Manage Account

As a convert from the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jehovahs-witnesses-an-insider-perspective">Jehovah’s Witnesses</a>, I initially had several problems with the rosary. I was hesitant to address petitions to the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mary-mother-of-whom">Mother of God</a>, for one thing, and I also had reservations about repetition—at what point did they become “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/its-not-vain-to-repeat-your-prayers">vain</a>,” as warned about by Our Lord (Matt. 6:7)? With the help of Catholic Answers and other resources for converts, however, I soon overcame my trepidation and gave it a try.
Even so, it took a while for the rosary to “click.” I took much more quickly to things like lectio divina and mental prayer. Nevertheless, the tradition of the Church is filled with admonition on the importance and effectiveness of the rosary, and so I’ve tried to maintain a faithfulness to it despite my struggles.
In recent years, I feel like the sweetness of the rosary has finally started to filter into my heart, especially that of the Glorious Mysteries, which are a brilliant summation of salvation. I would like to expound upon that here.
The First Glorious Mystery is the resurrection of Christ. Apart from this being the central proof of our faith, its cosmic significance is breathtaking. The Author of Life and the Ground of Life here enters death, where disobedience and sin had plunged all creation. Think about it: we had created, with the devil’s help, something somehow “separate” from God: a space of dysfunction and decay. And in the midst of our captivity to this awful fate, seemingly untouchable by the deathless Almighty God, comes God’s masterstroke beyond our comprehension: he will follow his lost sheep wherever they have strayed, even into the abyss that exists only as a rejection of him. And what happens? Death is exploded, and Hades is emptied of its faithful prisoners. God, who was already all in all and in all places, has now, in a most wondrous, tangible way, filled his creation and triumphed over even our rejection of him. The Resurrection is the destruction of the last enemy, death (1 Cor. 15:26).
The Second Glorious Mystery is the ascension of Christ. The risen, glorified Christ, still immortally bearing his battle scars, which will remain as a precious testament to his victory, bears his triumphant humanity up through the celestial realms. He ascends in full view of the inhabitants of heaven, with a trumpet blast, heralding that the battle to end all battles is won (Ps. 47:5). He takes his seat at the right hand of God, and there enthroned inaugurates the reconciliation of heaven and earth in his own person. He has tied the cosmos back together and paved the highway to heaven. No one was there to help, least of all we. He has accomplished this himself, and in himself (Isa. 63:3-5).
The Third Glorious Mystery is the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Though accomplished in heaven, how is the marriage of heaven and earth to be realized here in our world, where darkness still reigns? As Christ said, the Helper, the Paraclete, God the Holy and Life-Giving Spirit, would be sent among us. Accordingly, though scared and confused, the rudiments of Christ’s Church were filled with courage and power that Pentecost morning.
The Holy Spirit makes real, present, and manifest the victory won by Christ on the cross for those who are still on the way. This is our access to power over death and sin; this is the antidote given to the faithful for the healing of the world. The Holy Spirit fills the Church, and her sacraments then spill like springs of water over the parched surface of the earth.
The Fourth Glorious Mystery is the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now we move into the mysteries dealing specifically with the Mother of God. They are important firstly because they reveal God’s glorious work in Mary, the human race’s greatest boast, but also because they highlight the spiritual trail she blazed for mankind as a participant in these mysteries. She, as our sinless exemplar and patroness, goes before us and then beckons us forth: into the light of sinlessness through her immaculate conception, into a share of Christ’s sufferings as Queen of Martyrs, and here as all-holy vessel of God’s grace, raised body and soul into his presence before all others. She is the prototype: flesh and blood made stainless ark of God, now saved from corruption and sharing fully in the victory of her son. Our bodies rest in hope as we similarly await the fullness of our redemption (Ps. 16:9).
The Fifth Glorious Mystery is the coronation of Our Lady as queen of heaven and earth. The mother of God is the singular vessel of devotion, the most spacious cup filled to overflowing with the gifts of God. No other mortal could ever hope to attain to her sanctity, willed so completely as it is by God. Rightly, she is given dominion as the queen mother over all creation. Yet once again she points us to the levels of participation in Christ that emanate down from his throne: those roles of priest, prophet, and king. Though she is queen of all, we will also reign. Even the least among us was called by God to dominion over some corner of creation, to tend and govern it by his permission and in his power. The realization of our salvation is also the realization of this lofty charge to tenderly shepherd that which is under our care. The fifth mystery points us toward the final manifestation of the power unlocked by Christ for us in his cross and resurrection: authority over reality. The God of inexhaustible self-giving will share his royal dominion with us.
The Glorious Mysteries have become my favorites. They’re a tour de force of the wonders of our faith and a storehouse from which hope can endlessly flow. May we imitate what they contain and, by our august queen’s intercession, obtain what they promise!

The Glory of the Glorious Mysteries

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DAY 281
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“Why can’t I, as a Christian, simply choose the beliefs I think are right? Why should anybody else tell me what I should believe?”
DEFENSE
This may be an attractive proposition in our individualistic age, but it wasn’t Jesus’ view.
If you’re going to be a Christian, that means listening to Jesus Christ, and he set up a Church, not a cafeteria. We aren’t allowed to pick and choose our beliefs like we pick and choose dishes in a serving line.
This is evident from the way Jesus teaches. In the Sermon on the Mount, he repeatedly takes on common interpretations of Jewish law and corrects them by his own authority, using the formula, “You have heard . . . but I say . . .” (Matt. 5:21–22, 27–28, 31–32, 33–34, