grace can be painful to experience, but ultimately, it gives the ability to live the full life we want but that we cannot live just by our own free will.</li>
</ol>
As a movie, Daybreakers is most spectacular in the beginning, opening with a montage of scenes that gradually establish the horror: a strange disease has caused almost everyone in the world to become a vampire. More horrible still, &#8220;humanity&#8221; has taken it in stride. Chrysler makes Chargers with proprietary day-driving technology. Busy vampires in crowds go to work, attend school, and do their shopping at night, and the remaining humans live either in sinister, &#8220;humane&#8221; blood-milking farms or hide in scattered rebel bands. As the blood supply dwindles, vampire hematologists race to develop an adequate blood substitute. The stakes are higher than satiation, or even survival, since blood-starved vampires become &#8220;subsiders&#8221; who feed on other vampires.
Many, including the actors and others involved in production of the movie, seem to think of it as <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostPeakOil">a fable about fossil fuels</a>—but it is so much more powerful as a story about sin, the inevitable lack of real satisfaction that it gives, and the hypocrisy it engenders. The &#8220;normal vampires&#8221; rationalize their profoundly warped existence while expressing contempt for the ones who &#8220;go too far.&#8221; For example, in one scene, a vampire cop looks at a dead subsider and spits out, &#8220;Animals!&#8221; There is a similar phenomenon in the reality we live in now, most clearly seen with regard to sexual sins, such as when men and women who justify various kinds of perversions express disgust for pedophiles. It&#8217;s a false comfort to look down on people who take your own sin uncomfortably farther.
Indeed, few modern metaphors for sin are as precise as vampirism. Vampires, for instance, cannot see their reflections, just as serious sin alienates us so much that it even separates us from ourselves, to the point of forgetting what we really are. Sin, as the great novelist Sigrid Undset says through one of her characters, is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1370150-kristin-lavransdatter">trampling on other people</a>. This antisocial character of sin is most clearly personified by a vampire, whose life depends on taking away the life of others. It is the most horrific illustration of the glutton, who lives to eat instead of eating to live. Similarly, even the most refined vampire is ultimately a being whose highest aim is satisfying his appetite. This last fact is particularly well captured in the movie&#8217;s depictions of normalcy in a regime of vampires: there&#8217;s still Starbucks; there are still crowds on the streets; high schoolers idle together outside; TVs are still on in lobbies; major news networks feature well-dressed vampire journalists interviewing politicians. Yet the yellow eyes of each person reveal the lust for blood uppermost in each mind.
Even more compelling than the psychological probing of sin is the implicit consideration of the role of grace. Its necessity is emphasized first. There are vampires who recognize the perversity of their situation and even make noble decisions from time to time. The protagonist, a scientist developing a blood substitute, loathes the fact that he has become a vampire and refuses to drink human blood. He exhibits good will, braves pressure from his vampire peers, and even shows heroism in helping and protecting the persecuted humans. Nevertheless, he cannot free himself on his own. Furthermore, it is significant that his attention in the first half of the movie is on developing  a &#8220;substitute&#8221; for human blood. It is similar to the way in which modern Western society obsesses over creating more and more ways of indulging the passions for violence and sex &#8220;without hurting anyone.&#8221; No one is prepared to dream of the possibility of curing the sickness itself.
As the movie progresses, something similar to grace emerges. In the most desperate hour, it is discovered that there is a way to reverse the transition to vampire. The transition is not made by mere self-help. Instead, it is by exposure to light and water. The scenes depicting these transformations are redolent of the Christian associations with both of these essential realities. Transformation comes with a great deal of pain—pain that is rewarded with being truly human again. Like Eustace peeling of his dragon skin in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, shedding evil hurts, but it also means becoming what we are meant to be.
Like any good movie, Daybreakers is not an allegory, but rather an example of how real art tends to &#8220;rhyme&#8221; with the deepest realities, which are supernatural. One of the &#8220;rhymes&#8221; is seen in a twist at the end of the movie. Like how the way in which grace, in some mysterious way, produces a new creature, as St. Paul says, so are these renewed humans endowed with a new ability. The tables are turned; it is now the vampires who must fear the humans, especially when they are prepared to offer their lives.
The gore in the film, rather than being gratuitous, accentuates the hidden theme: that, indeed, the wages of sin is death, even it is living death. Although one does not need to watch this movie to learn that, and though it may not be worth the price of a plane ticket, it is an example of a vigorous horror movie, invigorated by truth, that is worth watching.

Vampires and the Wages of Sin

<div>Who has the authority to interpret the Bible? Where is the proof of this authority?</div><div>Jesus gave authority to interpret his teachings—i.e., God’s word—to the apostles and their successors. This is first seen in the Great Commission, where Jesus directs his apostles to make disciples of all nations, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Here we see that long before any of the books of the New Testament were written, Jesus gives the apostles authority to faithfully teach his unwritten teachings—and by extension those contained in the written Old Testament.
The apostles’ God-given authority is affirmed elsewhere, as Christ’ teachings are referred to as “the apostles’ teaching” in the early Church (Acts. 2:42). The authority of the Church and thus the apostles is also affirmed by St. Paul (1 Tim. 3:15). Consequently, it is the apostles and their successors who have the God-given authority to interpret the New Testament when its books are first written and then ultimately compiled.
Jesus appointed Peter and his successors as the head of the apostles. For more on this topic, please see my article <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/pentecost-and-the-papacy">“Pentecost and the Papacy.”</a>
</div>

Who Has Authority to Interpret God’s Word?

The Catholic world is atwitter this week with the news that, in July, Pope Francis responded to five dubia (official questions seeking clarification on matters of faith or morals) posed by several cardinals. Shortly after word of this transpired at the beginning of October, Cardinal Victor Fernandez—prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and widely presumed main author of the pope’s responses—<a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-10/pope-francis-responds-to-dubia-of-five-cardinals.html?fbclid=IwAR2I6svclh9a2GULSNjXy0n8qgj79J3wiAWhgqCqk1EihPtkquNGlWf8zRU">published</a> the whole thing.
The dubia concerned topics familiar to anyone following debates within the Church: doctrinal change, the Synod on Synodality, women’s ordination, etc. But the one regarding official Church blessings for same-sex couples (to which question the DDF just two years ago <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/03/15/210315b.html">delivered a “negative” response</a> that has since been flouted in <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253842/german-synodal-way-approves-same-sex-blessings-lay-preaching-and-reexamination-of-priestly-celibacy">Germany</a> and <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/blog/bishop-bonny-same-sex-unions#:~:text=Bishop%20Bonny%20and%20the%20other,on%20the%20Family%2C%20Amoris%20Laetitia.">elsewhere</a>) is getting most of the press, with news outlets around the world <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/03/1203170334/pope-suggests-blessings-for-same-sex-unions-may-be-possible">teasing that a major change may be close</a>.
After outlining Catholic teaching on marriage and confirming that only a union between a man and a woman can fulfill that definition, the response says that “the Church avoids any type of rite . . . that might contradict this conviction and suggest that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.” It then adds that we must “discern” whether there could be a kind of blessing for same-sex couples that “does not convey a mistaken concept of marriage.”
This kind of language, though perhaps perfectly fine in a vacuum, continues a trend I&#8217;ve been noticing in Catholic commentary on same-sex unions: an emphasis on bracketing off marriage—or even more narrowly, “the sacrament of matrimony”—from such unions, whatever else we may call them.* As if the main or even the only important thing we have to do is keep the word or concept of man-woman Christian marriage separate from same-sex couplehood.
As if to say: There’s a raging debate over homosexuality and same-sex unions? As long as we don’t call them “marriages,” mission accomplished.
Why do we <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i2iMfgrwrnIJ:https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/10/23/bishops-pope-francis-civil-union-change-catholic-church-teaching-marriage&amp;cd=24&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us">keep</a> <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252640/cardinal-hollerich-church-blessings-for-same-sex-unions-not-a-settled-matter">hearing</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/flemish-catholic-bishops-defying-vatican-approve-blessing-same-sex-unions-2022-09-20/">variations</a> of this <a href="https://www.newwaysministry.org/2020/01/03/german-cardinal-key-bishop-endorse-church-blessings-for-lgbtq-couples/">line</a> from Catholic leaders? Maybe because they find it a strategically safe place to retreat to? It keeps us on the secure home turf of religious freedom and distinctive Catholic dogma. This is just a special thing that Catholics believe, see? Please let us keep it.
But it’s such an inadequate response, from a pastoral perspective and even the strategic perspective.
From a pastoral perspective, I think, because by refusing to come out from behind the ramparts of religious doctrine, this response fails to meet people on the front lines. It is there we face the question: do same-sex relationships of the pseudo-conjugal kind (that is, marriage-like relationships: with sexual intimacy, common living, unity, fidelity, even parenting) represent morally and spiritually healthy paths to human flourishing, according to God’s commandments and the natural law? Or to put it more crisply, are they ordered to happiness?
If they are not, if same-sex mimicry of marriage (we just won&#8217;t call it marriage) doesn’t lead to flourishing, even where it may exhibit certain laudable qualities of friendship or charity, then our main concern shouldn’t be whether blessing such relationships sows confusion about marriage. Our concern should be whether those blessings harm the people who receive them. For, although the dubia response claims that the purpose of such blessings would be to ask God for help “to live better,” everybody and his cat knows that their effect, both for the persons blessed and for the watching world, would be to affirm both the union and the (ultimately unhappy) lifestyle. No doubt, for some proponents of such blessings, this is the goal.
No middle ground here. Bestowing the sacramental of ritual blessing upon same-sex couples as couples, however much you want to nuance it, will be taken as a sign of Catholic approval of their pseudo-conjugal union, and of homosexuality itself. In no universe can we reasonably say that this is actually a form of pastoral accompaniment, part of a long-term plan to lead them out of that union and toward fidelity to Catholic teaching and the correct, healthy, happy ordering of their sexuality.
From the strategic perspective, retreating to the borders of “marriage” while conceding the field of same-sex blessings might buy time and temporarily make the world like us more, but longer-term, it will only encourage those who want nothing less than full surrender from the Church.
What person in a same-sex relationship would be satisfied with the half-a-loaf solution of blessings?
How cruel and schizophrenic would it seem to persons in same-sex unions to bless those unions with one hand while withholding marriage, which alone justifies sexual activity, with the other?
What outside observer with any powers of reason would not ask why, if the Church can bless (affirm as good) same-sex relationships as seemingly marriage-like in every way, it cannot take the final step and just call them marriages?
The cognitive dissonance would be stark, people would notice, and something would have to break.
Conjugal love, which has its sole expression in marriage (CCC 2360), requires sexual complementarity. Same-sex unions aren’t parallel versions of marriage (except for the name!) or necessary accommodations for sexual minorities who are just made differently. For natural reasons stemming from our human design and revealed reasons that stretch from Eden to Calvary, the conjugal relationship—that exclusive, intimate thing that is different from friendship, different from family ties, different from universal charity—is achievable only between one man and one woman.
With all necessary gentleness and care, our defense of traditional marriage and Christian sexuality must affirm this reality. Otherwise, we will embolden the Church’s enemies and fail those who have a right to the truth with love.

Dubious Defenses of Marriage

<div>Is it true that many aspects of the religion Zoroastrianism influenced and created many stories that are found in Judaism, that were influenced during the time of the Babylon Captivity?</div><div>First, it’s important to get our bearings re: biblical chronology. The Babylonian Captivity began in 597 BC with the deportation of the king, the royal family, the nobles, the warriors and the artisans. It culminated in 587/586 BC, when Jerusalem, including the Temple, was destroyed. The implicit claim is that the Jews were influenced by the Babylonians, Persians who would’ve been Zoroastrians, then a relatively newly minted religious people.
However, “the vast stretch of Jewish and Christian tradition credits” the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, include Genesis) to Mosaic authorship and being written during the lifetime of the patriarch, according to The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible—Genesis. That would mean “either the 1400s 1200s B.C.” (p. 7).
In contrast, modern scholars put the beginning of the composition at about 900 B.C. and a finish date of about 400 B.C. Yet even “most who adopt this view acknowledge that the stories in Genesis are often much older than their written form, and some would allow that certain parts of its contents may indeed be Mosaic in origin.” Indeed, “Studies of the Book of Genesis within its Near Eastern context tend to confirm both the antiquity and the authenticity of its traditions” (Ibid.).
So, at the outset, we can see that there’s solid evidence for the taking place of major biblical events long before the Babylonian Captivity began, and that would include the Virgin Birth (Isa. 7:14).
In addition it’s true that, according to Zorastrianism, the birth of Zoroaster or Zarathustra was foretold long in advance. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births">And a later tradition has him born of a virgin</a>. And that he overcame all evil opposition. These similarities with Christianity do not mean that Jewish Old Covenant prophecy and Christian New Covenant fulfillment borrowed from Zoroastrian. That would erroneously imply that they were manufactured stories, myths, instead of presenting actual God-ordained realities.
In summary, “the magi [or wise men] from the East who came in search of the newborn King of the Jews were priest practitioners of Zoroastrianism or something like it. So its teachings did dispose them to be open to the Good News of the birth of the Savior God of the Most Pure Virgin,” as my colleague Father Hugh Barbour, OP, says (see Matthew 2). But that doesn’t mean that the Israelites or subsequently their spiritual descendants—Christians—borrowed from Zorastrianism.
For more on Zoroastrianism’s alleged influence, <a href="http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=301632&amp;Pg=&amp;Pgnu=&amp;recnu=">see Dr. Matthew Bunson’s brief overview on the subject</a>, which illustrates that Zoroastrianism is more akin to certain Christian heresies, not authentic Christianity.
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Did Zoroastrianism Influence Jewish and Christian Belief?

It seems to me that modern science substituted mathematics for formal cause. Do you have thoughts on that?

I was taught that with atoms, it is somewhat inexplicable how they are held together since the protons naturally repel. In bible study I was taught that the only explanation is that God holds it together. Is this correct?

If atomism is too bottom-up, is aristotelianism too top down?

How do infinity and eternity go together?

Have you read Ed Feser’s The Last Superstition and what do you think of it?

Who came up with that time could somehow be subject to gravity? Is that for real? That seems so off to me.

The bible says “let there be light” and that was the beginning. I think that proves that there was a beginning.

I’m a convert and had been taught creationism my whole life. How do Catholics view the age of the earth?

&#8220;Can Catholics Believe in Young Earth Creationism?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the relationship between faith and science, addressing topics such as the role of God in holding atoms together, the balance between atomism and Aristotelianism, and the implications of biblical statements on creation. Other questions touch on the nature of infinity and eternity, as well as the age of the earth from a Catholic perspective.
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Can Catholics Believe in Young Earth Creationism?

The saints’ attempt to intercede for us in Rev. 6:9 seems to have failed. What other biblical evidence is there for intercession?

How can you reconcile Rev. 22:9 with the practice of offering dulia to the saints?

If the Eucharist is required for salvation, then why did Jesus tell the good thief he would be in paradise that day. Why was it good enough for him but not the rest of us?

It doesn’t make sense because we don’t know which saints are in heaven and if we pray to one that isn’t there, does that mean we are praying to a demon? The saints pray for you.

Religions are man made and are all imperfect in particular the Catholic Church?

I don’t understand where annulments fit into scripture?

What sin did Mary not have? What is a dark intellect?

&#8220;Can saints intercede for us?&#8221; This episode explores the biblical basis for intercession, addressing questions like the reconciliation of Revelation 22:9 with the practice of honoring saints and the significance of the Eucharist in relation to salvation. Tune in as we also delve into the complexities of annulments and the nature of Mary’s sinlessness.
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Can Saints Intercede for Us? Eucharist, Annulments, and Mary

In this episode Trent shows how rhetoric about repealing the 19th amendment is inconsistent and even harms Christian social activism.
Transcription:
Trent:
After socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race with the support of 82% of young women. Some people on the right have talked about repealing the 19th Amendment that gives women the right to vote. They say this is the only way to restore goods, like the true meaning of marriage and legal protection for the unborn. But in today&#8217;s episode, I&#8217;ll show why this kind of rhetoric has the opposite effect and will make it harder to push back against evils like sodomy and abortion. First, let&#8217;s take a look at a common argument in favor of repealing the 19th Amendment. Here&#8217;s Protestant Pastor Dale Partridge in a clip that has been seen over 4 million times on X.
CLIP:
Is it good that women can vote in America? I don&#8217;t think so, and here&#8217;s why. Nearly every legalized moral atrocity of the last a hundred years was made possible by the female vote. Abortion and homosexuality would likely still be illegal if not for the female vote. Mass immigration and the welfare state wrote on the backs of the female vote. Nearly every modern Democrat, including Obama and Biden were elected because of the female vote. Even last night, the new Muslim, New York City Mayor Mond won specifically because of the female
Trent:
Vote. However, many people who make this argument against women voting aren&#8217;t consistent. They say women tend to vote for bad things like pro-abortion, liberal politicians, and so they shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to vote. However, young people as a whole are much more likely to vote for these bad things than women as a whole. Mamdani won because of his support among young people, not women in particular. Two thirds of men under the age of 45 voted for him on par with the rate of women between the ages of 30 and 45. Women under 30 went from Mamdani at a higher rate, but they aren&#8217;t a very large voting block. We can also see this in previous presidential candidates, including Donald Trump who did not win the youth vote in any of his elections even in 2024, young men under 30 were basically split between Harrison Trump.
So by that logic, should we repeal the 26th amendment and raise the voting age to 45 or 60 to make sure liberals don&#8217;t win? African-Americans are much more likely than women to vote for pro-abortion. Liberal politicians, the racial gap is way more prevalent than the gender gap in elections. So by that logic, should we repeal the 15th amendment and only allow whites to vote? Now, there are anonymous online accounts who would say yes, but who cares what anonymous trolls think. What&#8217;s more interesting are people like Dale Partridge or Joel Wein who publicly say, we should repeal the 19th Amendment. So I message them the following question, since people under the age of 40 and African-Americans support liberal pro-abortion politicians at higher rates than women, do you support repealing the 15th and 26th amendments to eliminate their right to vote? Webb didn&#8217;t reply to me, but Partridge answered my question and said, this men of every color should have the right to vote and represent their household within a republic.
So he didn&#8217;t support repealing the 15th amendment when it comes to age. Partridge said this, as for the 26th Amendment, I believe age alone is a poor standard for determining voting eligibility. A wiser approach would consider factors such as marital status, children land ownership, education years as an American citizen, and ideally religious affiliation. So unless you&#8217;re willing to be a full-blown racist who denies black people the right to vote, you can&#8217;t consistently say that women should be denied the right to vote simply because in the past few decades, their demographic tends to vote for liberal policies. You need an argument based on applied principles, not an argument from estimated outcomes to show women should not be allowed to vote. I cover some of those arguments in a previous episode I&#8217;ll link to below, including the claim that men risk more for society and dangerous jobs, and so only they should be allowed to vote. But this doesn&#8217;t explain why men with cushy jobs should still get the right to vote or why women who take on bodily risks like giving birth shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to vote when they&#8217;re the ones who allow society to perpetuate over time at all. When it comes to arguments I didn&#8217;t cover in that episode, Andrew Wilson has claimed feminism is incoherent when it says rights don&#8217;t really exist and that women have the right to vote. Here&#8217;s how we put it on the whatever podcast back in May.
CLIP:
Forced doctrine is a doctrine which I came up with, which tries to describe a phenomenon which you yourself are going to have to concede is true that half of the world right now, if men decide to, they can basically exterminate every single woman inside of their nations and there&#8217;s not a damn thing women can do about it. And because of this forced doctrine application, women&#8217;s rights all come from men not inherently from themselves. Therefore, feminism is a lie, complete lie that&#8217;s forced doctrine.
Trent:
And just to be clear, Wilson is not saying he endorses men, annihilating women. He&#8217;s making an internal critique of feminism. His argument is that if we don&#8217;t have inherent rights, then rights come from the state. Specifically, they come from the men who protect the state in law enforcement in the military. Therefore, feminists can&#8217;t complain if the source of their rights takes away their rights. Now, I agree with Wilson that it&#8217;s incoherent to say we have no natural rights, and that outlawing abortion violates the presumably natural right to control one&#8217;s body. But a feminist could just tell Wilson that unlike natural rights, social rights don&#8217;t have to come merely from a bureaucracy or rule by the strong. They can be part of a collective social contract that everyone, even the strong recognizes better than bureaucracy. For example, in a true bureaucracy, the rights of the weak come from the will of the strong regardless of sex in such a society, the rights of physically weaker men like the elderly, the disabled, or even men who aren&#8217;t in the top tier of strength and can&#8217;t open a random pickle jar like Wilson, their rights would come from stronger men who can do things like open a random pickle jar.
But the strongest 10% of society couldn&#8217;t unilaterally control the weaker 90% because even if you are individually weak, there&#8217;s still strength in numbers. As noted in this great scene from the 1998 film, A Bug&#8217;s Life,
CLIP:
Those puny ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.
Trent:
Given this reality, everyone might prefer a social contract where more people have a say in government, which reduces the need to have to constantly threaten force over other people to get your way. So neither the argument from bad voting outcomes nor the internal critique argument show women shouldn&#8217;t be allowed the right to vote. What about a more principled argument? Some who advocate for Christian nationalism say women shouldn&#8217;t vote because there is a natural order where only households can vote and households are represented by husbands and fathers. Well, the Bible doesn&#8217;t have a teaching on voting rights since those are a recent part of history. Likewise, the Catholic church was originally wary of voting at all, be it for men or women since male voting is also a recent phenomenon in human history. But once women gained the right to vote, this was something that church supported as can be seen in Pope Pius, the 12 who said in 1945 that it is a strict obligation on all entitlement and women to take part in elections. Household voting would be something you&#8217;d have to support with a prudential argument. It&#8217;s not something from divine revelation or church authority. Partridge tries to support this argument by saying men must lead because women are more susceptible to making bad decisions.
CLIP:
Women are twice as likely to men to be seduced into an affair. They are 26% more likely to be financially scammed online. They&#8217;re three times more likely to fall prey to psychics and tarot card readings and astrology and mediums. The same emotional vulnerability that shows up there also shows up in politics,
Trent:
But you can make the same argument against men being trusted with the right to vote. Some studies say that men and women get equally scammed while others show that men are more likely to be scammed. Other studies show that because men are bigger risk takers, when they are scammed, they lose more money than women. Men being more likely to take risks is a good thing. It fosters exploration and discovery, but it&#8217;s a bad thing when men are more likely than women to end up in the ER or the morgue because of their risk taking. So the argument for men and women&#8217;s capabilities also isn&#8217;t persuasive, but even if you did implement household voting, it wouldn&#8217;t change much. Married women are only slightly more liberal than married men. The real problem with Western countries is that unmarried women and unmarried men are both more likely to support wicked policies and politicians.
However, if only households are allowed to vote, then what is the difference if these unmarried households still vote? This is why I asked Partridge the following question. Do you believe an unmarried man or an unmarried woman living on their own outside their parents&#8217; home would qualify as a household that is allowed to vote? To which he responded? No, I do not believe an unmarried man constitutes a household. However, I do think that there should be an exception for unmarried qualified men serving in the military as their service demonstrates duty and responsibility worthy of representation. And of course, partridge thinks unmarried women don&#8217;t constitute a household either. My point though is that it&#8217;s ironic that nearly all the unmarried men who supported partridge&#8217;s video online would be unable to vote under his ideal system of government. But here&#8217;s my bigger concern. How do you convince 50% of the population or probably 80 to 90% under partridge&#8217;s plan to vote to give up their right to vote?
Partridge says, if we can overturn Roe v Wade, we can repeal the 19th Amendment. But while over 200 Supreme Court cases have been overturned in history, only one constitutional amendment has ever been repealed. Specifically the 18th Amendment, which banned alcohol sales. It was overturned 14 years later because the law couldn&#8217;t be enforced at organized crime, and the government really needed tax revenue from alcohol sales during the Great Depression. Realistically, you&#8217;d have to spend several generations converting people to a traditional view of Christian society until a super majority, at least 80% would vote for it. But by that point, you would need to take away people&#8217;s right to vote because most people, men and women could be counted on to vote for the right thing. The problem with repealing the 19th Amendment to address our social problems is that it cannot be implemented when its defenders say that it&#8217;s needed and when it could be implemented, it&#8217;s no longer needed to achieve its defenders goals.
So I&#8217;m asking online Christians, please stop saying stuff like this. It&#8217;s not going to lead to the social change that you want. All it does is give ammunition to our ideological opponents. Christians who talk about repealing women&#8217;s right to vote are like liberals who talk about abolishing the police or abolishing prisons. Their practically impossible proposals make it easier for critics to write off the more practical proposals that are out there and say they&#8217;re all just rantings of a lunatic fringe group. Also, it just makes us look like a bunch of whiners. I can&#8217;t win in the marketplace of ideas, so I need to outlaw the competition. The most practical thing we can do as Christians is to encourage men and women to get married and have children because this naturally moves people towards conservative positions on issues related to life and sexuality. But it&#8217;s hard to do that when you spread rhetoric online about how women are too dumb to be a public part of society.
This stuff makes men and women think that their lives are better off without each other. When God made men and women to be complimentary reflections of his divine love through their matrimonial bonds. So instead of trashing other people made in the image likeness of God as Christians, we should trash the lies that our culture has been feeding us. This includes the lies pedal to women that men in marriage inhibit their happiness. As I cover in my previous episode on the Real Problem with Childless Cat Ladies and the Lies pedal to men, by far right grifters, that marriage will lead them to a life of misery, as I showed in my debate with Pearl. Thank you so much for watching, and if you want to be part of a great event for Catholic men and women who want to build up our culture, then register today for the Council of Trent Conference in Dallas. On April 11th, we&#8217;ll have speakers like Brian Holdsworth, myself, Joe Hess Meyer, Evan Ragga, Lila Rose, and over two dozen Catholic creators who will equip you to evangelize a world in need of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Register today@conferenceoftrent.com. Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.

Should Women Lose their Right to Vote?

Some are surprised that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily assumption was not defined until 1950, using little biblical support. Pope Pius XII decreed that all Catholics must hold and believe as divinely revealed “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, completing the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus 44). Yet Tim Perry, an evangelical Protestant, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Evangelicals-Toward-Understanding-Mother/dp/083082569X">reminds us</a> of the “doctrine’s ancient roots” (239-240).
Although the Bible says nothing directly about the Assumption, it also says nothing about Mary’s life after Pentecost or her death, just as it doesn’t say anything about St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s deaths. But Protestant evangelical Scot McKnight <a href="https://archive.org/details/realmarywhyevang0000mckn">notes</a> that God has the power to assume a person into heaven, and although
<blockquote>we find nothing about Mary’s death or her assumption in the Bible, [does] that mean Mary wasn’t “assumed” into heaven? Obviously not. None of us believes that everything was recorded in the Bible, so we are left to examine the evidence (133).</blockquote>
Jesus addressed similar issues, too—for example, the resurrection from the dead. This was a highly debated topic in his day, especially for the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection from the dead, and the Sadducees, who did not (see Matt. 22:22). When Jesus addressed their disagreement, he used the Bible, but in an indirect way:
<blockquote>“As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching (Matt. 22:31-33).</blockquote>
Notice how Jesus used the books of the Bible that the Sadducees accepted—the Torah—and made an inference from them to clarify the question . . . and all were “astonished.”
Later, when Jesus rose from the dead, as the disciples “did not [yet] know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:9), he appeared to them to explain Scripture to them. He did it first with the disciples traveling to Emmaus:
<blockquote>“O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. . . . And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:25-27, 31-32).</blockquote>
He had to do it with the apostles, too, to open “their minds to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). But he seems to quote not just one or two passages to them, but “all the scriptures” “beginning with Moses and all the prophets.”
This is how the ancient Church approached Mary’s assumption—not looking for a proof text, but looking to discern whether this teaching was consistent with all the scriptures and with other Christian beliefs. And why wasn’t this teaching “defined” by the Church until the twentieth century? Perhaps the Holy Spirit had waited to counteract the materialistic and mechanistic view propagated by some in the name of science. Mary’s assumption reaffirms the Christian hope in bodily resurrection, attesting to man having a spiritual dimension that endures unto eternity (see also <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheWorldsFirstLove">here</a>, at 130-141, and paragraph 974 of the Catechism), which modern science finds absurd. As St. Paul writes,
<blockquote>the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. . . . Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor. 15:52-55, quoting Isa. 25:8 and Hos. 13:14).</blockquote>
This certainly applied to some Old Testament saints who were assumed into heaven: Enoch (Gen. 5:22-24, Sir. 49:14, Heb. 11:5-6), Moses (Jude 8-10, Deut. 34:5-6, 10-12), and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-13). If any woman or man ought to be taken into heaven, body and soul, it would be Mary, the holy Mother of God.
Examining the evidence, prefigured in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit guided the early Christians to conclude that Mary—the mother of the Messiah, the Ark of the New Covenant (Rev. 11:19-12:5)—is a woman in heaven, clothed with the sun’s glory, crowned with twelve stars, and with the moon under her feet. This means she is certainly alive, body and soul, in heaven. As Pius XII says:
<blockquote>The revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ . . . immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences . . . [was granted] that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb (Munificentissimus Deus 40).</blockquote>
Twice I have been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where we were able to visit many of the places where events of our Lord’s life and of his blessed mother’s life took place. One special one was the Cenacle and alongside it the Church of the Dormition.
We know that St. John the Apostle took care of Mary, the Mother of God, after our Lord’s ascension. John remained in Jerusalem with Mary until Herod’s persecution, detailed in Acts 12:1-3. Then John took the Virgin Mary with him to Ephesus. The two returned to Jerusalem after the death of Herod and supported the Church as she grew in number and extension. Likely she was back there with John at the Council of Jerusalem in the year 50, described in Acts 15.
In Jerusalem, Mary often would do the Way of the Cross and pray in front of the Holy Sepulcher as a way of uniting herself to her son. This reinforced her desire to be like him in dying for love. The Eastern churches celebrate the feast of Mary’s dormition, describing the fulfillment of her desire to die with Christ more like falling asleep than as dying.
Church Fathers and sacred writers, beginning in the second century with Bishop St. Melito of Sardis (who died around A.D. 200), give us details of Our Lady’s dormition and assumption. These traditions tell us that Mary, knowing she was about to leave this world, called together the apostles, except St. James, who had been martyred.
All the apostles (except for St. Thomas, who had yet to arrive from distant India) gathered around Mary while she lay on her bed. As she gave them encouragement in their apostolic endeavors, Jesus appeared to her. She looked up and said his name. Then she closed her eyes, entrusted her soul to her son, and breathed her last.
Large crowds of faithful gathered around Mary’s body as the apostles carried the funeral bier in solemn procession from the house of the Dormition on Mount Zion to the tomb just a stone’s throw north of Gethsemane. As they carried her bier up the Kidron Valley (Valley of Josaphat), a Jewish priest named Athonios was filled with anger and jealousy and tried to topple the bier with the body of the Mother of God. When Athonios touched the bier with his two hands, an angel cut off both hands instantaneously. Repenting of his misdeed and declaring the greatness of God and of Mary, he was healed.
They arrived at the tomb near the Garden of Gethsemane, in the same plot where her parents Joachim and Anna were buried. Upon sealing the tomb, many of the Christian faithful remained outside praying. Some described hearing the sound of angels singing, which is associated with Mary’s assumption and the source of her title “St. Mary of the Angels.”
Tradition has it that St. Thomas arrived to Jerusalem from India three days later and was quite disappointed that he had not been able to accompany Mary in her last moments. So the apostles took Thomas to Mary’s tomb, where he prostrated himself. Opening the tomb for him, they found it empty except for the burial clothes that had wrapped Our Lady’s body. Again, celestial music could be heard.
Mary’s assumption reaffirms our faith in the resurrection of the body, giving us hope in eternal life with Christ, and with our heavenly Mother, in heaven.

Must We Prove the Assumption from the Bible?

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent compares and contrasts American and British styles of comedy.

FFAF: American Humor vs. British Humour

If we had technology that could let us live forever, would it be immoral to use?

How should I interpret Romans 10:13?

How do the nihil obstat and the imprimatur work in terms of Church authority and infallibility?

What is the etymology of the word meek? Someone claimed it to mean “equipped for battle”.

Our cardinal retired and they’re going to install a new bishop. What do cardinals/bishops do after they retire? Are they excluded from the College of Cardinals?

Are there any examples of Jesus asking someone would please, or did he command people to things?

Why is extending life not immoral? I have some objections.

It looks like Joseph Biden has been appointed an Honorary Mason. What’s the difference between the Knights of Columbus and the Freemasons? See also our related article on President Biden, which illustrates the problematic religious aspects of Fre...

Jimmy Akin explores the surprising etymology of &#8220;meek&#8221; and answers more intriguing questions on faith, morality, and Church authority.

Does ‘Meek’ Mean ‘Equipped for Battle’? And More Questions

<div>According to John 14:23, Jesus says anything of the Father is His name and He will grant it to you? Does that mean He will grant us Heaven without first going to Purgatory if we ask Him?</div><div>Alas, getting into heaven is not that easy. We must read John 14:13 in proper context:
<blockquote>“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14, emphasis added).</blockquote>
In addressing his apostles, Jesus continues, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15), adding further:
<blockquote>“He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me (John 14:21-24, emphases added; see John 4:3).</blockquote>
Believing in Jesus means authentically loving him, which in turn means keeping his commandments and thereby becoming more like him: holy. If we love Jesus and our neighbor well, and do appropriate penance when we fall short through sin, we won’t have attachments to sin that keep us from perfect communion with God when we die (CCC 1471-73), and thus we can avoid the purification of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/purgatory">Purgatory</a> (CCC 1030-32).
So Jesus is kind of like the mechanics in the old TV commercial for oil filters, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNAt3n5pLh8">“You can pay me now. Or you can pay me later.”</a>
</div>

John 14:13 and Bypassing Purgatory

One reason why skeptics don’t believe in the God of the Bible, the argument goes, is that he’s a slayer of the innocent. As one example, Exodus 12:29 reads, “The Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” So, the question becomes, how can God be all-good and all-just when he kills innocent human beings?
I think all of us, theists and atheists alike, feel the force of this objection. After all, we can’t take an innocent human life . . . but apparently, God can.
But is this a reason to reject the God of the Bible? I answer no.
Let me start with a disclaimer: I’m not advocating for a pure voluntarism—that is, God simply wills whatever he wants without any intelligible reason. Rather, no matter what evils are found within God’s order of providence—even including the death of innocent human beings—he orders those evils to some greater good. What that good is, we might not know precisely. It might be a supernatural good, against which the loss of the temporal good of physical life pales in comparison (cf. Rom. 8:18). But we do know, even if it’s very difficult or painful to accept, that there is a greater good.
Of course, this can be hard to accept, especially for the grief-stricken and for those non-believers who hunger for justice. Someone might have a good reason for doing an unjust thing, they might argue, and it would still be unjust. But what we’re trying to show is that God can will the death of the innocent and still be an all-good and all-just God.
Let’s start with the question, “What is death?” Metaphysically speaking, death is the separation of body and soul, whether for a non-rational animal or a rational one, like us. This separation occurs, as St. Aquinas explains, when “[the body] loses that disposition by which it prepared to receive life [from the soul]” (De Anima, Art. 14, ad 20, emphasis added). In other words, there is a “cessation of the requisite dispositions” of the body and a loss of vital metabolic functioning.
Now, what is God’s causal role in all this? It’s definitely not creative, because God gives no being or actuality in death. As emphasized above, death is a loss of being, or a loss of the actuality needed for the perfection of human life. That loss of actuality is the loss of the requisite bodily dispositions and vital metabolic functions.
God’s causal role here is one of ceasing to give such actuality. We know this because, at the end of the day, God (as the primary cause) is the one who’s ultimately responsible for whatever actuality we have, be it our operations or even just our existence. He’s the one sustaining it. Aquinas puts it this way: “Every operation of a thing is traced back to [God] as its cause” (Summa Contra Gentiles 3.67). There can be no created actuality—in this case, no life—without God causing it to be.
So, where there is actuality, as is the case when a human being is alive, with his vital metabolic functions actually functioning, God is ultimately causing such actuality. Where there is no longer actuality, as is the case when a human being dies and his vital metabolic functions are no longer actually functioning, God is not causing such actuality. Rather, he wills the actuality that he had once sustained to no longer be.
That said, however, it’s true that God at one time caused the actuality, and now he does not. Death is not accidental (or at least it’s not relative to God, even if it is accidental relative to secondary causes). The divine willing that the relevant actuality for physical life no longer be given is intentional on God’s part, since the duration of the physical life, from its beginning to end, is part and parcel of God’s willed providential plan.
This intentional non-giving of the relevant actuality applies to any and all occurrences of death, whether it comes about through some secondary cause, like natural degeneration or a bullet to the head, or some accidental cause, or immediately and directly (“miraculously”), like in the case of the firstborn Egyptians. But even in this last case, it’s not as though God “slaying the Egyptians” manifested in dramatic physical fashion, like Zeus throwing a thunderbolt. Or at least it didn’t have to. God willed to stop maintaining the actuality of these Egyptians’ lives, and so they died. That’s all it took.
At this point, the skeptic might interject, “What difference does it make how God kills? The innocent person is dead either way, and that’s an injustice.” And so we come to the question that lies at the heart of our inquiry: “Is God bound in justice, to himself or to us, to give the actuality needed for a human being to continue living?” In other words, is it unjust for God to intentionally will the death of innocent human beings by no longer giving the actuality needed for the sustaining of physical life?
The objection considered here operates on the assumption that God is bound in justice to give us the actuality needed to continue living, and that it would be unjust for him to intentionally stop giving such actuality.
But I think we can challenge this assumption.
One possible route touches on the reason we die at all, whether through natural or unnatural means. As Aquinas reminds us, death is a form of punishment. Throughout his corpus, when the topic of God inflicting death comes up, Aquinas argues that the punishment for original sin takes the form of death, and so God can justly inflict death on humans. Here’s one example:
<blockquote>Now the withdrawal of original justice has the character of punishment, even as the withdrawal of grace has. Consequently, death and all consequent bodily defects are punishments of original sin. And although the defects are not intended by the sinner, nevertheless they are ordered according to the justice of God who inflicts them as punishments (Summa Theologiae I-II: 85:5).</blockquote>
This may be a hard pill to swallow, but it makes sense in light of Christian doctrine. The innocent Egyptian firstborn were afflicted with original sin (see Rom. 5) and thus “deserving,” along with the rest of humanity, of the punishment of death. Even now, when we have baptism to infuse sanctifying grace within us, which removes “original sin” in the sense of removing the condition of the soul lacking sanctifying grace, we still experience the consequences of original sin, one of which is death. Baptism opens up heaven for us after we die, but thanks to original sin, we still must die.
But maybe it’s the Christian doctrine that’s wrong. After all, the skeptic doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible, so he doesn’t have to be bound to God’s rules. Maybe we shouldn’t believe that God can slay the innocent, period, regardless of whether death can be thought of as a punishment or not.
As much as this line of thinking resonates with most people’s intuitions, I don’t think it’s sound. And here’s the reason why: physical life is a gift. God is not obligated it to give it. And so if God’s not bound to give us the actuality needed for physical life to begin with, then it seems he’s not bound to continue giving such actuality. The life God gives us is like the dessert a mother gives her child: eventually, she will cease giving it (for a good reason, we assume), even if the child would rather continue eating ice cream forever.
But the skeptic might counter, “The gift of human life is different from dessert. Physical life is part and parcel of existing as a human being. If God gave it, wouldn’t it be unfair for God to go back on his agreement and take it away?”
Well, here is where the physical nature of a human being comes into play. God made us out of matter, which is susceptible to corruption and death. This is why Aquinas argues that in one sense, death is “natural to man” (ST I-II:85:6). And God cannot be bound in justice (or bound to his wisdom) to preserve man from what is natural to him.
Given that God’s intentional non-giving of actuality needed for the continued sustenance of physical life (<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857794/pdf">a divine non-upholding</a>) is consistent with the nature of a human being (as a corruptible being), such cessation of giving the relevant actuality is not a violation of what is due to a human being, and thereby not an injustice, and consistent with God’s goodness.
Perhaps someone might counter that this line of reasoning works only for death through natural degeneration or some other natural cause within this world. It might be argued that the potential we have to lose physical life by virtue of our matter fits only with those things that can naturally bring about the cessation of vital metabolic functions. Miraculously ceasing to give the actuality needed for physical life, so it seems, is not consistent with such potential.
But even death brought about through natural causation, whether natural degeneration or accidental causes, is ultimately subject to God’s providence, the divinely willed plan that includes the limited duration of a corruptible being’s physical life and the means by which such life will be brought to an end. As Aquinas writes, “life is God’s gift to man, and is subject to his power, who kills and makes to live. . . . It belongs to God alone to pronounce sentence of death and life” (ST II-II:64:5).
If God can will that the effect of death be brought about through particular causes, then he can also will, given his omnipotence, that the effect be brought about without such causes. Just as he willed the effect of Jesus’ conception within the womb of Mary without the cause of the sexual act, or, to parallel more precisely our current issue, the effect of a fire that keeps burning while causing no heat in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 3).
We can summarize our argument as follows:
P1: God can justly will whatever effect is consistent with human nature.
P2: Death is an effect that is consistent with human nature.
C: Therefore, God can justly will the death of a human being.
Given that the effect of death is consistent with human nature, we can answer our above question in the affirmative: God can justly will the death of an innocent human being, regardless of whether death is considered as punishment or not.
And so, to sum it all up, although the death of the innocent Egyptian firstborn might provide an emotional roadblock to belief in the God of the Bible, it ought not be an intellectual obstacle to such belief.

God and the Death of Innocents

<div>In Matthew 16:17-19, the famous text about “the keys of the kingdom,” Peter is not “the rock” upon which Christ builds his Church. The true rock is the revelation Peter (and all Christians) received that Jesus is the Son of God. Thus, the Church is not built upon Peter; rather, it was Peter’s faith.</div><div>There is partial truth here. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares:
<blockquote>Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” On the rock of this faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church (424).</blockquote>
It is true that Peter’s confession is essential. The Church is built upon <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/peter-the-rock">St. Peter’s confession of faith</a>. The error lies in separating St. Peter from his faith. In so doing, one does violence to the text. It is only after St. Peter’s confession that Christ promises the keys to Peter. But he promises the keys and the power of binding and losing to Peter. Peter’s faith is crucial, but it is the faith of St. Peter!
The Catechism completes the picture for us. The<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/yes-peter-is-the-rock"> rock is both St. Peter and the faith</a> of St. Peter:
<blockquote>Our Lord then declared to him: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Christ, the “living stone,” thus assures his Church, built upon Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakeable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep his faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it (552).</blockquote>
</div>

Is Peter “the Rock” upon which Christ Builds his Church?

In this clip, Cy Kellett talks with apologist Jimmy Akin about the concept of the &#8216;rapture&#8217; and whether or not it has biblical roots. Jimmy clarifies the meaning of the term, tracing it back to St. Paul&#8217;s writings in 1 Thessalonians, and discusses the historical context that shaped these teachings.
Transcript:
Cy: We&#8217;re gonna talk about the eschaton. Is the rapture part of it? Like, is that a real thing? And how should we respond to this rapture theology that&#8217;s all around us?
Jimmy: Well, it depends on what you mean. So there is an event that St. Paul describes in 1st Thessalonians 4:17 that has been called the Rapture. Now, raparemur in Latin means to be caught away. And so that&#8217;s where the idea of that&#8217;s where the term rapture comes from. This is not a term that&#8217;s in the Bible. It&#8217;s a Latin term. And it actually can also mean to kidnap, but it also means to catch away.
And there is a passage in 1st Thessalonians 4 where St. Paul is talking about how at a certain point in time in the future, believers in Christ will be caught up to be with Christ and meet him in the air. The context in which St. Paul is saying this now, you gotta understand a little bit of the backstory of St. Paul&#8217;s history with the Church of Thessalonica. He did go to Thessalonica, and he founded a church there. You can read about this in the Book of Acts.
But he only got to stay there for three weeks because the Jews in the city had a riot and he had to get out of Dodge. And he ended up going down to Athens, which is on the same peninsula that Thessalonica is, just down the peninsula from Thessalonica. He was very anxious about what&#8217;s going to happen with his converts that he was with for only three weeks. I mean, can you imagine how much of the Christian faith you would have learned in three weeks if you had not been a Christian?
Well, he was concerned about them and their faith, and he was afraid they were going to fall away since he didn&#8217;t have the chance to stabilize them in their faith. And so he was overjoyed when he got word that, hey, they&#8217;re sticking with the faith, they still believe in Jesus and so forth.
And he thus wrote 1st Thessalonians when he got this word that they&#8217;re doing okay in their faith, but they had some misunderstandings because he hadn&#8217;t been able to teach them very much. One of the things they had was apparently the idea, because, you know, you need to repent before Jesus comes back if you want to participate in his kingdom. Remember, that&#8217;s the gospel. You need to repent and turn back to him.
And the Thessalonians had gotten this idea that you need to do that before you die. They&#8217;d gotten the idea that in order to participate in Jesus&#8217; Kingdom, you need to be alive at the time he comes back. And they were concerned because at least somebody, maybe several somebodies in the Thessalonian Church had died after Paul&#8217;s visit. They were afraid that, oh man, you know, Bob and Alice died. They&#8217;re not gonna get to be part of Christ&#8217;s kingdom. They&#8217;re not gonna be alive when he comes back.
And so St. Paul was writing to comfort them and say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don&#8217;t worry about Bob and Alice. It&#8217;s gonna be okay for them. And so he tells them in 1st Thessalonians 4 that actually when Christ returns, the dead in Christ will rise first, and only then will we living Christians be caught up to be with Jesus in the air. And then we&#8217;ll always get to be with Jesus. So we&#8217;re not going to be left abandoned. We&#8217;re always going to be with him. It&#8217;s going to be great. Don&#8217;t worry. And don&#8217;t worry about Bob and Alice and anybody else who&#8217;s died. Now, Ted and Carol, they might be a different matter, but Bob and Alice, they&#8217;re gonna be okay.
Cy: 1970s film reference. In case anyone&#8217;s wondering.
Jimmy: A film I&#8217;ve actually never seen.
Cy: I don&#8217;t think I have either.
Jimmy: Yeah, but. So that&#8217;s what he&#8217;s doing here. What he does not do is say, well, once we get caught up and we&#8217;re always going to be with the Lord, what happens next?
And according to that school I mentioned at the top of hour number one, dispensationalism, what&#8217;s gonna happen is Jesus is gonna do a U-turn. He&#8217;s gonna come down, the dead Christians are gonna be raised, the living Christians are gonna be caught up with him, and then he&#8217;s gonna do a U-turn and go right back to heaven and stay there for a number of years, commonly seven years, sometimes three and a half years.
And while he&#8217;s doing that, all hell&#8217;s gonna break out on Earth. This is a period called the Tribulation. Tribulation is just a fancy word. It means trouble. So this is the time of great trouble. And the Antichrist is gonna be doing bad stuff and so forth. And then finally, at the end of the tribulation, Jesus is gonna come down out of heaven and squash the Antichrist and reign on Earth for a thousand years, physically present on Earth for a thousand years before the actual end of the world.
And then at the end of the thousand years, there&#8217;s gonna be a final unleashing of the forces of evil, and then we&#8217;re gonna get the general resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment and the beginning of the eternal order. So the people who actually use the word Rapture for this event in 1st Thessalonians are viewing it as part of a larger complex of events where after the Rapture, people go back up to heaven and stay there during the tribulation, and then they come back for a thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth, followed by the final unleashing of the forces of evil and the Last Judgment and all that stuff.
So people who use the term rapture for this event are presupposing this whole complex of events. And so I can understand it if someone who does not believe the whole complex wants to say, yeah, I don&#8217;t believe in the Rapture.
Cy: I see, yeah, because you&#8217;re using a shorthand for the whole thing.
Jimmy: Yeah, for the whole thing, yeah. Whereas you&#8217;d be confusing someone into thinking you believe all this big complex model when really you don&#8217;t. But I can also understand someone, and I tend to do this myself, saying, well, yeah, there&#8217;s this event in 1st Thessalonians 4 where believers get caught up to be with Jesus. And if you want to call it the Rapture, that&#8217;s fine with me.
And so I would say I don&#8217;t have a problem saying there&#8217;s a Rapture; we just need to understand it correctly. And then I&#8217;ll go on to explain how I think we need to understand it. So I always like to follow St. Paul&#8217;s instructions to Timothy where he tells Timothy to remind his congregations not to fight about words because it only ruins the hearers.
And so if you don&#8217;t have time to explain, then I&#8217;d say, yeah, or if you don&#8217;t have the knowledge needed to explain, then yeah, you could just say, I don&#8217;t believe in the Rapture. But if you do have time to explain, I tend to want to embrace people and say, yeah, I don&#8217;t have any problem with the idea of the Rapture; we just need to understand it correctly.
So what&#8217;s the correct understanding? Well, as I mentioned, dispensationalism is only about 200 years old. So previous Christians, including the Protestant reformers, did not believe that whole theory I just sketched out about there&#8217;s going to be a Rapture and a tribulation and a thousand. They didn&#8217;t buy that whole theory. Some would believe pieces of it. Like some thought that there would be a future earthly reign of Christ for a thousand years before the final end. But nobody had this specific sequence.
And what everybody historically understood the Rapture to be was what was going to happen at the second coming. And that&#8217;s clear from 1st Thessalonians and it&#8217;s clear from 2 Thessalonians where Paul goes into the same events in more detail. He talks about, because they didn&#8217;t, after 1st Thessalonians, they had three weeks of instruction plus one letter, they still weren&#8217;t really solid on a bunch of stuff.
And so he talks about the same issue again in 2 Thessalonians. He makes it really clear that this event where we&#8217;re caught up to be with is going to be at the end of the world at the second coming at least. And so it&#8217;s not going to be what&#8217;s called a pre-tribulation Rapture where he takes Christians out of the world before the tribulation.
Cy: Got it.
Jimmy: We&#8217;re going to go through the tribulation, and then Jesus is going to come back and rescue us. So what happens after the tribulation? Well, Jesus is not going to do a U-turn. He&#8217;s going to inaugurate his reign. Whether you understand that as an earthly millennium or as the eternal order, he&#8217;s going to inaugurate his reign when he comes back.
And you might say, well then why get, if he&#8217;s just going to come down to Earth and reign, you know, whatever reign it&#8217;s going to be, why does it talk about us being caught up to be with him and meet him in the air? And this is something that relies on a piece of first-century culture that moderns know nothing about.
Today, when a, let&#8217;s say a world leader visits a place, you know, they&#8217;ll fly in on an airplane and they&#8217;ll land at the airport, and then there will be some kind of party there of dignitaries to meet them. You know, the President goes somewhere, the Pope goes somewhere, there&#8217;s going to be this party of dignitaries to meet them.
Well, they had something like that in the first century, only they didn&#8217;t have airports. So what they would do, and this was a well-established custom, if you had someone like a king or a visiting general or something like that who&#8217;s visiting your town, you&#8217;ve got a really important person coming. What you do is, since there&#8217;s no airport to meet him at, you go out on the road to meet him.
And so you might even go two, three days down the road in order to meet him, to show how much you care about him coming to visit you. The farther you go to meet him, the more it indicates you care. And then when he comes, you escort him back to town.
Classical Bible scholars, Protestant and Catholic alike, agree that&#8217;s what Paul&#8217;s talking about here, that the dead who are buried in the earth and the living who are on the surface of the earth will be caught up to meet Jesus as he&#8217;s coming back to reign. And then they escort him back to Earth.
And so a historical and I would say correct understanding of the Rapture is it&#8217;s something that happens at the Second Coming, where both the living and the dead Christians get caught up to meet Jesus and then escort him back to where he&#8217;s going to reign. There is still a difference of opinion among Christians about, well, is he going to reign for a thousand years on Earth before the end, or is this the end, and he&#8217;s going to reign on the new heavens and the new earth? But that&#8217;s the basic, correct understanding of the Rapture.
Cy: That takes us to a break. So we will depart momentarily. Come back. I want to find out about the three days of darkness and the illumination of conscience and some of the things that lots of people talk about, particularly in Catholic circles&#8230;

Is the Rapture Real? Here’s What Most People Miss

Who Is the Antichrist?

Some Protestants distinguish Catholic apologists from Catholic scholars or Catholic theologians. According to them, apologists gather any kind of evidence, no matter how flimsy, in order to convince people Catholicism is true. Scholars, on the other hand, aren’t interested in polemics or apologetics. They just want to understand a certain field of study, and so their conclusions are more modest than those of Catholic apologists.
So when Catholic apologists make a biblical case for Mary’s perpetual virginity, a Protestant might say in response, “Why should I believe that when the renowned biblical scholar <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43720810">Fr. John Meier says</a> that an unbiased historian ‘would most likely come to the conclusion that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were his true physical brothers and sisters’”? Or, when Catholics cite 1 Corinthians 3:15 as evidence for Purgatory, a Protestant might point out that study notes in the Catholic New Jerusalem and New American translations of the Bible say this verse “does not envisage the doctrine of purgatory.”
But the problem with this approach is that you can find scholars in any religious tradition who hold unorthodox views or who denigrate the evidence for a tradition they accept only for personal or professional reasons. This includes Protestants who say they’re Christian but also claim there’s no historical evidence for Christ’s resurrection. So if it is bad form to cite liberal Christians as expert witnesses against the evidence for Christianity, then it would be equally bad form to cite liberal Catholics as expert witnesses against Catholicism.
Let’s look at Fr. John Meier, a Catholic priest best known for his four-volume work Jesus: A Marginal Jew. Meier could be classified as a moderate scholar who affirms basic Christian doctrines while expressing deep hesitations about the amount of evidence for them. For example, Meier is skeptical not only of the evidence for Mary’s virginity after Jesus’ birth, but of the evidence for Mary’s virginity before Jesus’ birth (which Catholics and Protestants both affirm).
Meier believes, as a matter of faith, that Jesus was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. However, he disagrees with conservative scholars over how much evidence there is for the Virgin Birth. <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/radicalchristianmillennial/2016/08/the-virgin-birth-is-sexist/">One progressive Christian blogger writes</a>, “As [New Testament] scholar John Meier, who is Catholic and has no reason to deny the historicity of the Virgin Birth (indeed, he doesn’t) puts it: ‘We have no clear evidence that the famous passage of Isa. 7:14 . . . was ever taken to refer to a virginal conception before NT authors used it.’”
Meier is also pessimistic about the amount of evidence for Christ’s resurrection. <a href="https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/historical-jesus/noli-me-tangere-why-john-meier-wont-touch-the-risen-lord">He says the Resurrection cannot be proved historically</a> because “the restrictive definition of the historical Jesus I will be using does not allow us to proceed into matters that can be affirmed only by faith.”
There’s no shortage of liberal, self-professed Christians, like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, who critique the evidence for Christianity as fiercely as any apologist for atheism. In fact, the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally routinely cites these scholars in his public debates—a point <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0RvFEDK70&amp;t=2015s">James White mentioned in his own debate with Ally</a> on the reliability of the New Testament. He said, “Mr. Ally has adopted the most radically liberal, skeptical, naturalistic sources as the mainstream in Christian scholarship, while using the most conservative forms of scholarship in defense of the Qu’ran.”
White later <a href="https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/islam/a-post-and-pre-debate-note-to-shabir-ally/">wrote an open letter to Ally</a> saying that his “reliance upon the Jerome Biblical Commentary, Raymond Brown, and other notorious liberals who have no concept of allowing Scripture to speak for itself, no concept of the very unity and consistency you asserted for the Qur’an last evening, remains, and will always be, your Achilles heel.”
Granted, White also routinely cites Brown and his co-authors in the Jerome Biblical Commentary in order to cast doubt on Catholic doctrines related to Mary and Purgatory. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtAkuMs54qM&amp;t=2709s">In one debate on Purgatory, White said</a>, “Hence as Roman Catholic McBrien admits: ‘There is for all practical purposes no biblical basis for the doctrine of Purgatory. This is not to say that there is no basis at all for the doctrine but only that there is no clear biblical basis for it.’”
What White doesn’t tell the audience is that Fr. McBrien was a notorious dissenter to Church teaching. McBrien even said the Church’s opposition to female priests <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-06-07-1994158170-story.html">made being Catholic</a> feel “like belonging to a private club that won&#8217;t admit blacks or Jews.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=541&amp;CFID=121743&amp;CFTOKEN=22026492">criticized McBrien’s book</a> Catholicism because it “gives very little weight to the teaching of the Magisterium,” and on several moral issues, it “regards the ‘official Church position’ as simply in error.”
But Catholics also need to be careful not to make this same kind of error.
In my book The Case for Catholicism, I often cite Protestant sources in defense of my arguments—but I do so in a way that doesn’t commit the error of relying on “liberal allies” who are barely Protestant in their own right. For example, I cite Reformers like Martin Luther on the subject of baptism and modern conservative Protestants like Jerry Walls in defense of concepts like “mere Purgatory.” I also reference Richard Bauckham’s case that “the brethren of the Lord” (Matt. 13:55-56) were born from Joseph’s first wife rather than Mary because, although Bauckham rejects the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, he does not see references to Jesus “brethren” as proof against that doctrine.
But there are other Protestant theologians whose work is generally considered heterodox by Protestant apologists. Consider this passage from Protestant scholar Peter Enns, who once taught at Westminster Theological Seminary:
<blockquote>When people read the Bible for themselves, they often disagree about what it means. The Bible does not have a good track record of promoting unity among those who read it. Take us back to the carefree days of the papacy and the few who interpreted the Bible for the many. At least you had some order. Now you have chaos (The Sin of Certainty, 48-49).</blockquote>
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Enns was a Catholic apologist, and his former position at Westminster would surely vouch for his theological credentials. The problem is that most conservative Protestants, especially those who engage in criticism of Catholicism, would reject Enns as someone with a low view of Scripture who doesn’t really believe in essential Protestant doctrines like sola scriptura and biblical inerrancy. Matthew Barrett, a conservative scholar I engage in The Case for Catholicism, critiques Enns in an article whose title adequately summarizes its content: “Sola Scriptura in the Strange Land of Evangelicalism: The Peculiar but Necessary Responsibility of Defending Sola Scriptura Against Our Own Kind.”
In conclusion, if an apologist is critiquing another belief system, it can be very effective to cite experts in that system whose scholarship agrees with your points. You just have to make sure the expert you cite is someone your opponents respect, or at least someone they don’t easily dismiss. And you definitely shouldn’t cite that person’s scholarship to support your arguments if you simply dismiss him as a “liberal hack” when his scholarship is used against you. Instead, we should always seek to critique and employ the best scholarship for any position we argue against.

Because Some Scholar Told Me So

&nbsp;
USCCB Statement:
https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/us-bishops-doctrine-committee-issues-statement-proper-disposition-bodily-remains
https://www.usccb.org/resources/On Proper Disposition 2023-03-20.pdf
Transcript:
All right, we&#8217;re going to North Carolina now. Laura&#8217;s in North Carolina watching on YouTube. Laura, go ahead with your question for Joe Heshmeyer.
Thank you. Say Joe, speaking of a celebrity, private jets and environmental impact, I recently heard from the owner operator of an aquamation facility near where I live, that this process returns more bone dust for collection than does cremation. So my question is at this time, how does the Catholic church look upon aquamation as final prep of the body for burial? That&#8217;s a really good question. So for those who aren&#8217;t familiar with aquamation, they use, I believe an alkaline solution to break down the body. And so it&#8217;s a little bit like the way, it means slightly similar to how cremation works, only instead of using fire, using chemicals and water, to break the body down into its constitutive parts. And it&#8217;s like 200 to 300 degree water and well, solution.
And so the advantages that it&#8217;s proclaimed as having are relative to cremation, that more of the physical remains of the body are preserved. You know, then they&#8217;re preserved in a similar manner as cremated remains.
And it&#8217;s less like environmentally destructive. Like there&#8217;s less fossil fuel and everything else. And so people who are worried about kind of the carbon footprint, this is one way that it&#8217;s kind of advertised to reduce that with.
Aquamation to my knowledge, it is so new as a technology that I&#8217;m not aware of anything the church has said directly on it. I would say all of the caution surrounding cremation would apply here as well, which is that the church has historically resisted previously completely opposed, but now just strongly kind of discourages cremation on the grounds that you don&#8217;t want to do anything that upsets the dignity of the body. So to put it as simply as I can. Oh, I&#8217;m sorry. Apparently in March 2023, the USCCB explicitly said, &#8220;Aquamation does not show adequate respect for the human body or hope in the resurrection.&#8221; And that was exactly what I was going to say. That&#8217;s the concern is how is the body being handled? And certainly the way I&#8217;ve seen Aquamation advertised is a return to nature. And that&#8217;s the opposite of kind of the Catholic vision. Now, I mean, to be sure, I don&#8217;t want to guess opposite is too strong of a word. From dust you are made into dust you shall return. But the Christian hope is that that&#8217;s not the end of the story. And so a method of handling the body that treats it as just biological waste or treats it as just something to go back into the earth. And that&#8217;s it.
That doesn&#8217;t do justice to the Christian vision. It&#8217;s for this reason that you wouldn&#8217;t say bury a person without a casket or preparing the corpse or anything like this or, you know, refuse to bury them at all.
Those kind of things would be contrary to the idea that you will rise again on the last day. And so while we recognize that in the bodily resurrection, you&#8217;re not tied to your genes or you&#8217;re not tied to your atoms, even as you are right now, like right now you have a physical body and yet that physical body has skin cells that may shed new cells that multiply and grow and all of this. So you&#8217;re not just a collection of cells, even at a bodily level, even right now. That&#8217;s true when your body is separated from your soul and death.
But nevertheless, anything that appears like the body is just being discarded is contrary to the Christian vision of the body. And so we resist and oppose it kind of on those grounds.
Hey, thanks for watching. If you like this Catholic answer, be sure to like, subscribe, and check out our live streams Monday through Friday, 3 to 5 p.m. Pacific, or find the episode after on YouTube, your favorite podcast platform, or our Catholic Answers app.

What is Aquamation and Does the Church Allow It?

Why are the 10 Commandments different for Catholics and Protestants?

Why does the Church take the transubstantiation view over the consubstantiation view?

How does the Church balance orthodoxy and heterodoxy with everything going on?

Is it possible for a laicized priest to ever be reinstated?

Catholic to participate in the Eucharist?

Is there any room in Catholicism for being a millenialist?

Who took over after Peter?

Do I really need to seek out indulgences?

AMA: Catholicism

We live in a time in which one person’s “right” to unfettered self-definition trounces a Catholic’s right to freely practice his religion. We live at a time when polling surveys indicate that more than two-thirds of Catholics do not believe in the true presence of the Eucharist, yet two-thirds of Catholics also feel strongly that public figures who objectively place themselves outside of communion with the Church have a right to receive the Eucharist. We live in an age of incoherence. Precisely at this time, Eucharistic Coherence is an urgent and necessary starting point for a return to reality and truth.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki presented this talk at the 2022 Catholic Answers Conference, &#8220;The Eucharist &#8211; I Am with You Always.&#8221; To attend this year&#8217;s conference in person and meet your favorite apologists, visit <a href="http://catholicanswersconference.com">catholicanswersconference.com</a>.

Eucharistic Coherence in an Age of Incoherence

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Does purgatory mean you have a second chance at salvation?

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Christianity CANNOT EXIST without the Eucharist!

I&#8217;ve never been to a World Youth Day. I don&#8217;t really know much about them.
My sense has been they are a chance for Catholic youth to gather—as young people love to do. For young people, the excitement of gathering is the point.
(Brief aside: How many RSVPs do you think you&#8217;d get if you invited 50-year-olds to gather with a million other 50-year-olds?)
Anyway, it seems to me that Pope John Paul II used this perfectly natural impulse—the desire of the young to gather—for a very good purpose. Rather than inviting them to a concert or a protest, he invited them on pilgrimage, a journey to come closer to the Lord.
Nicely done.
So, how to interpret the <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254764/future-portuguese-cardinal-on-wyd-we-don-t-want-to-convert-the-young-people-to-christ">recent comments</a> of cardinal-designate Américo Aguiar, president of the World Youth Day Lisbon 2023 Foundation?
<blockquote>“We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all. We want it to be normal for a young Catholic Christian to say and bear witness to who he is or for a young Muslim, Jew, or of another religion to also have no problem saying who he is and bearing witness to it, and for a young person who has no religion to feel welcome and to perhaps not feel strange for thinking in a different way.”</blockquote>
One reaction to this odd locution—I admit it was mine—is to groan. This guy is about to be a cardinal?
I mean, why even have cardinals? We already have UN officials and FIFA governors who talk in this way; what is the point of adding cardinals to the chorus?
On the other hand&#8230;(deep breath), there is something to what the cardinal-designate says. Religion is being relegated. To share religion, to be—really be—Jewish, Muslim, or Catholic—is increasingly seen by the world as a problem.
I&#8217;m with the soon-to-be cardinal on this. It is a nice side benefit of huge religious gatherings that they can normalize religion and help rescue it from the Suspect Activities list by emboldening people to be open about their faith.
On the other hand&#8230;(deep breath), it&#8217;s hard to just waltz past the fact that we have a cardinal designate saying, quite publicly, “We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all.&#8221;
I mean&#8230;what?
It reads like a slightly too on-the-nose parody of a politically correct cardinal.
But it&#8217;s not parody. It&#8217;s not comedy of any kind.
It&#8217;s the other thing.

World Youth Day (No Christ Added)

The Biggest Heresy Destroying the Church

The founder and President of the Cardinal Newman Society, Patrick Reilly, updates us on the state of Catholic Higher education, finding signs of hope in a relatively bleak landscape.

Catholic Higher Education

<div>Does viewing Mass on the Internet satisfy our Sunday obligation?</div><div>Viewing a Mass, whether via television or on the Internet, is certainly a worthwhile activity, but it doesn’t fulfill one’s Sunday obligation regarding the Lord’s Day and the Third Commandment. However, if one is sick, one would be dispensed from the obligation. In addition, it’s possible one could be dispensed from the Sunday obligation to participate in Sunday Mass for other legitimate reasons. Consult your local parish pastor or Catholic diocese.
And for more on possibly missing Sunday Mass, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/mass-obligation-and-caring-for-the-sick">please see our related response</a>.
</div>

Does Watching Mass on the Internet Fulfill My Sunday Obligation?

It’s been forty days since Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, and he’s been fasting in the desert. The devil, spying an opportunity, approaches him with a challenge: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3).
Jesus’ response is cryptic: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matt. 4:4).
What is Jesus talking about?
Most people (particularly Protestants) assume he’s reminding us to read the Bible. For example, the Reformed theologian <a href="https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/tota-scriptura/">R.C. Sproul argues</a> that it means we need “the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in the entirety of sacred Scripture,” since taking “restricted portions of Scripture” would mean “that we do not live by bread alone but by only some of the words that come to us from God.” (This is an odd position for Sproul to take, as he claims that the Bible is nothing more than a “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fYoLvbuIOUgC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;dq=Grace%20Unknown%3A%20The%20Heart%20of%20Reformed%20Theology&amp;pg=PA54#v=onepage&amp;q=%22fallible%20collection%22&amp;f=false">fallible set of infallible books</a>” and rejects part of the biblical canon as “<a href="https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/authority-and-canon/">apocrypha</a>.”)
Some Protestants even find here a repudiation of the Eucharist, since Jesus seems to be using the language of eating as a metaphor for belief. For example, A Baptist preacher <a href="http://www.newcovenantbaptist.org/the-blasphemy-of-transubstantiation/">cites Matthew 4:4</a> as proof of what he calls “the blasphemy of transubstantiation,” claiming that Jesus’ reference to eating his flesh in John 6 really just means believing in him. (It’s not clear from this reading why the crowds were so shocked at this teaching.)
When Jesus says that we live by the words that come from the mouth of God, he adds, “He’s speaking about reading, and meditating on, and studying and digesting God’s written word for spiritual sustenance.”
But in fact, Jesus’ message is a good deal more Christological, and Eucharistic, than many people realize.
Anyone can quote Scripture. Even the devil does, taking Psalm 91 laughably out of context when trying to tempt Jesus. But the difference between his misuse and Jesus’ use of Sacred Scripture is that Jesus isn’t just prooftexting. He invokes an entire passages by quoting a single line of Scripture, as he did on Calvary when he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, recalling the prophetic Psalm 22 (Mark 15:34).
So when Jesus says that “it is written” that man shall not live by bread alone, he’s not firing off one line of Scripture, but drawing our attention to the Old Testament—specifically to Deuteronomy 8:1-3, where we read:
<blockquote>All the commandment which I command you this day you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.</blockquote>
In other words, the frame of reference for his words isn’t “read the whole Bible.” It’s all about the manna.
In response to the second temptation, Jesus responds, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Matt. 4:7). This time, he’s recalling Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” And what happened at Massah? It’s where God had Moses miraculously bring water for from the rock (Exod. 17:1-7).
So Jesus’ first response recalls the manna in the desert, and his second response recalls the water from the rock. What’s the connection between these two? These are the supernatural (or “spiritual”) food and drink that St. Paul presents as foreshadowing the Eucharist (1 Cor. 10:1-4):
<blockquote>I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.</blockquote>
The Israelites passed through the Red Sea, and this foreshadowed baptism, with the cloud signifying the role the Holy Spirit plays in regenerating us. But that’s just the start of their (and our) earthly exodus from “the place of slavery” (Exod. 20:2) into the promised land. Along the way, supernatural food and drink are needed for nourishment. For the Israelites, that was the manna and the water from the rock. For us, Paul tells us, it’s “the cup of blessing which we bless.” “Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16).
But what does it mean to say that the manna (or the Eucharist) is “spiritual food”? Protestants tend to read “spiritual” as “incorporeal” or even “metaphorical” or “symbolic.” So when they read Jesus say that “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63), they tend to take it as his saying, “Don’t worry, it’s just a metaphor!”<a href="#_edn1">[i]</a>
But in Scripture, ”spiritual” generally doesn’t mean “an invisible thing totally cut off from the visible world.” That’s because we live in a world not just of ghosts and animals, but also of men—who are made up of body and soul. Our souls express themselves through our bodies. When Jesus quotes Genesis to say that “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one” (Matt. 19:5), he’s describing a spiritual union brought about through the bodies of the two spouses.
So how was the manna “spiritual food”? Because by this visible sign, God made present an invisible reality (his providence). He could have chosen to feed his people miraculously with bread from the earth. Instead, he chose to do so with bread from heaven. As the Psalmist says, God “commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; and he rained down upon them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance” (78:22-25).
The point of the manna wasn’t principally to satisfy the Israelites’ hunger, just as the miracles of Jesus weren’t primarily about curing physical illnesses. Rather, they were about showing the invisible power and goodness and providence of God through material signs. The manna wasn’t “just a symbol.” It was actual food, but it pointed to something more than bread.
The devil doesn’t get this (or perhaps doesn’t want us to get it). He tries to goad the fasting Jesus into performing a miracle that will “out” him as the Messiah and reveal his powers. But such a supernatural feat wouldn’t be a spiritual sign of anything at all. It would be bread simply for the sake of bread, little more than a magic trick. That’s why Jesus’ response is so important. He’s establishing the framework for his own miraculous ministry, upon which he’s about to embark. It will be miracles, not as magic tricks, but as spiritual signs akin to the manna of old.
This brings us back to Jesus and the Eucharist. When the crowds ask for manna in John 6:30-31, they’re falling into the same error as the devil. They want the bread alone, without the theological implications. This time, Jesus reveals more in his reply:
<blockquote>Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world (John 6:32-33).</blockquote>
Unlike in his battle with the devil (who seems to have been trying to ascertain Jesus’ true identity), Jesus now reveals himself as the true manna:
<blockquote>I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh (v. 51).</blockquote>
When we talk about living off “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” our minds go quickly to Scripture, and that’s not wrong. But the true Word is Jesus himself. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). This Son, Jesus Christ, is the definitive Word of God, the Word made flesh (John 1:1-5, 14), and our spiritual lives need to be rooted in him.

Can You Eat the Word of God?

Jimmy Akin advises a caller on how to discuss the Biblical evidence for the Trinity with her friend who claims that Matthew 28:19 (&#8220;baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit&#8221;) is a later interpolation made by the Catholic Church.

How to Defend the Trinity’s Biblical Basis

Most Christians I know attribute ghost stories either to natural phenomena or demonic activity. But are these the only two options?
The Church has never definitively settled this question—in fact, some of its greatest theologians have disagreed with one another. But the Church has affirmed numerous apparitions of deceased saints as well as the messages they bring. That gives us something to go on.
Ghost comes from an Old English word related to the German geist, meaning “spirit,” and Christians certainly believe in spirits: God, angels, and the souls of deceased humans all qualify. Many say that the souls of the dead shouldn’t be roaming around among the living, since upon death the immaterial soul separates from the material body until the resurrection (Rev. 20:5, 12-13). But is there good reason to believe that human spirits appear on Earth?
In Sacred Scripture, we read of spirits of humans appearing to the living. For example, the witch at Endor calls up the ghost of the prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 28:3–25). The fact that the witch was shocked by the event suggests that her previous claims of raising spirits were probably false, but Scripture presents this as an actual event without qualification. We are also told that Judas Maccabeus met the ghost of Onias the high priest in a vision (2 Macc. 15:11-17).
In the Gospel of Matthew, the disciples saw Moses and Elijah (who had not yet resurrected) with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (17:1–9). Prior to this, the disciples thought Jesus himself was a ghost (14:26), indicating that they at least had an idea of ghosts. Appearing after his resurrection, rather than correct the idea of ghosts, Jesus simply says he isn’t one (Luke 24:37-39).
Scripture, then, gives us clear examples of spirits manifesting immaterially on Earth and doesn’t record Jesus debunking the idea when he had a chance to. The issue, then, seems to be not one of possibility, but of likelihood.
Some Church Fathers rejected the existence of ghosts, and some explained the Samuel incident as demonic activity. St. Augustine attributed most ghost stories to angelic visions, but his concern seems to have been more about fighting pagan beliefs than considering metaphysical possibilities. Indeed, he allowed that God could in some cases bring spirits back to visit and <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1316.htm">admitted that</a> “if we state that these things are false, we shall seem indifferently to go against the writings of certain of the faithful and against the senses of those who affirm that such things have happened to them.”
St. Thomas Aquinas disagreed with Augustine on the question of ghosts, concluding in the supplement to the third part of the Summa that &#8220;it is absurd to say that the souls of the departed do not leave their abode.” Claiming that Augustine was “speaking according to the common course of nature” in denying the possibility of ghosts, Aquinas asserted that
<blockquote>according to the disposition of divine providence, separated souls sometimes come forth from their abode and appear to men. . . . It is also credible that this may occur sometimes to the damned, and that for man’s instruction and intimidation they be permitted to appear to the living.</blockquote>
Further, he said, souls “are able to appear wondrously to the living when they will.&#8221;
Not only did Aquinas believe in the possibility of ghosts, but he seems to have encountered them himself. On two recorded occasions, deceased souls visited the Angelic Doctor: Brother Romanus (who Aquinas did not realize had died yet!), and Aquinas’s deceased sister.
But if souls can appear at will, why don’t they do it all the time? This was part of Augustine’s reasoning against the possibility. Aquinas answers, “Although the dead be able to appear to the living as they will . . . they are either wholly conformed to the divine will, so that they may do nothing but what they see to be agreeable with the divine disposition, or else they are so overwhelmed by their punishments that their grief for their unhappiness surpasses their desire to appear to others.”
The possibility of visits from deceased souls does not, of course, explain every spiritual encounter. Although demonic activity in Scripture is mediated through living, physical beings (even animals), there is nothing in Scripture or Tradition that would limit them to these kinds of activities. Angels have appeared to, and interacted with, physical objects and people, and demons are fallen angels. Catholics who deal with the paranormal typically say violent or evil hauntings may very well be demonic in nature.
So, although it’s wrong and unbiblical to assume that all ghost-like manifestations are demonic in origin, it’s also unwise to assume that none of them is!
That said, if a ghost is simply understood to be a deceased human’s spirit that appears on Earth, either by its own power or according to some special divine purpose, we cannot simply write off ghost stories as delusions or demonic.
We therefore need to be careful not to judge too swiftly. Such experiences could be from God, angels of all kinds, or deceased spirits—and our reactions to these should differ widely. God alone is due worship; good angels should be given reverence (Rev. 22:8-9) and bad angels a wide berth. As for deceased spirits: although the Church affirms proper veneration of and prayer with the saints, along with Scripture it forbids divination or necromancy—summoning the dead or other practices meant to seek forbidden knowledge (e.g., Deut. 18:11; Lev. 19:31, 20:6, 27; CCC 2116).
If you see a ghost, then, the best thing to do is probably the same thing we do to (and for) the deceased souls—our fellow Christians on the other side of the veil—that we don&#8217;t see: pray.

What Are Ghosts?

Last week in Luke 16 we heard the very strange story of the dishonest steward. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/whats-the-deal-with-the-dishonest-steward">I spoke about</a> the joy of forgiveness, and how the steward’s clever scheme, while perhaps superficially unjust, shows the value of forgiveness and grace.
But in today’s parable of Lazarus in the rich man (Dives in the Latin, and in much of the Western art tradition), we see an object lesson in the Lord’s command to “make friends for ourselves by unrighteous mammon” (16:9). According to some of the old commentators, like St. Bede, this parable is meant directly as a confirmation of that principle.
How so? Because Dives had an opportunity to use his wealth—however it was gained—for the good of someone in need right in front of him. Had he done so, perhaps when that wealth failed, he might have been “received into the eternal habitations.”
The “make friends by unrighteous mammon” instruction, then, isn’t a general commendation of dishonest business practices, but a reinforcement that what may be “unrighteous” in the world of money-making may end up being “righteous” in the world of eternity. Helping lift a poor, ailing man out of poverty isn’t going to win the rich man any friends or give him any rewards in this life, but it gains him a friendship and reward for the life to come, which is ultimately more important.
Does this parable mean that helping the poor will bring us to heaven, or that failing to help the poor will send us to hell? Maybe, but we had better be careful about an approach to almsgiving and the works of mercy that treats it like a simplistic credit in the cosmic accounting — almost like the businesses proudly saying that they plant a tree for every item sold. Salvation isn’t a marketing gimmick, and we can’t buy our way into heaven, as if it were just a matter of doing a work of kindness to counteract every work of selfishness or greed. Ultimately, our presence with God in heaven comes down to our relationship with Jesus: have we turned away from sin, away from our own desires, and cooperated with the grace wherein he unites us to himself?
So I think Augustine’s reading of this parable is helpful. He says Lazarus is a type of Christ. He is the wounded man sitting on the doorstep waiting for us to notice him. Augustine even gives us a rather vivid and unsettling image of the Gentiles as the dogs licking the poor man’s sores: they may be dogs, but they at least partake of the Lord’s own body and blood!
Lest we think this Christological reading of the parable means that the Lord doesn’t think we should notice and care for the poor in a more general way, remember that haunting reminder about the “least of these” in Matthew 25. The only path to eternal life is noticing Jesus, and this requires not only noticing his particular life as it appears to us in history, or even his life as it is presented to us in the Church and its sacraments, but also his life as it appears to us in one another. Suffering doesn’t make one holy any more than poverty does, but both suffering and poverty can bring us closer to Christ in a way that riches and comfort never can. So an attitude like that of the parable’s rich man, where we despise and ignore the poor and suffering lest they violate our own comfort and pleasure moves us toward hell in that it represents a habitual lack of interest in finding Jesus where he has promised us he will be.
The final words of this parable further reinforce our Christ-centered reading: “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.” It may sound heartless, but remember that only a few chapters back, Jesus appeared on the mountainside alongside Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets. In other words, he’s saying, if you will not listen to me, there is nothing else, no higher or clearer proof that preserves human freedom.
The Fathers and later readers often speak about the “unbridgeable chasm” between Lazarus, in the “bosom of Abraham,” and Dives in hell. This chasm does of course support the idea, maintained by Catholic teaching, that there really is a division and an immediate judgment at the point of death. We may be further purified and perfected, but there is no additional change to revivify a soul that has committed itself to eternal death.
There is, however, another way of looking at this chasm, which is that, if we take Augustine’s Christological reading to heart, we can see the incredible generosity of Christ in bridging the gap between death and life, in rising from the dead as a sign not of necessity, but of overwhelming love and favor. Yes, we should have listened to Moses and the Prophets, but we didn’t. So he is going to make a way through his own flesh. He is going to lower himself to the lowest state possible, even the state of death, so that he might burst open the doors of the eternal habitations.
So although the parable of Dives and Lazarus is a warning, it is also a promise: that conversion is possible in this life. We do not have to follow the way of the world, the way of pleasure and comfort and wealth for its own sake. We can instead turn and follow Christ, recognizing that in the final eternal scheme, all our worldly wealth and status are the most abject poverty in light of his glory and power. Yet he wants to share all his goodness with us, if only we can toss aside the many things of this life holding us down.

A Deeper Look at Lazarus and the Rich Man

Did the Church change Mary’s title from Co-Redemptrix?

The Catholic Church has defined the essential difference between the honor we give to God through prayer and the honor we give to the saints. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) defined the “adoration” we give to God alone as latreia (Greek) or latria (Latin).
Some Protestants, however, don’t buy this line of reasoning. They argue that this distinction is not grounded in Scripture.
Take, for example, Protestant apologist James White. In his Roman Catholic Controversy, he writes,
<blockquote>When we come to the New Testament . . . we discover that there is absolutely no distinction made between [dulia and latria] relevant to religious worship. As an example, we note Galatians 4:8: “However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves [Greek, edouleusate] to those which by nature are no gods.” But when you did not know God, you served [footnote 22: edouleusate—from douleuō, the verb form of dulia], or were slaves to, those which by nature are not gods.
Paul is speaking of the former idolatry of the Galatians. They served (dulia) idols, those which by nature are not gods at all. Are we to assume, then, on the basis of the Roman Catholic definitions, that since they only served these idols, that they were free from the charge of idolatry, since they didn’t give latria as well? Of course not! Their service of these idols was wrong whether the term latria or dulia was used. . . .
No matter how the defender of Rome tries, no basis can possibly be found in Scripture for the distinction of latria and dulia (p. 211).</blockquote>
One problem with White’s objection is that he seems to assume that a Catholic would deny that the Greek word edouleusate is being used in reference to the Galatians formerly worshiping idols. But that’s not the case. Catholics recognize that the service (douleia) the Galatians gave the false gods was idolatry.
The question is not whether the Greek word douleia (and the terms related to it) can be used in reference to the service or worship we give God. The question is whether douleia and latreia can be validly distinguished.
First, we may note that the Greek verb douleuō is also used in reference to human service. For example, in the Septuagint, Deuteronomy 15:18 features the verb douleuō to describe the role of a hired servant: “It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for at half the cost of a hired servant he has served [Greek, edouleusen] you six years.” Douleuō (and thus douleia), therefore, can represent the service of one human to another. The number of times the New Testament uses a related noun, doulos, for a human “servant” is too large to list all of them here. A simple look at a biblical concordance reveals as much (e.g., Matt. 8:9, 13:28).
So the Bible uses douleia and its related words both for service given to other humans and for service given to God or the gods.
This is true of other, related words. Consider the Greek verb proskuneō, for example, which <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bauer+greek+english+lexicon&amp;hvadid=776736716544&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvexpln=0&amp;hvlocphy=9025287&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvocijid=2565515230812315434--&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvrand=2565515230812315434&amp;hvtargid=kwd-316425563488&amp;hydadcr=8487_13829854&amp;mcid=339f405d7f323b9486f7e5dea5b3086e&amp;tag=googhydr-20&amp;ref=pd_sl_42ousm5jw0_e">means</a> “to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure, (fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to.” This word is used for the worship that the twenty-four elders offer to the Lamb in Revelation 5:14. Yet it’s also used in Revelation 3:9 to refer to those of the synagogue of Satan, whom Jesus will make bow down before Christians: “I [Jesus] will make those of the synagogue of Satan . . . come and bow down [Greek, proskunēsousin] before your feet.”
What these examples reveal is that it’s not the word itself that determines whether the act of bowing is worship or not. It’s the one to whom the action is directed and the intention with which the act is being performed.
In the case of douleia, it constitutes divine worship or adoration when the object of service or honor is God, or at least what one thinks is a deity. When it’s another human, and that human is treated as such, then it’s the honor due to a creature. As seen in the case of proskuneō, if the object of the service or honor is God, then we take it to mean adoration. If it’s a creature, and the intention behind the action is creaturely honor, then it’s not adoration.
By contrast, the term latreia is used both in the Greek Old Testament and in the New Testament, where it is always used to refer to the worship of God or the gods. For example, in John 16:2, Jesus says that some who put Christians to death will think they are offering “service [latreia] to God,” and in Romans 12:1, St. Paul says we should present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, for this “is your spiritual worship [latreia].”
As a result of this exclusive use in Scripture, latreia came to be associated closely with divine worship among Christians, whereas douleia could still be used with reference to humans. In later centuries, the Church decided to formalize this distinction and mandate that the term latreia (latria in Latin) be used for divine worship and douleia (dulia in Latin) be used for mere veneration.
This is similar to how Christians took other terms and gave them more precise meanings than they had in Scripture. For example, in later theology, terms like the elect came to refer to those people who will be saved on the Last Day. However, as Jimmy Akin <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-God-Elect-Christian-Writings-ebook/dp/B0834M75MB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1FE59TZMENGIF&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Cucc9SUZNsF9GS0AHD83qy4RnXeBADcReamn8WTvj4E.TGoOSiMIOpGuPlA0mU-V6Uj9EWRptBUHrsRlT-KCeQE&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+elect+in+the+bible+and+early+christian+writings&amp;nsdOptOutParam=true&amp;qid=1765258574&amp;sprefix=the+elect+in+the+bible+and+early+christian+writilng%2Caps%2C182&amp;sr=8-1">explains</a> in his book Chosen by God: God’s Elect in the Bible and Early Christian Writings, in Scripture the term had a more general meaning and referred to those who were chosen by God to have a special relationship with him—not specifically those who would be saved in the end.
Language changes over time, and situations can arise in which terms need to be given precise definitions to avoid theological confusion. When the Church needed to develop a precise way of expressing the distinction between divine worship and human veneration, it chose latreia for the former, since it was used in Scripture to express divine service, and it chose douleia for the latter, since it could refer to merely human service.
The Catholic Church, therefore, has biblical grounds for making the distinction it does between the honor given to saints (dulia in Latin) and the adoration given to God (latria in Latin). Whereas dulia can apply to the honor given to God or other entities who aren’t God, depending on the context, latria applies only to honor given to God.

Yes, It’s Okay to Venerate the Saints

Protestant arguments for Sola Scriptura often sound airtight—but in this episode, I show how a popular version commits a subtle logical fallacy. By unpacking Dr. Gavin Ortlund’s appeal to the Bible&#8217;s unique quality of inspiration, I explain why the conclusion that the Bible is the only infallible rule for the Church doesn’t follow.
Protestant apologists often argue for Sola Scriptura like this: 1) The Bible is an infallible rule of faith. 2) There are no other infallible rules of faith. 3) Therefore, the Bible alone is our infallible rule of faith.
On the surface, this argument might sound pretty airtight. But when you dig a little deeper, some logical cracks start to show — specifically, a fallacy that many people don’t notice. So in this episode, we’re gonna unpack the argument step by step, see where it goes wrong, and why that matters for the conversation between Catholics and Protestants.
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So, one Protestant apologist who makes this argument is Dr. Gavin Ortlund. In his 2023 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk">debate</a> with Trent Horn, he said this:
[VIDEO]
6:37 this topic let me Dive Right In hoping you can hear me okay by stating my 6:42 Essential argument one the Bible is an infallible rule for the church two there 6:49 is no other infallible rule for the church three therefore the Bible is the only 6:54 infallible rule for the church which is the doctrine we call Sola scriptura
Ortlund published this argument in his 2024 book What It Means to Be Protestant. He also reproduced it in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpmcr7jOev4">video</a> “The ULTIMATE Case for Sola Scriptura.”
Another Protestant apologist, Dr. James White, makes the same basic argument. He did so in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cl9n5tqFcc">2024 debate</a> on Sola Scriptura with Jimmy Akin, though not as neatly as Ortlund. For this video, we’ll stick with Ortlund’s version because it’s easier to map out.
So, visually, it looks like this:
P1: The Bible is an infallible rule for the Church.
P2: There is no other infallible rule for the Church.
C: Therefore, the Bible is the only infallible rule for the Church (which is the doctrine of sola scriptura).
Now, how does Ortlund defend Premise 1?
He says the Bible is an infallible rule for the Church because of its nature—because it’s the speech of God. Here’s how he puts it in his debate with Trent:
[VIDEO]
[S]cripture is the speech of God through a human medium and it&#8217;s on that 11:50 basis that we speak of scripture as infallible.
He argues the same thing in his video “The ULTIMATE Case for Sola Scriptura”:
[VIDEO]
And so this is why infallibility will come into 16:39 the picture is because we say the scripture is infallible because it&#8217;s God&#8217;s speech and God is omnisient and 16:45 perfect. So God is infallible. So God&#8217;s speech is therefore infallible. And it&#8217;s on that basis that we say the scripture 16:52 cannot heir. It cannot get it wrong.
In other words, the reason Scripture is infallible is that it’s inspired. Inspiration is the theological term that describes how God moved the human authors to write Scripture in a way that God is at the same time the principal author.
Ortlund elaborates on this, again, in his debate with Trent:
[VIDEO]
[S]ola 12:41 scriptura is simply suggesting as an implication from that fact that as the Bible is unique in its nature 12:48 so it is correspondingly unique in its Authority the alternative positions such 12:54 as those of Roman Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Etc separate infallibility from inspiration 13:01 those positions have the burden to show why another rule of faith that is not the inspired speech of God should 13:07 nonetheless be accepted as equal in authority to the inspired speech of God 
And he adds:
[VIDEO]
[A] simple way to put Sola scriptura at a 13:15 metaphysical level God is unique therefore his speech is unique that which isn&#8217;t the speech of God is 13:22 subordinate to that which is the speech of God. 
Then in his closing statement, Ortlund says:
[VIDEO]
2:16:15 [T]he classic magisterial Protestant view makes a lot of sense it&#8217;s simply saying put the Bible at the top of the pyramid 2:16:20 it&#8217;s the inspired speech of God.
So, if we put that all together, Ortlund’s argument for premise 1 looks like this:
P1.1: If an authority for the Church is inspired, then it’s an infallible rule for the Church.
P1.2: The Bible is an authority for the Church that’s inspired.
P1.C: Therefore, the Bible is an infallible rule for the Church (that’s Premise 1 of his main argument).
So far, so good! But it’s when he defends Premise 2 of his main argument that the problem arises.
Recall, Premise 2 is “There’s no other infallible rule for the Church.” Here’s how Ortlund defends this premise in his debate with Trent:
[VIDEO]
[S]cripture is ontologically unique in its nature no 12:34 other rule of faith that we possess is the god-breathed spirit carried unbreakable Oracles of God
And later:
[VIDEO]
[W]hy is the 53:18 scripture more authoritative than tradition it&#8217;s because of a simple reason scripture is ontologically unique
Remember, by “ontologically unique” Ortlund means “inspired.”
Ortlund argues similarly in his “ULTIMATE Case” video:
[VIDEO]
[N]o other rule of faith that we 19:08 have today is this inspired speech of God. And so sola scriptura is going to say 19:15 go a step further and say just as the Bible is unique in its nature 19:22 so it is correspondingly unique in its authority
So what Ortlund’s really saying is: there’s no other infallible authority for the Church — like Tradition or the Magisterium — because there’s no other authority that’s inspired.
That argument can be summarized like this:
P2.1: If an authority for the Church is not inspired, then it’s not an infallible rule for the Church.
P2.2: No authority for the Church besides the Bible is inspired (i.e., Not Tradition or the magisterium)
P2.C: Therefore, there’s no other authority that is an infallible rule for the Church.
That’s logically valid on its own. But when you combine it with Ortlund’s reasoning for Premise 1 of his main argument—that’s when the logical fallacy shows up.
To see the problem, we need a short logic refresher.
A conditional statement is an “if…then…” proposition — like, “If it’s raining, then the ground is wet.”
The “if” part is called the antecedent; the “then” part is the consequent.
Now, there’s a logical fallacy called “negating the antecedent.” It happens when you deny the antecedent and then assume that automatically denies the consequent. For example:
<ol>
<li>If it’s raining, the ground is wet.</li>
<li>It’s not raining.</li>
<li>Therefore, the ground is not wet.</li>
</ol>
That doesn’t follow, right? The ground could be wet for other reasons—maybe someone left the sprinkler on.
Okay, now back to Ortlund.
In defense of Premise 1 of the main argument, he argues P1.1—if an authority for the Church is inspired [the antecedent], then it’s an infallible rule for the Church [the consequent].
But when he defends premise two of the main argument—“there’s no other infallible rule for the Church,” he says in P2.1 there’s no authority for the Church besides the Bible that is inspired. That’s a negation of the antecedent in P1.1.
Ortlund then makes a conclusion based on this negation—namely, no authority besides the Bible, like Tradition or the magisterium, is an infallible rule for the Church, which is the definition of sola scriptura.
So his argument is essentially this:
P1.1: If an authority for the Church is inspired, then it’s an infallible rule for the Church.
P2.1: There’s no authority for the Church besides the Bible that is inspired (there’s the negation of the antecedent).
C: Therefore, there’s no authority besides the Bible that’s an infallible rule for the Church (there’s the conclusion with a negation of the consequent).
So Ortlund’s overall argument commits the fallacy of negating the antecedent.
Now, Ortlund, or any Protestant who makes this argument, might counter that sometimes a denial of the antecedent does necessarily entail a denial of the consequent—when the antecedent is logically identical to the consequent. For example:
P1: If bachelor, then not married.
P2: Not bachelor.
C:  Therefore, not married.
So, Ortlund might push back to my charge of his argument negating the antecedent and say that “inspiration” and “infallibility” are like “bachelor” and “married”—they’re logically identical; you deny one, you deny the other.
Ortlund seems to hint at this sort of comeback in his “ULTIMATE Case” video:
[VIDEO]
And so sola scriptura is going to say 19:15 go a step further and say just as the Bible is unique in its nature 19:22 so it is correspondingly unique in its authority and the alternative positions 19:28 are going to try to separate divine speech and biblical inspiration from infallibility. Now at that point the 19:35 burden that is going to come up as we&#8217;re going to get to is okay show us what is the ground for infallibility in this 19:41 other case where you have some other onlogical entity why is this also infallible as the scripture is infallible
I think we can shoulder that burden. Like rain and wetness, inspiration and infallibility aren’t logically identical. “Inspiration” (at least when it comes to Scripture) means God is the principal author—what the human authors affirm, God affirms. So infallibility follows from inspiration, yes—but it doesn’t mean inspiration is the only way God can make something infallible.
For example, God could providentially prevent someone —like the pope or a council—from teaching error. He could arrange events so that the pope never writes the error down or publishes it with binding authority. God also could just will that the pope dies before he binds the Church to believe the error.
So there are other ways, besides inspiration, that an authority can be incapable of error—God can protect the authority. That means inspiration and infallibility are conceptually distinct.
To put it simply:
Just as the ground can be wet without it having rained, a Christian authority can be infallible without being inspired.
So even if it were true that the Bible is the only inspired authority for the Church—that which is God’s speech (to use Ortlund’s words), that wouldn’t mean it’s the only infallible authority. The pope speaking ex cathedra, or an ecumenical council defining a doctrine, could still be infallible —just not inspired.
So, even on Ortlund’s own logic, he can’t get to Sola Scriptura. To do that, he’d have to show that inspiration is the only possible basis for infallibility. But I don’t think that’s a claim he can defend, for the reasons I’ve already stated.
Now, Ortlund might try to avoid the “negating the antecedent” problem by reformulating the argument like this:
<ol>
<li>Whatever is inspired is infallible.</li>
<li>No other authority besides the Bible is inspired.</li>
<li>Therefore, no other authority besides the Bible is infallible.</li>
</ol>
That looks valid — but the conclusion only follows if you add an unstated assumption:
“Only what is inspired can be infallible.”
That assumption isn’t in either premise. Without it, the argument is invalid.
And here’s why: Premise 1 says, All inspired things are infallible. This tells us that inspiration is sufficient for infallibility.
The conclusion assumes the claim: Only inspired things are infallible. This claims that inspiration is necessary for infallibility.
But you can’t move from “All As are B” to “Only As are B” without an additional premise. That’s a fallacy of illicit conversion (or more generally, a form of the undistributed middle fallacy —where the middle term isn’t properly distributed).
Here’s an example.
<ol>
<li>All cats are mammals.</li>
<li>All dogs are mammals.</li>
<li>∴ All dogs are cats.</li>
</ol>
The argument is invalid because the middle term (“mammals”) is not distributed — meaning, it doesn’t refer to all mammals in either premise. Both premises say only that cats and dogs belong within the class of mammals, not that they’re identical to the entire class.
So while cats and dogs share a common category (“mammals”), that doesn’t make them the same. The reasoning fails to connect the two properly — just like the “inspired/infallible” argument does.
In the “inspired/infallible” argument, the middle term—“inspiration”—isn’t distributed. It only shows that “inspired” things belong within the category of infallible authority. But it doesn’t show they are the same.
To distribute “inspiration” properly and make the reasoning valid, Ortlund would need to add: “Only what is inspired can be infallible.”
But, as I’ve said already, that’s precisely what we as Catholics, along with our Orthodox brethren, would challenge — since, in our view, an authority can be infallible without being inspired in the strict sense—e.g., an ecumenical council for both Catholics and Orthodox, and the pope for Catholics. 
So to sum up: this argument that Ortlund uses for Sola Scriptura, along with other Protestants, ends up committing either A) the fallacy of negating the antecedent, or B) the fallacy of undistributed middle. It assumes that because all inspired things are infallible, only inspired things can be infallible.
But that doesn’t follow because it overlooks the real distinction between inspiration (God directly speaking through a human author) and infallibility (God preventing error through divine protection).
Now, Ortlund might drop the appeal to inspiration altogether and just focus on infallibility, since his main argument as stated was valid. And that’s fine! We’re more than happy to have a conversation as to whether there’s another infallible authority besides Scripture—when we’re talking about infallibility without necessarily including the idea of inspiration.
In fact, in his “ULTIMATE Case” video, Ortlund actually seems to shift to that line of argument near the end. Although, he presents it as if it’s the same argument he started with. Here’s what he says:
[VIDEO]
Uh so 36:33 putting all of this together, we could sum it up by saying number one, 36:39 scripture is an infallible rule for the church in light of what it is and in light of what it does. Almost all 36:45 Christians historically have agreed upon that. Number two, we don&#8217;t have any other 36:51 uh rule for the church that is infallible. The major candidates would be oral apostolic traditions or ongoing 37:00 organs of infallibility within the church. But both of these are problematic. The oral apostolic 37:05 tradition has a fallible transmission process. And postappostolic infallibility just doesn&#8217;t have a 37:11 historical foundation. It&#8217;s it&#8217;s a later uh gradual accretion. So it follows that 37:17 if scripture is an infallible rule for the church and there is no other infallible rule then scripture is the 37:24 only infallible rule and that&#8217;s solos scriptural
Now notice what’s going on here. His defense for premise two—“there are no other infallible rules for the Church”—isn’t “because nothing else is inspired,” like it was in his debate with Trent and earlier in his “ULTLIMATE Case” video. Instead, he’s saying the other possible candidates for infallible authority—like oral apostolic traditions or ongoing infallible organs in the Church—just don’t hold up. He thinks oral tradition has a fallible transmission process, and the idea of post-apostolic infallible authority is just an “historical accretion.” So, at least here, he seems to be willing to allow for the possibility of an infallible authority that’s not the “speech of God.”
That’s a different argument than the one we’ve considered throughout this episode. And to be fair, this version of the argument actually avoids both of the fallacies I pointed out earlier.
So, if Ortlund wants to go with this revised version of the argument—great! Totally fair. We’d just note that, in doing so, he’ll have to retire the reasoning he used in his debate with Trent and earlier in the “ULTIMATE Case” video, for the reasons we’ve discussed here.
And I will say—Ortlund’s concerns about how oral apostolic traditions were transmitted, and about the evidence for post-apostolic infallibility in the Church, are fair game. They deserve thoughtful, careful responses from us Catholics. But… that’s a topic for another episode.
Well, my friends, that’s it for today! If you found this video helpful, make sure to like, subscribe, comment below, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And for more resources, check out my website at karlobroussard.com.
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Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time!

The Argument for Sola Scriptura that’s Fallacious

<div>I heard it said that every fragment of a host retains the real presence of Christ irrespective of size. This contradicts what you said on Catholic Answers Live. </div><div>It is not accurate to say that every fragment of a consecrated host retains the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-real-presence">real presence</a> of Christ irrespective of size. 
The traditional teaching, as I indicated on the radio, is that when the consecrated elements no longer have the appearance of bread and wine, the Real Presence ceases. 
St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
<blockquote>When the body and the blood of Christ succeed in this sacrament to the substance of the bread and wine, if there be such change on the part of the accidents as would not have sufficed for the corruption of the bread and wine, then the body and blood of Christ do not cease to be under this sacrament on account of such change, whether the change be on the part of the quality, as for instance, when the color or the savor of the bread or wine is slightly modified; or on the part of the quantity, as when the bread or the wine is divided into such parts as to keep in them the nature of bread or of wine. But if the change be so great that the substance of the bread or wine would have been corrupted, then Christ&#8217;s body and blood do not remain under this sacrament; and this either on the part of the qualities, as when the color, savor, and other qualities of the bread and wine are so altered as to be incompatible with the nature of bread or of wine; or else on the part of the quantity, as, for instance, if the bread be reduced to fine particles, or the wine divided into such tiny drops that the species of bread or wine no longer remain (<a href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newadvent.org%2Fsumma%2F4077.htm%23article4&amp;data=05|01|apologist%40catholic.com|54a8fa4dd94d4bba12df08db8192f5ba|dd9faf74765b495cac09cabd182c95a7|0|0|638246240421989894|Unknown|TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D|3000|||&amp;sdata=xE8KH7OpNkgeuJvSLAPhEmVBxsyfCjPzD60dpV77N9g%3D&amp;reserved=0">Summa Theologiae III:77:4</a>, emphases added).</blockquote>
Similarly, in 1972, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated: 
<blockquote>After communion, the left-over hosts, as well as any particles that may have fallen from them and that still have the form of bread, are to be reserved or consumed with the reverence due to the eucharistic presence of Christ.
Further, with regard to any other eucharistic fragments, the prescriptions on purifying the chalice and paten are to be observed as they are given in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal nos. 120, 138, 237–239 and in the “Order of Mass” with a congregation no. 138 and without a congregation no. 31.
Hosts not consumed at once are to be carried by an authorized minister to the place where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved (see General Instruction of the Roman Missal no. 276) (Declaration Cum de fragmentis, emphases added).</blockquote>
The Congregation thus honors the traditional teaching by speaking of three things: (1) hosts, (2) particles of hosts that still have the form of bread, and (3) other particles (i.e., those that are so small they no longer have the appearance of bread). The Congregation indicates that (1) and (2) retain the Real Presence and so “are to be reserved or consumed with the reverence due to the eucharistic presence of Christ,” whereas (3) are to be taken care of with the prescriptions for purifying the chalice and paten. Per Aquinas, they no longer have the Real Presence, but because they used to have the Real Presence, they are to be disposed of with proper ceremony (i.e., being dissolved in water and then the water consumed or—if it&#8217;s the water used to wash a corporal—poured into a <a href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fadoremus.org%2F2020%2F07%2Fq-what-is-a-sacrarium%2F&amp;data=05|01|apologist%40catholic.com|54a8fa4dd94d4bba12df08db8192f5ba|dd9faf74765b495cac09cabd182c95a7|0|0|638246240421989894|Unknown|TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D|3000|||&amp;sdata=JB%2BxM9HdZPWZ%2BLMCXfCHbneGEClQRehfyFW%2Baw0jUQU%3D&amp;reserved=0">sacrarium</a>). 
</div>

Size Matters: When Does the Consecrated Bread and Wine Lose the Real Presence?

I’m Lutheran. What is the Miraculous Medal? How does it work?

I’m not Catholic because of the idolization of Mary and the saints and the claim that Jesus founded Catholicism?

How would you convince an LDS member why you think Mary is the Mother of God?

Why is it so difficult to get baptized as a Catholic?

My best friend is becoming Eastern Orthodox and I’m becoming Catholic. What are the reasons why I should become Catholic instead of EO?

How would Mary and Jesus be different if they were both immaculately conceived?

I’m not Catholic because I’ve been lied to about it all my life.

&#8220;Why Aren&#8217;t You Catholic?&#8221; addresses common concerns about Catholic beliefs, including the role of Mary and the saints. The discussion also touches on the significance of the Miraculous Medal, the challenges of baptism in the Catholic Church, and the differences between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, providing a comprehensive look at these important topics.
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Why Aren’t You Catholic? Mary, Saints, and Baptism Issues

<div>Do the effects of a Mass said for the dead apply when the Mass is said or when the Mass is requested? In my parish, it can be months before the requested Mass is actually celebrated. That bothers me.</div><div>The fruits (graces) of a Mass offered <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/masses-of-requiem">for the repose of a particular soul</a> are applied when the Mass is offered. While you may find it unsettling that there’s often a long delay between when the Mass was requested and when it was offered, it helps to remember that every Mass includes a prayer for both the living and the dead. You can also offer your Holy Communion or obtain a plenary indulgence (CCC 1471-1473) for the holy souls in purgatory (or for a particular friend, relative, etc.).
<blockquote>The <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/prayers-for-the-dead">intercessions</a> [express the fact] that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole Church, of both heaven and of earth, and that the oblation is made for her and for all her members, living and dead, who are called to participate in the redemption and salvation purchased by the Body and Blood of Christ (<a href="https://cathdal.org/news/ten-ways-to-pray-for-the-holy-souls-in-purgatory">“20 Ways to Pray for the Souls in Purgatory,” online at cathdal.org</a>).</blockquote>
</div>

Remember, God Is Atemporal

In a previous <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-best-argument-for-sola-scriptura">article</a>, I argued that sola scriptura blocks a Protestant from having infallible knowledge of several books in the Bible, including some from the New Testament, like Hebrews, Mark, and James. The reason I gave was that neither Jesus nor the apostles, the only infallible sources besides the Bible for a Protestant, ever gave a complete list of which Jewish and Christian writings were inspired.
But a Protestant might counter: That we can’t discern a complete list of inspired Jewish and Christian writings from Jesus and the apostles is not a problem, because Protestants affirm that the Holy Spirit providentially guided the Church, or the people of God, to recognize what belongs in the canon of Scripture.
Take, for example, former president at Westminster Seminary in California, W. Robert Godfrey. He <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sola-Scriptura-Protestant-Position-Reformation/dp/1573580287/ref=sr_1_2?crid=CDSXJEBSGOD3&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4RKsIMTu2h252_jxyqecY8Xapg-_N1nSdM6-tKRaqhDqFULVmRAXcPFLrClhjxFw.HkXL18Cg_KzlZItPnsbWsUEIm0KikCgu5FEqPSYgq_c&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Sola+Scriptura%21+The+Protestant+Position+on+the+Bible&amp;qid=1725479835&amp;sprefix=sola+scriptura+the+protestant+position+on+the+bible%2Caps%2C152&amp;sr=8-2">writes</a>,
<blockquote>As God’s revelation, they are recognized by the people of God as God’s own word. . . . The self-authenticating character of the canon is demonstrated by the remarkable unanimity reached by the people of God on the canon. . . . These actions [by popes and councils] simply recognized the emerging consensus of the people of God as they recognized the authentic scriptures.</blockquote>
Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund articulated this same response in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk">debate</a> with Trent Horn.
Now, one might think that by saying the Holy Spirit guided the Church to discern the canon, our Protestant friends are saying the Church’s discernment was infallible, which would be at odds with sola scriptura. This is exactly what a convert from Protestantism recently told me he implicitly believed as a Protestant, and when this implicit belief was made explicit, he abandoned sola scriptura and became Catholic.
But for some, the Church’s historical discernment of the canon is not infallible. And they’re okay with that.
Consider, for example, R.C. Sproul. In his Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology, he writes,
<blockquote>Rome believes the church was infallible when it determined which books belong in the New Testament. Protestants believe the church acted rightly and accurately in this process, but not infallibly (p. 58).</blockquote>
Sproul is famous for adopting the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sola-Scriptura-Protestant-Position-Reformation/dp/1573580287/ref=sr_1_2?crid=CDSXJEBSGOD3&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4RKsIMTu2h252_jxyqecY8Xapg-_N1nSdM6-tKRaqhDqFULVmRAXcPFLrClhjxFw.HkXL18Cg_KzlZItPnsbWsUEIm0KikCgu5FEqPSYgq_c&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Sola+Scriptura%21+The+Protestant+Position+on+the+Bible&amp;qid=1725479835&amp;sprefix=sola+scriptura+the+protestant+position+on+the+bible%2Caps%2C152&amp;sr=8-2">phrase</a>, “The Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books.”
Gavin Ortlund, again, put forward this view as his own in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk">debate</a> with Horn, stating, “The church does not need to possess infallibility in order to recognize infallibility. . . . You don’t need to be infallible to discern that which is infallible.”
So the Protestant claim here is that the Holy Spirit providentially guided the Church to rightly discern what Scripture is, but such discernment wasn’t infallible.
There are basically two targets here at which to direct our responses:
Target #1: The general idea of relying on the people of God’s discernment of the canon of Scripture.
Target #2: The issue of the fallible discernment by the people of God.
Let’s take target #1. There are two responses.
First, Protestants face a problem concerning their thirty-nine-book Old Testament canon.
Consider that there’s an embedded principle in the counter-argument that we’re considering here: Christians can reasonably believe whatever the Holy Spirit leads the Church to believe. 
Now, here’s where the problem arises for a Protestant. The Church simply didn’t discern the twenty-seven books of the New Testament to be canonical—that’s to say, inspired by God. The historical <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/why-catholic-bibles-are-bigger-revised-2nd-edition/">record</a> is clear that the Church also discerned forty-six books to make up the Old Testament, which includes the six deuterocanonical books that Protestants reject (Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus [Sirach], Baruch) along with parts of Esther and Daniel.
Therefore, according to the logic of this counter-argument given by Godfrey, Ortlund, and Sproul, they’d have to say a Christian is safe in believing the deuterocanonical books to be inspired, which, of course, runs contrary to their belief.
A Protestant might counter here and say that the Holy Spirit only led the Church in its discernment of the Christian writings and not in its discernment of the Jewish writings, thereby leaving the Church to err in judging the deuterocanonical books to be inspired. Sometimes the Spirit moves, so it might be claimed, and sometimes he doesn’t. (This seems to be not just a potential counter, but something required for any Protestant who rejects the six deuterocanonical books.)
The problem with this way of thinking is that it ends in self-defeat, at least concerning a Protestant’s belief that he can rely on the people of God’s discernment of the canon.
To say the Holy Spirit led the Church to rightly judge the twenty-seven books in the New Testament to be inspired but didn’t lead the Church to judge the seven deuterocanonical books necessarily implies that there is something other than the people of God that is the measure for discerning which books are inspired. You can’t say the people of God is our final court of appeal for the canon of Scripture, which is what Godfrey, Ortlund, and Sproul argue above, and then turn around and say the judgment made by the people of God on the Old Testament canon was in error.
So the people of God’s discernment of what constitutes Scripture ends up not being the testimony upon which a Protestant can rely after all, which is at cross-purposes with the general view that we’re considering here. Therefore, this counter ends in self-defeat, at least regarding the general idea that the Holy Spirit led the people of God to discern the canon of Scripture.
The question now becomes, “What is the measure by which the people of God’s judgment is in error?” What authority must we rely on to determine when the Holy Spirit was guiding and when he wasn’t?
That’s something a Protestant would have to answer, lest he be guilty of an arbitrary selection as to what the Holy Spirit accurately guides the Church in.
Here’s our second response for target #1: The logic of the argument demands an openness to the Spirit having led the Church to accurately recognize other things that pertain to divine revelation.
Recall the above principle: Christians can reasonably believe whatever the Holy Spirit leads the Church to believe. 
Well, there are other things that pertain to divine revelation that the Church came to believe—for example, baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the supreme authority of the Church of Rome, prayers for the dead, etc.
Therefore, according to the above principle, Christians can reasonably believe these teachings, too, along with the teaching as to which Jewish and Christians writings are inspired.
But this creates a problem for Protestants who reject these doctrines. Such Protestants would have to either give up their argument that they accept the canon of Scripture on account of the testimony of the people of God or say a Christian can reasonably believe these doctrines, like the canon of Scripture.
Now, if a Protestant says the Spirit didn’t guide the early Church concerning these issues, and that’s why the early Christians erred, then we’re back to the question, “How do you know?” What testimony are you relying on to know that the Holy Spirit wasn’t leading the Church in teaching these doctrines?
Again, a Protestant must answer this question lest he arbitrarily select which teachings the Church got right and which ones it got wrong.
What about target #2—the fallible discernment by the people of God?
The first thing we can say is that this view, at least as articulated by Sproul and Ortlund, focuses on discerning “infallible authority” when the argument should focus on “inspiration.”
Sproul and Ortlund are correct in saying that fallible creatures can recognize infallible authority. We do this with Christ and his apostles.
We rightly recognize Jesus as having infallible authority because he vindicated his claims through the miraculous, and he gave such authority over to his apostles, commanding them to speak on his behalf. And given this authority, the apostles’ writings take on the very same infallible character, which would allow us, who are fallible, to have a collection of infallible books.
But infallible authority is not what the Church was after throughout its years of discernment as to what constituted Jewish and Christian scriptures. The Church wasn’t trying to discern whether Old Testament prophets and Christ’s apostles were infallible teachers with divine authority. That was already believed. Rather, the Church was discerning what was inspired—that’s to say, which Jewish and Christian writings had God as their primary author.
And for that, you do need an infallible testimony, whether God himself or a voice to speak on behalf of God, to tell us what God has authored, lest you’re left with a mere subjective guess as to what Scripture is.
Our second response to target #2, and perhaps the most important, is that if Protestants acknowledge that the Church erred in its judgment concerning the deuterocanonical books, then that means the Church could have erred in its judgment about those books that Protestants do accept to be God’s word. And with that potential error come grave consequences for a Protestant who adheres to sola scriptura.
Jimmy Akin <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/a-daily-defense-365-days-plus-one-to-becoming-a-better-apologist/">states</a> the problem this way:
<blockquote>If there is the possibility that books have been included in Scripture that shouldn’t be there—and multiple books were in doubt in the early centuries—then the foundations of Protestant theology are uncertain. False elements may have been introduced into data it rests upon, with potentially grave consequences. Similarly, if some inspired books were left out of the Protestant canon, important data would be missing, again with potentially grave consequences. Determining, precisely and with certainty, what belongs in Scripture is thus a critical priority for sola scriptura.</blockquote>
Now, a Protestant, following Sproul, might say the Church, although subject to error, didn’t in fact err in its judgment about the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. But again, how would he know that? What is the measure by which he measures the Church’s judgment to be in fact accurate in these cases? Again, a Protestant would have to answer these questions lest he be guilty of arbitrary selection.
In the end, I don’t think this route, taken by Godfrey, Ortlund, and Sproul, is favorable for a Protestant. If it’s safe to trust the people of God’s discernment of the New Testament canon, then it’s also safe to trust their discernment in other things—like the forty-six-book Old Testament canon and other revealed doctrines that many Protestants reject.
And if the discernment is fallible, then there’s a real possibility they were mistaken concerning the twenty-seven books of the New Testament and the thirty-nine books in a Protestant’s Old Testament canon. Such a margin of error is not a good foundation on which to build a belief that involves looking to those same books as your sole infallible rule of faith.

The Two-Pronged Protestant Dilemma

<div>Did the idea of infants with original sin come only from the early West and from St. Augustine?</div><div>No. It comes from divine revelation and is found clearly in Sacred Scripture. There is, admittedly, a different theological approach to the matter in East and West, but the doctrine is substantially the same. St. Augustine reflected on original, or ancestral, sin extensively and profoundly, and his treatment of this teaching has been by far the most influential in the theology of the Church.
This being said, certain of the Eastern Fathers treat of it as well, such as St. John Damascene, St. Maximos the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and others. It is important not to pay too much heed to the dichotomizing approach of some Eastern thinkers today who make far too much of the difference of approaches. Eastern theology tends to emphasize personal ascetical struggle, and Western the universal fallen state of man. These are complementary, not contradictory, perspectives.
</div>

Where Did the Idea of Infants with Original Sin Come From?

There are a lot of problems facing Catholicism today, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why some people think the epitome of those problems resides in evangelists like Bishop Barron or Scott Hahn. If you talk to more liberal Catholics, they will criticize Hahn for endorsing some of the writings of Bishop Joseph Strickland and say that, because of this friendly endorsement, Hahn has now aligned himself with the “anti-Francis” wing of the Church. Bishop Barron likewise is considered insensitive or even racist for his opposition to modern wokeism.
But on the other side of the spectrum, more traditionalist Catholics say these two “aren’t Catholic enough”. They might criticize Hahn for not taking a more strident position in “the liturgy wars” or Bishop Barron because of his view that it is reasonable to hope (even if incredibly unlikely) that all people will be saved.
My take? These men aren’t perfect, and I don’t agree with all of their views (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/what-is-hopeful-universalism">I’ve even addressed</a> Bishop Barron’s view on salvation). But they have done more than almost anybody at either end of the theological spectrum to preach the Gospel and encourage people to become Catholic. To overly criticize them and fail to acknowledge the good they’ve done makes the perfect the enemy of the good.
I’ve also noticed a double standard in criticism of these men—especially from among liberal Catholics.
They will say Bishop Barron or Scott Hahn aren’t worth promoting or emulating because of their support of controversial figures like Jordan Peterson or Bishop Strickland. They unleash a rigid <a href="https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Ad-Hominem-Guilt-by-Association">guilt by association</a> that says Barron and Hahn should be held accountable for the more controversial opinions of figures they support.
But when their favorite liberal Catholics affirm pro-abortion politicians and dissenters who reject Church teaching on sexuality, we are supposed to be charitable and find nuance. They are “building bridges” and aren’t culpable for things other people say who they are trying to “accompany.” For example, when <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/pope-francis-thanks-new-ways-ministry-recent-correspondence">Pope Francis sends letters of appreciation to New Ways Ministry</a> he is just affirming their love for people who identify as LGBT, not <a href="https://www.usccb.org/news/2010/usccb-president-clarifies-status-new-ways-ministry">the group’s dissent against Church teaching.</a>
Give me a break.
If you’re going to demand absolute purity and use guilt-by-association tactics to achieve that goal, then fairness demands you apply that standard to any Catholic—liberal or conservative. Of course, it’d be more fair to just evaluate honestly when someone is doing good, where they come up short, and whether their affiliation with someone who seems (at least to some people) to be at odds with Church teaching and practice is problematic or just a tempest in a teapot.
If we always find excuses to criticize or tear down popular evangelists because they aren’t perfect, we won’t have evangelists we can support until our Lord returns—and by then evangelism will be too late. We can respectfully point out flaws in their approaches while still affirming the good they generally accomplish.

Scott Hahn, Bishop Barron, and Guilt by Association

The Book of Acts does not tell us the full story of early Church history. It provides only partial information.
This is obvious from the fact that it covers just the period between A.D. 33 and 60, when it suddenly stops (providing us an important clue to when it was written). Even within that time frame, though, it is only a partial record.
For example, the book of Acts tracks the activities of basically three individuals:
<ul>
<li>Peter (chapters 1-6, 9-12)</li>
<li>Philip the Evangelist (chapter 8)</li>
<li>Paul (chapters 9, 11, 13-28)</li>
</ul>
This gives us a big clue about who Luke’s main sources were in composing the book—at least for those parts that he didn’t personally witness, which are found in the so-called “we” passages later in the book, where Luke describes what “we” did.
Luke tells us almost nothing of the activities of the other apostles, or of other Christians, and so the book is also incomplete in that way.
It does not even give us a complete record of what its main figures did:
<ul>
<li>Peter vanishes from the narrative after chapter 12, except for a brief reappearance in chapter 15.</li>
<li>Philip has only a single chapter devoted to his activities.</li>
<li>And, as we will see, Acts does not record many of the activities of Paul.</li>
</ul>
Some time ago, I did a study of the flow of time in the book of Acts. Periodically, Luke will provide time cues, saying that Paul spent three years in Ephesus (20:31) or that he stayed in Thessalonica for three weeks (17:1-2) or that they sailed from Mitylene and the next day arrived at Chios (20:14-15).
As a Bible chronology geek, I couldn’t resist going through the book of Acts and making a list of all the explicit time cues—as well as providing estimates for the  implicit ones (e.g., when Paul goes from one place to another and we can estimate how long it took based on ancient travel times and methods) and the vague ones (e.g., if Luke says Paul spent “many days” somewhere, I might reckon that as a month).
I wanted to add all these up and see if they fit within the chronological framework that the book covers as a whole. Could all of the activities ascribed to Paul have taken place in the years within the book that he was active?
The good news, from an apologetic perspective, is that they did. Acts appears to cover a period of twenty-seven years (A.D. 33 to 60), but my time estimates for the events it mentions came to only thirteen years in total.
That means that there is plenty of room in the twenty-seven years that the book covers for all of the events Luke records—and more! So Luke passes that test as a historian. He does not give us an impossible chronology. But he also does not give us a complete chronology.
We know that the record is incomplete because of the information recorded in Paul’s letters. For example, in 2 Corinthians, there is a famous passage where Paul is so frustrated with some of the people at Corinth that he has an epistolary meltdown, and he says some very interesting things about what he has done in his life. When comparing himself to his opponents, Paul writes:
<blockquote>Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.
Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.
Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure (11:23-27).</blockquote>
So here are the totals:
<ul>
<li>Forty lashes minus one from the Jews: 5</li>
<li>Beaten with rods: 3</li>
<li>Stoned: 1</li>
<li>Shipwrecked: 3</li>
<li>Adrift at sea for a night and a day: 1</li>
</ul>
How many of these does Luke record in the book of Acts? Exactly two.
The thing is, 2 Corinthians was written some time between A.D. 55 and 57, depending on which chronology you accept. No matter what, though, it was written before Paul went to Jerusalem for the final time, because in 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 he tells the Corinthians to be ready to make donations so that he can take them to the Jerusalem church when he makes his final visit.
That trip is already underway—and he has already passed the city of Corinth—by Acts 20:5-6. We know this because in that passage, Paul is in Troas—a city to the east of Corinth. Therefore, 2 Corinthians had to be written before this point on his final journey to Jerusalem, and so what is found in 2 Corinthians must have happened before Acts 20:5.
This means that all the perils Paul mentioned above must have occurred before this point in Acts.
But only two such perils are mentioned by Luke. One is the stoning at Lystra that occurs in Acts 14:19. This is the single stoning that Paul mentions in his list. (Another stoning, at Iconium, was attempted in 14:5, but it apparently fell through because Paul mentions being stoned only once.)
The second is in Acts 16:22-37, where Paul is beaten with rods at Philippi. That’s likely one of the three beatings he refers to in 2 Corinthians.
But these are the only events in 2 Corinthians that can be referred to in Acts.
There must, therefore, be two other beatings with rods. They happened during the period that Acts covers, but they are not mentioned in Acts.
In addition, all five of the times that Paul received the “forty lashes minus one” from the Jews are not mentioned in Acts.
Nor are the three times he was shipwrecked, because the only shipwreck mentioned is in Acts 27, which is after his final journey to Jerusalem and thus after 2 Corinthians was written.
Furthermore, when that shipwreck occurs, Paul and his companions ran the ship aground in a bay of the island of Malta (27:44-28:1). They do not spend a night and a day in the sea. That must refer to an earlier event.
There are several other events mentioned in Paul’s letters that aren’t found in Acts. Some of these are in the pastoral epistles (1-2 Timothy, Titus), but these letters likely were written after the book of Acts closed.
This is not the case, however, for events found in Galatians, which was clearly written during the time period covered by Acts.
An example is the fifteen-day visit Paul made to Jerusalem, where he saw only Peter and James the Lord’s brother (Gal. 1:18-19). That’s not in Acts.
Neither is the much more consequential visit that Peter (Cephas) made to Antioch while Paul was staying there. There were fireworks between the two during this meeting (Gal. 2:11-16), but Luke does not mention it in Acts.
We thus see that Acts is not just a limited record of a few key figures (Peter, Phillip, and Paul). It is restricted even in what it records about all of these three. Undoubtedly, each did many more things than are recorded in Acts.
In particular, Paul experienced many things that aren’t mentioned in the book even though they fell in the period it covers.
Why didn’t Luke record them? In some cases, he may not have wanted to because he didn&#8217;t want to distract the reader from his overall message. For example, if he included Paul&#8217;s rebuke of Peter at Antioch, it could have distracted from the fundamental agreement (present both in Acts and Galatians) between Peter and Paul.
In other cases, Luke may not have known about the event. He wasn’t by Paul’s side during the whole time of his ministry. Indeed, the first “we” passage doesn’t occur until Acts 16:10-17, so there was a lot of Paul’s ministry that Luke didn’t witness.
Paul may have recounted some of them to Luke, though, just as he did for the readers of 2 Corinthians. So why wouldn’t Luke include those?
Likely, because they would have been too repetitive for his own readers. Recording five lashings, three beatings with rods, and three shipwrecks before we get to the one in chapter 27 could be seen as overkill.
It also could have taken more space than Luke felt he had available to him if he were going to keep Acts approximately the same length as his Gospel, which was the length of a typical scroll.
Luke thus may have had good reasons for not recording everything that happened to Paul. Still, it would be fascinating to know more.

What Acts Leaves Out

My problem with theism is whether God exists or not. How do you know your religion is the right one? Are all religions valid? Why is it important to worship God if God exists? Can&#8217;t you live a virtuous life without expecting a divine reward? Why would the existence of God imply an afterlife? 
See? There are too many plot holes in Christian lore for me.
If you’re confronted with a barrage like this (as I recently was), here is the first thing to consider: are these problems or questions? Should we think of questions as problems?
If so, then it’s difficult to make the case that theism or Christianity has any more problems than any other worldview. We could ask countless questions about a non-religious, naturalist perspective. (Naturalism is just a philosophically developed form of atheism, which denies the existence of God.) For instance:
<ul>
<li>How do qualitative experiences arise from unconscious physical matter?</li>
<li>How does directedness (in thought, behaviors of organisms, etc.) emerge in a world presumably devoid of purpose at the foundational level?</li>
<li>How does the principle of indifference, the basic philosophical assumption of atheism, ultimately lead to such marvelously complex and well-integrated structures?</li>
<li>How do things even continue to exist at all if they rest on an indifferent foundation? Why don’t things just descend into chaos or vanish entirely?</li>
<li>How do particles amount to meaning?</li>
<li>Where do moral obligations come from in a world produced by various combinations of atoms and Darwinian forces?</li>
</ul>
I think all the above are simply questions—some quite puzzling—but still merely questions. And naturalists might even have (somewhat) decent answers for some of them. So I don’t think much ground is gained simply by throwing rhetorical questions around. Both sides can generate such questions ad infinitum.
A problem, on the other hand, is something that creates a tension between commitments. A classic example is the problem of evil: If God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, then why is there so much suffering in the world? Although this issue is often framed as a question, it clearly reveals a tension among the three commitments. It’s not just seeing how things fit together, but seeing things that (probably) don’t fit together. (Of course, I think that is wrong: I think <a href="https://amzn.to/3AIFbnO">God and suffering can fit</a>.)
Now, to each of the proposed “plot holes.”
1. How do we know God exists?Many philosophers, including myself, believe we have some strong arguments for the existence of God. Not everyone agrees, but surely everyone can investigate these arguments for themselves and see which, if any, he finds convincing. Aside from what I present in my book, here are some of my favorite arguments either for God or against the explanatory adequacy of naturalism:
<ul>
<li>Pruss’s contingency argument (found in <a href="https://amzn.to/3Moz7Dx">this volume</a>)</li>
<li>Koon’s first cause argument (found in <a href="https://amzn.to/3MozcHl">this volume</a>)</li>
<li>Pearce’s <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/PEAFGA">grounding argument</a>(updated <a href="https://amzn.to/4cLKvEr">here</a>)</li>
<li>Aquinas’s <a href="https://amzn.to/3XmIDxi">existence argument</a></li>
<li>Ross’s <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriality.pdf">immaterial intellect argument</a></li>
<li>Haldane’s <a href="https://amzn.to/3T6IJGO">prime thinker argument</a></li>
<li>Rasmussen’s <a href="https://amzn.to/3AIzc2o">arbitrary limits argument</a>.</li>
</ul>
I could name more. Some of these are stronger than others, but altogether . . . man. I just really do find the case for theism convincing, especially if we thinks the above thinkers have something halfway decent to say about the problem of suffering.
2. Why is it important to worship God if God exists?Presumably because God (as <a href="https://chroniclesofstrength.substack.com/p/why-classical-theism-isnt-just-about">classical theists</a> understand God) would be identical to the Good itself, and we are, by nature, made to know what is ultimately true and love what is ultimately good. Worship—part of our right relationship with God—is naturally perfective of us, since it is good for us (a matter of justice) to give others what they are due. If God exists, then he is due worship, since God not only is supremely good, but also gives to us every good thing we have entirely gratuitously, every ounce of our existence. We could not flourish without this appropriate relationship to God, any more than we could flourish without friendship in general.
Notice that this question concerns philosophical anthropology—the nature of the human person—as much as it concerns the philosophy of God.
3. How do you know your religion is the right one?Again, there are arguments!
For me, Catholicism is cumulatively evidenced through Church history, the lives of the saints, and hard-to-refute miracle accounts like Fatima. It also aligns with my philosophy of God, philosophical anthropology, and ethical considerations—the Incarnation and Atonement, the Catholic understanding of justification and sanctification, and Catholic sacramental theology. It all just makes a lot of sense to me, especially given my background philosophical beliefs, but I won’t get into all of that now.
Are these arguments good? Everyone has to assess them for himself. But this is important: just because God exists, that doesn’t mean any particular religion is true. Perhaps some religion is true (I think so!), but that is a separate, though importantly related, question. Many people accept belief in the existence of God through certain arguments but remain unconvinced of the truth of any specific religion. Mortimer Adler, one of my favorite thinkers, became a convinced theist some forty years before he became a convinced Catholic in his nineties.
Another point: People disagree about many things aside from religion. How do you know your politics is the right one? Your system of morality? Your epistemology (theory of knowledge)? I don’t think we want to say that just because there is disagreement, even widespread disagreement, there isn’t truth to be found. That’s a little too nihilistic for me!
4. Can’t you live a virtuous life without expecting a divine reward?Yes. But this is a simplistic view of the Christian moral life and afterlife. The beatific vision is about attaining moral perfection as a necessary condition for union with God (the Good) itself, not about receiving an unlimited number of candy bars. Heaven is the realization of our terminal freedom—freedom for excellence, perfected in virtue, in loving union with God—through our fallible freedom of choice in cooperation with God’s grace.
5. Why would the existence of God imply an afterlife?The afterlife is more implied by studying the nature of the human person and trying to answer whether there is an aspect of us that is 1) immaterial and 2) immortal.
This question is more related to modern issues in the philosophy of mind than in the philosophy of God. Nevertheless, on the assumption of theism and in light of the problems of sin and evil, many philosophers believe that the existence of God does imply an afterlife as a matter of justice, since God, being perfectly just, could not leave things as they are on this side of death. Notice that this is a probable consequence of the theistic theory, though it also receives, I think, significant evidence from other sources as well, like near-death experiences.
Obviously, this article is just a sketch. If nothing else, I hope it highlights two things. First, these questions are good, but they are also unoriginal. Unoriginality isn’t necessarily bad—we often ask the same or very similar questions as those who came before us. However, this should encourage some humility, as many others—often very intelligent people—have grappled with these questions and offered serious answers.
So we shouldn’t stop at simply having questions, because questions aren’t problems. They are opportunities for investigation—and, possibly, to discover truth.

5 Plot Holes for God

<div>May a woman donate her eggs?</div><div>I assume you are referring to a woman donating her egg cells (also called ova) for reproductive purposes and not to someone donating the kind of eggs you buy at a grocery store to someone who is hungry. The answer is that human egg cells may not be donated for reproductive purposes. The <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM">Catechism of the Catholic Church</a> states:
<blockquote>Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child&#8217;s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses&#8217; &#8220;right to become a father and a mother only through each other&#8221; (CCC 2376).</blockquote>
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Is It Permissible to Donate Human Eggs?

As lax as our culture is when it comes to sex, it still sees consent as a necessary condition for appropriate sexual behavior. But is consent the only moral criterion for evaluating sexual behavior? In this Ready Reasons video, Karlo explains why it’s not.
Transcript:
As crazy as our culture is when it comes to sex, it still sees consent as a necessary condition for appropriate sexual behavior. And this is a good that we must rejoice in.
But is consent the only moral criterion for evaluating sexual behavior? Here are some reasons why it’s not.
First, we don’t buy this ethical principle when it comes to other behaviors. Take self-injury, for example. We don’t think a so-called transabled person is morally justified in having a doctor render her paraplegic just because she consents to it. That someone says “yes” to cannibalism, as in the case of Armin Meiwes, doesn’t make cannibalism morally permissible.
We’re repulsed at such behaviors because we recognize that they’re bad, and thus should be avoided. But notice that consent is not driving that moral evaluation. What’s in the driver seat is a more fundamental underlying moral theory that says these actions are bad and that we ought not do them.
For consent to have any moral legitimizing power, it requires a pre-existing moral standard that determines which behaviors we’re morally allowed to consent to. You might think of our consent’s moral power as being on loan. It’s currency is derived from a deeper moral standard.
Of course, what that moral standard is would need to be worked out (I claim it’s the natural moral law). But we must admit that there must be a moral framework that gives consent the power to make something morally permissible.
So, if consent has moral significance only on account of a more fundamental moral framework, then it’s futile to appeal to consent alone in establishing the moral permissibility of sexual acts. It’s seeking moral power where no moral power can be found.
If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com.
For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.

Is Consent Alone Sufficient for Evaluating Sexual Behavior?

Jimmy Akin explains why the Church began encouraging more laypeople to explain and defend the faith, and discusses how we can judge whether someone is giving us a good answer.
Transcript:
Host: We go to Dave in Cincinnati, Ohio listening on Sacred Heart Radio. Dave, you are on with Jimmy Akin.
Caller: Thank you very much, hello Jimmy. I beg your indulgence with a short background here but I don&#8217;t want to send the wrong impression with the question. I am a life-long Evangelical, and I am seriously considering a conversion. I&#8217;ve been listening to a lot of <a href="https://www.ewtn.com">EWTN</a> because I spend a lot of time in the car, I listen to you repeatedly, I listen to a lot of Al Kresta, and the point is, I find a great deal of clarity in the answers, I go and I research them in the Scripture. I&#8217;m getting more and more confident about the conversion, but there are a number of issues that really are&#8211;they&#8217;re difficult changes for me as an Evangelical.
Here comes the question: I&#8217;m really surprised by the fact that that many of you, who are presenting the official Catholic answers to our questions, are not priests. And my mind frequently says, &#8220;Okay, if I rely on these answers and I then make a conversion, then I get myself involved in the Church and I find from priests that I&#8217;m getting different answers, I don&#8217;t go through that experience.&#8221; And so I guess the upshot to my question is, why are there so many non-priests addressing these questions? And what can I rely on here to know that you guys represent the official Catholic positions on these answers?
Jimmy: Okay, well, so ideally a priest would give you the correct official answer on everything, and that&#8217;s something that&#8217;s been true ever since the Old Testament. I mean, one of the things it says in the Old Testament is that the lips of the priest should guard knowledge. And so they, priests even back then, had a teaching function. But the very fact that the Old Testament points out that this is what should happen means that it doesn&#8217;t always happen, and so you don&#8217;t want to rely overly much on the fact that somebody is a priest. God willing, they&#8217;re going to give you great answers.
Also, though, you don&#8217;t have to be a minister in order to give good answers. That&#8217;s something we see also from both Testaments in Scripture; it talks about how in the Old Testament, people would urge others to know the Lord, even though they weren&#8217;t priests. Similarly in the New Testament, when you have someone who actually was functioning as a kind of minister, Apollos, who initially preached accurately about Jesus, but knew the baptism of John only, and so we had an incomplete knowledge of Jesus and his message; Priscilla and Aquila, who were not ministers, took him aside, and Priscilla being a woman, especially, was not a priest, but it points out that they took Apollos aside and gave him additional education in the message of Jesus and helped him grow in his knowledge of the Christian message. And so you don&#8217;t have to be a priest in order to accurately teach the Christian faith.
In terms of why there are so many folks who are non-ministers who are participating in the teaching of God&#8217;s Word in Catholic circles these days, it&#8217;s for a couple reasons: the fundamental one is that the Church, a number of decades ago, began specifically urging the laity to take on a greater role in promoting the Christian faith, in promoting who was&#8211;in the language of the time, was called the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-is-the-lay-apostolate">apostolate</a>. So the Church has this apostolic work to be done, and it urged laypeople to get involved in that because there aren&#8217;t and never have been enough priests to reach the world with the message of Jesus. It takes the cooperation of all people to do that effectively, and so the Church wanted laity to not just sit back and say, &#8220;You know, that&#8217;s a job for priests, so I&#8217;m going to leave it to them,&#8221; they wanted everybody actively engaged.
Now of course that does mean understanding the teaching of the Church and communicating it accurately. And precisely because I&#8217;m not a priest, I know I don&#8217;t have a clerical collar that people are going to defer to me on the basis of, you know, so I have to be really sure I&#8217;m right when I say stuff, and that means I take special pains to make sure that I&#8217;m accurately representing the Church&#8217;s teaching, I study constantly, I study the Church&#8217;s official documents constantly, I parse them very carefully. Sure, I&#8217;ll make mistakes sometimes, and I own up to that and I correct them when I find them. But, precisely because I&#8217;m not a priest, I take special pains to make sure that people can trust what I say, because otherwise I would just be subverting and destroying the ministry I&#8217;m trying to engage in. I want to be effective for Christ, and that means, you know, doing my homework and being right.
But how do you know I&#8217;m right? Well, the ultimate way to check is by checking up on me, looking at the Church&#8217;s official documents. Now you&#8217;ll want to be careful, because sometimes I&#8217;ll be saying &#8220;This is the teaching of the Church,&#8221; but also you&#8217;ll hear me say, like I did earlier today in the question about predestination, said &#8220;There are different options here,&#8221; and I said, &#8220;Some people have proposed this as an idea.&#8221; Well there, I&#8217;m not saying the Church teaches this; I&#8217;m saying &#8220;This is one option.&#8221;
And so in addition to checking up on that, in addition to checking up on what the Church&#8217;s official documents say, you can also go and look at reputable theologies, books of theology, that go beyond just what the official teaching is into the different ideas that have been proposed. Because there&#8217;s a difference between &#8220;doctrine,&#8221; which is what the Church actually teaches&#8211;that&#8217;s what the word &#8220;doctrine&#8221; means, is &#8220;teaching&#8211;&#8221; and &#8220;theology,&#8221; which is seeking to understand the teaching.
And so I would say, check me out. Look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that&#8217;s probably your first, best resource. Look at in the other documents at <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html">Vatican.va</a>, the different encyclicals and audiences of the popes, the documents published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Read reputable Catholic theologies by Orthodox Catholic theologians, like Joseph Ratzinger or Avery Dulles or people like that. Those are the people who are informing my thought, and that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m trying to convey to people in general when they ask questions.

Why Does Catholic Answers Allow Laypeople to Be Apologists?

<div>Is singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet allowed on Good Friday?</div><div>The classic time to begin reciting the Divine Mercy Chaplet novena <a href="http://www.marian.org/divinemercy/story.php?NID=2576&amp;title=Tips-for-Divine-Mercy-Sunday">is Good Friday</a>. And, in any event, the Church does not prohibit the Chaplet’s being sung on Good Friday. Indeed, hymns are otherwise sung during the Church’s official Good Friday liturgy.
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Is It OK to Sing Divine Mercy Chaplet on Good Friday?

The Summer Olympics open today in Paris, with a flotilla along the Seine reported to be replacing the traditional parade of nations into the main stadium. Very bold, very French. And this is before we get to the entertainment, which is always avante-garde no matter what country it’s in.
Another Olympic tradition seems to be popular cynicism. By the time we reach the opening ceremonies, the advertiser hype has already been cranked up for a year and the networks have been hard at work pre-curating our viewing experience. (It’s not enough for the Olympics to showcase elite international athletic competition—they have to create Memories that Will Last Forever and canonize a new crop of household heroes, every night at 9:38 p.m., live on tape.) And it wouldn’t be an Olympic year without fresh cheating and judging scandals that mar the purity of the Olympic ideal.
For Catholics, it seems like the Olympic ideal itself might suffer under scrutiny. Were not the modern Games, originated in 1896, based on competitions in ancient <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/is-catholicism-pagan">pagan</a> Greece, with their very name taken from the mountain where Zeus &amp; co. lived? Is not the conceit of the Games’ supposed transcendent ability to unite peoples a weak imposture of the only thing that can so unite them: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-does-catholic-mean">Christ and his universal Church?</a>
I would say to both: yes, kind of. Certainly, the lore of the modern Olympics reaches back to ancient predecessors, who were pagan. And you can detect a hint of something quasi-religious about the glorification of athletic bodies (ever-more-immodestly clad with each iteration!) and about the idolization of sport as global Redeemer and Savior.
That said, I don’t think Catholics need to frown on the Olympics or avoid watching them (though I recommend skipping beach volleyball, or at least squinting heavily). In fact, there is much in this biannual festival for Catholics to admire and support.
The ancient Olympians were pagans, but the founder of the modern Olympics, a Frenchman named Pierre de Coubertin, was a devout Catholic. He set out not to revive worship of the Greek pantheon but to recapture what was worthy in classical culture. He saw in sport not a rival religion but a substitute for war; and in the striving for athletic excellence—with neither victory nor profit first in mind but effort and sportsmanship—he saw a chance to build virtue and perfect human nature in its unity of flesh and spirit.
The Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (“Faster, Higher, Stronger”) was devised, it should therefore not surprise us to hear, by a priest of the order whose philosophers emphasized that unity: the Dominican Henri Didon.
The twentieth century gave us not just the modern Olympic phenomenon but the Church’s premier athlete-pope in John Paul II. During his papacy, the zealous soccer player and skier offered numerous official greetings and blessings to Olympic organizers and competitors and to other athletic bodies. In <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/pont_messages/1984/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19840728_inizio-olimpiadi.html">his message</a> on the opening of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, he endorsed both the virtue of athletic competition and the Olympics’ symbolic value for fostering international accord. “This great event,” he wrote,
<blockquote>has significance not only for the world of sport as the expression of friendly athletic competition and the striving for human excellence but also for the future of the human community, which through sport gives external expression to the desire of all for universal cooperation and understanding. I offer my heartiest congratulations to the men and women who are representing their countries and I hope that at this world-wide encounter they will be worthy models of peaceful harmony and human fellowship.</blockquote>
If the Olympics are pagan, they’re pagan in that grand, humanistic, admirable sense that the best of classical culture was—a sense that’s better than ninety-nine percent of the profane pablum that mean, mediocre modernity offers in its place. Despite all their imperfections, may they continue to inspire a natural standard of virtue and peace that, someday, grace may perfect in human hearts.

Are the Olympics Pagan?

Episode 91: Year B &#8211; 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we focus on the Gospel reading for this upcoming 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, which is the exchange that Jesus has with the Jews concerning his command to eat his flesh. The passage is taken from John 6:51-58. The key apologetical topic, of course, is the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.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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Push Back on the Real Presence of the Eucharist

<div>Why does God allow babies to die from illness and miscarriages to happen?</div><div>Miscarriages and infant deaths are indeed great tragedies. Because of our first parents’ original sin (CCC 390ff.), suffering and death came into the world. And death comes to some sooner than others, including those preborn infants who die via miscarriages and those born infants and other babies who die from illness or other tragic means.
And yet God does not abandon us in our contracted original sin and personally committed sins. He doesn’t let sin, suffering and death have the last word. Instead, he sent his eternal Son to redeem and save us (see John 3:16-17). Indeed, God wants to save everyone, including preborn children who are miscarried and babies who die not long after birth (CCC 1257-61; John 3:16-17; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).
In addition, through his one redemptive Sacrifice of the Cross, Jesus also shows how suffering can be redemptive. Similarly, though he does not actively will our sufferings, he can permit them so as to bring about a greater good (see Rom. 2:28), namely our holiness and eternal salvation, and helping foster the same for others, who may have experienced similar tragedies. In the end, we must always remember that death does not have the last word, and that earth is not our lasting home.
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Why Does God Allow Miscarriages and Infant Deaths?

Many critics of Church Tradition argue that it is an ambiguous concept, one that lacks clear definition. Protestants often use this perceived lack of clarity as a justification for embracing <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/sola-scriptura-doesnt-work/">sola scriptura</a>. However, this perspective oversimplifies the nature and role of Tradition in the Church. I aim to demonstrate why this view is misguided and to offer a more nuanced understanding of Tradition&#8217;s place in Christian theology.
The two questions that we should ask are “What is Tradition?” and “How do we know what it is?” For the first question, Tradition (uppercase T) is the infallible interpretation of the Bible. Some Catholics believe that there are some Apostolic Traditions that are not found implicitly or explicitly, but that isn’t as common of a belief. This isn’t to be confused with tradition (lowercase t), which isn’t infallible and comprises just traditions that the Church has established over time.
Therefore, Tradition would include things that are obvious in Scripture (that Jesus is God) as well as things others would argue are not as explicit, like the idea that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/what-the-early-church-believed-baptismal-regeneration">baptism is regenerative</a> or that Christians can <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/sp/can-christians-lose-their-salvation">lose their salvation</a>.
Knowing this, we can think about how some challenges to Tradition don’t work. For example, in a debate on sola scriptura, Gavin Ortlund, a Protestant scholar, in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7qdPSHSJk&amp;t=2904s">his opening statement</a> asked the audience to give a list of Apostolic Traditions. This is an impossible challenge, as someone would need to give a list of everything in the Bible, as well as all the other Traditions that are not explicitly in the Bible.
The next question that would need to be answered would be “How do we know what Tradition is?” There are a few ways we could do this, but one of the best-known ways is by looking to the consensus of the Church Fathers. One father could have something wrong, but it would be difficult to say that the majority, or that a consensus, of Fathers got something wrong, especially since this is the reason we know what <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/special-pleading-for-a-protestant-bible">the Bible consists of</a>.
Likewise, this consensus is the main reason that we know that baptism is regenerative and that Christians can lose their salvation. Both of these beliefs were <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/baptism-is-logically-necessary">unanimously believed</a> by the early Fathers, and this is why they are a part of Tradition. Because of this widespread consensus, it would be pretty hard to argue that these beliefs are incorrect. A heretical belief would have to infiltrate not only some churches, but all churches, without anyone opposing the idea. How exactly would that work? I’m not sure, but it would be immensely difficult.
This is also the main reason that Catholics and Orthodox believe that these Traditions are infallible. By proving that these Traditions had a great consensus in the <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-early-church-was-the-catholic-church-softcover/">early Church</a>, we can prove they came from Jesus, making them infallible.
There are several objections that one might make to this idea of Tradition. For sake of time, I’ll go over only a couple. The first objection would be that Tradition is ambiguous, and that because of this, we should believe in sola scriptura. Gavin Ortlund made this exact argument in his opening statement, referenced earlier. Ortlund argued that Tradition is ambiguous and that we can see this by looking at the early Church, whose members disagreed as early as the second century on the date of Easter.
This is historically accurate, but it is not a huge blow to the Catholic position. Just because there are certain Traditions that aren’t clear, that wouldn’t mean that Tradition as a whole is just a wash. That would be like saying that because there was controversy over books like Revelation, the Bible as a whole, including books like the Gospel of John, which did not have controversy, should be dismissed. In other words, just because some traditions (like the date of Easter) are unclear, this would not mean that other Traditions such as baptismal regeneration should be dismissed. Jesus knew that some Traditions would not be as clear, so he created a Church to settle disputes.
This brings me to my second objection. Some will argue that Catholics do not believe in Tradition as a final rule of faith, but only that the Church is a final rule. Here is James White defining <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/VAw5fJZN8hs?si=Z8Q2XBGfhejh8c1E">this idea</a>: “The church defines what Scripture is, what Scripture says, what Tradition is, what Tradition says.”
This argument is made quite often, and it lacks a lot of nuances, but I can’t go over all of it in one article. In any case, one reason that this argument doesn’t work is that Pope Francis cannot just make up a new Tradition. Even Traditions that White argues have no bearing in the early Church, like the assumption of Mary, have writings to support them <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-the-early-church-believe-in-marys-assumption">going back to around 350 A.D.</a>
Another reason this argument fails is that Pope Francis would not be able to contradict previous Apostolic Tradition. If Pope Francis were to come out tomorrow and say, “I declare that baptism no longer saves,” he would be attempting nullify the Church’s claims to papal infallibility, since this Tradition is extremely clear in the early Church. The pope is not above Apostolic Tradition.
To summarize: Everyone can read the Bible and recognize that Jesus is God. However, sometimes, Scripture is unclear or can be read incorrectly. In many of these scenarios, we can look back at the early Church and see what they believed to get an interpretation. This is called Tradition. Then, if both Scripture and Tradition are unclear, we can go to the Church and ask the Magisterium to give an infallible declaration. Therefore, the Catholic paradigm is not “sola ecclesia,” where the Church makes all of the decisions. Rather, it is a three-legged stool, with Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium all playing important roles.
In conclusion, the concept of Church Tradition is far more nuanced and significant than its critics often acknowledge. Although some may perceive it as ambiguous, Tradition serves as a vital complement to Scripture, offering clarity where ambiguity might exist. It represents the infallible interpretation of the Bible, rooted in the consensus of the early Church Fathers and preserved through centuries of Christian thought.

Tradition to a Protestant

Why Would God Create Someone to Go to Hell?

The Actual Problem with The Viking’s Male Cheerleaders

Walter M. Miller’s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz has long been a favorite of mine. In this I’m not alone: this epic story, of a post-apocalyptic world in which the Catholic Church rebuilds civilization only to watch it descend into barbarism again, has captivated millions of readers since its publication in 1959.
One passage late in the book (mild spoiler) burnished itself in my mind. A nuclear attack has destroyed a major city and left thousands of survivors poisoned by radiation. The government sets up “Mercy Camps” to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/three-questions-for-euthanasia-fans">euthanize</a> the suffering. A priest gives a ride to a young mother headed to one of the camps, intending to have her baby put out of its misery.
The priest tries to talk her out of it, but every argument he makes is deflected by the kind of sophistry and emotional appeals we would recognize in today’s culture wars. Finally, in desperation, he turns to her and says,
<blockquote>“I&#8217;m not asking you. As a priest of Christ I am commanding you by the authority of Almighty God not to lay hands on your child, not to offer her life in sacrifice to a false god of expedient mercy. I do not advise you, I adjure and command you in the name of Christ the King. Is that clear?”</blockquote>
For an instant, he expects the woman to laugh. When the Church, he thinks to himself, “occasionally hinted that she still considered her authority to be supreme over all nations and superior to the authority of states, men in these times tended to snicker.”
But the woman doesn’t laugh. Finally, she is moved, at least for the moment, not to commit the evil she had planned. It turns out that she needed, as Miller narrates, “the voice of authority now, more than she needed persuasion.”
I thought of this scene yesterday when <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-wants-make-ivf-treatments-paid-government-insurance-compani-rcna168804">former president Donald Trump announced</a>, unprovoked and apropos of nothing, that if elected to a second term he would see to it that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures are fully funded (either by insurance or government) for all who want them.
Let’s leave aside that empty campaign promises run rampant in election years, and so this could be all bluster; let’s ignore for now that this plan is a gross affront both to Catholic teaching (and thus the beliefs of Trump’s Catholic running mate) and the conventional principles of the conservatives whom Trump claims to represent. What makes me mindful of that Canticle passage is the general absence of that fictional priest’s courageous moral authority when it comes to our world and IVF.
Yes, the magisterium has laid out the Church’s <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html">teaching</a> on assisted reproductive technologies, and Pope Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed it. But on the subject of IVF there remains a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1239879602/despite-church-prohibitions-catholics-still-choose-ivf-to-have-children#:~:text=A%20Pew%20Research%20survey%20in,vitro%20fertilization%20is%20morally%20wrong.">massive gulf</a> between the Church’s moral doctrine and the views and practices of everyday Catholics. As with contraception (somewhat less so with abortion), the Church says one thing but most of the people believe and do another.
In this context, we can understand why Trump might think he has little reason to fear Catholic backlash against this new campaign promise.
I have <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-hardest-teaching-of-them-all">written before</a> about how the Church’s teaching on IVF may be the single toughest moral claim it makes. The real-life cases in which it is used are so gut-wrenching, and the human lives it produces bring so much joy, that for many people it seems impervious to bloodless theological or philosophical criticism.
The Church needs to persuade these people, certainly. Our bishops, the pastors and catechists who teach under them, and lay apostolates like Catholic Answers work to make Church teachings—especially the hard teachings—reasonable and accessible so that people in the pews may understand them and assent to them fully. This important effort continues.
But, as with the woman in the story who, despite the priest’s best efforts to change her mind with reason, can’t understand or accept why she should not take her sick child to a Mercy Camp, there are many Catholics who won’t be persuaded on IVF. And it seems to me that, for such people, our pastors need to re-discover their voice of authority.
Anecdotally, today the opposite is more common. Do you know couples whose parish priest gave them “permission” to undergo IVF, or who told them just to follow their consciences? I do. So perhaps our pastors need a stronger dose of conviction before they can start speaking with authority. The chain between the Church’s official teachings and the seminaries, universities, and academies through which that conviction is supposed to be transmitted to clergy and lay leaders needs to be strengthened for a start.
Like the priest in the book, those who invoke the Church’s supreme authority in our world should expect derisive laughter, too. The Lord spoke with authority, and they spat on him. But authority grows with use; the more our leaders are heard from, the more they will be heeded. And so I still look hopefully to a future time when politicians refrain from policies that offend Catholics because Catholics observe all the teachings of the Faith—even if it’s sometimes not by persuasion but simply by a command in the name of Christ the King.

Time to Be Stronger on IVF

<div>May the Blessed Sacrament be exposed on Good Friday?</div><div>No. Solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, which entails exposition of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/holy-communion">Holy Eucharist</a>, may not take place after midnight on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/maundy-thursday">Holy Thursday</a>. Following the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, there is a Eucharistic procession to the place of repose, such as the parish hall. <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html">The Roman Missal </a>provides that “the faithful are invited to continue adoration before the Blessed Sacrament for a suitable length of time during the night, according to local circumstances, but after midnight the adoration should take place without solemnity” (The Roman Missal, “Thursday of the Lord’s Supper,” no. 43, emphasis added).
This means that the Blessed Sacrament is then reposed in a safe place outside of the parish church, typically the parish rectory (where the parish priest resides).
Because our attention is focused first on Our Lord’s passion and death on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/good-friday">Good Friday</a>, no solemn adoration takes place that day, nor on Holy Saturday until after the Easter Vigil. Some parishes choose to resume perpetual adoration on Easter morning, instead of right after the Easter Vigil, but there is no specific Church legislation on that matter.
</div>

May the Blessed Sacrament Be Exposed on Good Friday?

<div>Is it true that there was a time when only bishops are allowed to validly celebrate the Eucharist? If yes, what happened that made the priests permitted to celebrate it validly? Why don’t we allow deacons also?</div><div>Yes, the period between the first Easter Sunday when only the original 11 apostles/bishops (see CCC 860-62) ministered to the time when the first priest was ordained by one of them as a priest, so that he too could offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. That period cannot be pinpointed with historical precision.
Regarding deacons and celebrating Mass, they were and are not ordained to serve as priests who offer the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, but rather as ministerial servants for the larger Christian community (see CCC 1569-71; Acts 6:1-6).
</div>

Time When Only Bishops Celebrated the Eucharist/Mass?

<div>What is the timeline between the presentation in the temple and the fleeing to Egypt?</div><div>After Jesus&#8217; circumcision, which took place on the eighth day following his birth in conformity with <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/old-testament">Old Covenant</a> law, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/mary-the-blessed-virgin">Mary</a> had to wait several more weeks before her purification concluded. Thus, forty days after Jesus&#8217; birth, Mary and Joseph presented <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/jesus-christ">Jesus</a> in the Temple (Luke 2:22-24; see Lev. 12:1-7).
Sometime thereafter the flight to Egypt took place. Because infants under two years old were slaughtered by <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/herod">King Herod</a> in his attempt to kill the Christ Child, it’s possible that Jesus could have been between the ages of one and two at the time of the Epiphany, i.e., when the magi or wise men paid homage to him (see Matt. 2:12-18).
</div>

Timeline Between Presentation in Temple and Flight to Egypt

<div>A friend went to psychic years ago. I lost touch with her. A I responsible for trying to contact her to tell her it’s a mortal sin?</div><div>You say you’ve lost contact with your friend. Do you know how to get back in contact with your friend or know someone who is likely to help you in succeeding in that request?
If you can answer one or both of those questions affirmatively, then, out of charity, it’d be good for you to let your friend know to avoid psychics and trust in God, instead of consulting problematic spirits to deal with life issues (see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htm">CCC 2115-17</a>). Yet, make sure to approach your friend with humble charity, including because it’s been a good while since you’ve last spoken (see 1 Pet. 3:15). If your friend is Catholic, encourage her to take advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation. If she’s not, encourage her to repent to God on her own.
Further, consulting a psychic is certainly, objectively, gravely wrong. However, remember that mortal sin involves two other components: full knowledge and full consent of the will (see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm">CCC 1857-61</a>). Consequently, while encouraging your friend to repent and avoid this sin, don’t presume to judge her subjective culpability.
If you are not able to contact your friend, pray for her repentance and conversion.
</div>

Should I Reprove a Friend for Consulting a Psychic?

Fr. John Hardon once said that bad Mariology leads to bad Christology. That is definitely true among those who reject calling Mary Mother of God, which comes from the more ancient title Theotokos, which means “God-bearer.”
Consider these words in a sermon from <a href="https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/90-314/exposing-the-idolatry-of-mary-worship-an-overview">the popular Protestant pastor John MacArthur</a>:
<blockquote>Roman Catholics . . . say she gave birth to God and thus is to be elevated and adored. She gave birth to God. That is a terrible misconception. She gave birth to Jesus in his humanity. She did not give birth to God. God was never born.</blockquote>
I understand how a Protestant might think God can’t be “born” if he equates birth with coming into existence, since God is eternal. But in order to understand how Mary is the mother of God, we need to define our terms.
By “God,” I mean a divine person. When Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God,” he was not saying, “My Lord and my Trinity.” Thomas was saying Jesus is a divine person—the infinite God made man. Likewise, when we say “God was born” or “God died on a cross,” we are not saying the Trinity was born or that the Trinity died on the cross, we are saying that a divine person was born and a divine person died—namely, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, who became the man Jesus of Nazareth.
By “Mother,” I mean a human who conceives, gestates, and gives birth to another person. Being the mother of God does not mean that Mary created Jesus’ divine nature, or even his human soul. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Every spiritual soul is created immediately by God—it is not ‘produced’ by the parents” (366). Instead, Mary gave the Son his human nature and cared for this divine person in her womb, just as every other human mother gives a human nature to a person, her son or daughter, who resides in her womb.
Saying Mary is the mother of God simply means that Mary conceived a person within her womb, and that person was the divine Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son. Mary also gestated that divine person in her womb as he grew and developed, and then she gave birth to that divine person, who had assumed a fully human nature.
Saying Mary is the mother of God is another way of saying that Jesus was God throughout his entire human existence. And this shows why this dogma is so important, and why it was officially proclaimed in the early Church at the Council of Ephesus. Namely, it is heretical to deny that Mary is the mother of God because, in doing that, you deny the divinity of Christ.
In the early Church, adoptionist heretics claimed that Jesus Christ was a human person who became divine later in life—at his baptism, or even at his resurrection. But this theology denies the Incarnation, or that God became man, and replaces it with the heresy that a man became God. To safeguard against this heresy, we call the Blessed Virgin Mary Theotokos, the God-bearer, or mother of God.
In response, the Protestant apologist Eric Svendsen claims in his book Evangelical Answers that “the Person of Jesus isn’t merely God, any more than the person of Jesus is merely man. Put another way, Mary gave birth to a person who is both God and man. She did not give birth to the pre-incarnate form of the Logos. It is proper to call Mary ‘the mother of Jesus,’ but not ‘the mother of God’” (106).
Sure, Mary didn’t give birth to anything “preincarnate,” because Jesus’ birth occurred after his Incarnation, when he became a human embryo in Mary’s womb. But Mary did give birth to the Word, the Logos. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” To say Jesus is a human person and a divine person can be easily twisted to say the Second Person of the Trinity, a divine person, changed in his person, at the Incarnation, to be become a composite human-divine person. But God is infinite being itself. He cannot change.
That’s why St. Cyril of Alexandria told Nestorius, “We do not say that his flesh was turned into the nature of the godhead, nor that the unspeakable Word of God was changed into the nature of the flesh. For he, the Word, is unalterable and absolutely unchangeable and remains always the same as the Scriptures say” (Third Letter to Nestorius).
A critic who denies the dogma of Mary’s divine maternity is really in a pickle. If he says Mary was only the mother of Jesus’ body or his human nature, then I would ask, “Where was the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, when Mary was pregnant with fetal Jesus?” If he says God the Son was identical to the fetus in Mary’s womb, then he has to affirm that Mary is the mother of God. If that fetus is God, and being pregnant with a human fetus means you are a mother, then Mary is the mother of God. End of discussion.

Mary as Mother Matters

If the Great Apostasy were true... then that would make Christianity false. So who is right?

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James 3:1 reminds us—those who teach the faith are held to a higher standard.

Our secular culture has a confused relationship with nature. We consider the environment a top political and personal priority, obsessing over recycling, endangered species, and rainforests and coral reefs. Yet we also seek to manipulate and overcome nature through technological advancements: transhumanism, transgenderism, genetically modifying food. We <a href="https://greenly.earth/en-us/blog/ecology-news/why-is-plastic-bad-for-the-environment">condemn plastics as evil</a>, then leverage plastic in our most intimate physical encounters to obstruct the creation of new life. We celebrate everything that is natural and organic, but we call technological control over every aspect of our reproduction a “human right.” Perhaps the fact that we lack a solid philosophical, even theological foundation upon which to create a coherent way to think about creation has something to do with these tensions and incoherencies.
That probably is what St. Thomas Aquinas would say, as Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., argues in one of the essays in his excellent new book <a href="https://www.cuapress.org/9780813237770/principles-of-catholic-theology-book-3/">Principles of Catholic Theology, Book Three: On God, Trinity, Creation, and Christ</a>. In his discussion of beauty—admittedly a surprising source of reflection for modern debates over the environment—Aquinas presents us with philosophical categories that can help us make better sense of man’s relationship with nature. And, through White’s expert analysis, what we discover is that it is the Christian understanding that best equips man to both protect and cooperate with nature.
In his Summa Theologiae and Commentary on Dionysius’s Divine Names, Aquinas observes three characteristics that define beauty in creatures: the integrity of the form, properties of proportion or harmony, and expressive splendor. Integrity refers to something’s wholeness or perfection, a thing having all proper structure or parts. Proportion or harmony means symmetry and all the parts properly proportionate to one another. Splendor is the radiance of the thing, which entices us to admire and celebrate it. Aquinas argues that these three notions can be applied analogically to speak about the beauty of God, but they also relate to our view of nature.
All created things, whether physical living realities that do not have knowledge (plants), living realities that have sensate knowledge but no rational knowledge or deliberate freedom (non-human animals), or living beings that have both sensate and rational knowledge and deliberate freedom (humans), in some way reflect something unique about the beauty of God. Every created thing exists in a hierarchical, teleological order. Non-living things (rocks, water) create a context or setting in which living things can emerge. Plants, in turn, exist for the sake of animals, and plants and animals exist for the sake of humans. Humans, finally, exist for the sake of life in community with one another and ultimately for God. White explains: “The interdependent hierarchy that emerges from differentiated kinds of beings gives rise to a larger overarching order, one that implies all three notes of beauty.”
An argument appealing to hierarchy probably strikes many as contrary to a fruitful, symbiotic relationship between man and nature. Aren’t hierarchies inherently exploitative and oppressive? White, channeling Aquinas, disagrees. Yes, it’s true that if humans exist at the top of the hierarchy of the natural order, it is legitimate for them to make use of non-living realities and non-human living things for the sake of human flourishing. Humans, after all, have an ontological dignity and nobility that is greater than all other created earthly realities because they possess a rational soul.
To deny the hierarchical differential of human beings in relation to other creatures “does nothing to advance the cause of respect for other forms of life or being,” writes White. This is because humans are best equipped to protect and preserve nature. Endangered species of sharks, for example, do not care about various endangered fish species that are part of their natural diet. They just eat them! Nature, left to itself, is a messy, deadly jungle, defined by natural selection. Only humans, because of their unique capacity for reasoning and empathy, can facilitate harmony and flourishing in our natural hierarchy.
Indeed, White argues, humans are uniquely capable of acknowledging the deeper order and its beauty and can act in ways that respect the integrity, order, and beauty of non-human realities. To wit, it was not until humans began designating species as endangered or creating nature reserves that species had a fighting chance of surviving the often brutal realities of the natural order. It’s worth remembering that there have been entire epochs of pre-human history in which large numbers of species went extinct, with no one there to mourn their departure. Humans alone express any interest in the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Humans are also singularly positioned to acknowledge the ontological integrity of non-human physical and living beings, because in their being, all those beings reflect something about the wisdom and beauty of God. “Each natural kind stems ultimately from the uncreated Logos of God and is in some way a distinctive finite expression of God’s infinite uncreated beauty,” says White. That means that as humans, we are capable of perceiving the goodness and value of creation—not as callous exploiters, but as prudent stewards. To negligently destroy an ecosystem, for example, is to harm the common good of the created order.
Within the Christian paradigm, non-human creatures exist for human beings—not only to sustain them, but as a mediating entity through which humans can discover God and live in community. Thus, to destroy parts of non-human creation is to harm the same environment intended to sustain the physical, material, intellectual, and spiritual well-being of humanity. Furthermore, to willfully harm the environment disfigures the same people who do that harm. Cruel treatment of animals, for example, not only is dishonoring to the animals, but also harms the rationality of the actor who does the harming by undermining his capability for empathy and kindness. Proper respect for nature engenders a proper respect for other humans as well.
Nor should we forget the aesthetic character of nature, as creation instills in man an admiration of beauty. For example, the careless or callous replacement of the natural order with monotonous, ugly, and even dehumanizing architecture and infrastructure doesn’t just damage creation—it also harms humans, obscuring their ability to see beauty and teaching them that creation is dispensable. “The modern world,” White observes, “is, in many respects, a world of terrific ugliness.” There’s a reason we celebrate parks, gardens, and trees even in dense urban spaces: they remind us of natural hierarchy and are even a manifestation of it.
We have examples aplenty of what happens when we ignore that natural hierarchy. If we treat nature with contempt, we vitiate our own humanity. If we elevate other creatures to be equal to, or even superior to ourselves, we undermine the proper role they are to play, similar to how worshiping a romantic partner, rather than honoring that person, reflects a warping of true love. Our obsessive focus on our pets—<a href="https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/pet-spending-statistics/">projected to be $150 billion this year</a>—in which we treat dogs and cats as humans and even children, while ignoring the immediate needs of real humans and real children, is a good example of this.
“Human beings should acknowledge the order of nature that pre-exists them precisely so as to live in the midst of nature with wisdom and aesthetic moderation,” concludes White. Having the proper philosophical understanding of our relationship with nature, it turns out, doesn’t just help us know and appreciate God. It’s actually the best means of ensuring creation’s survival and flourishing.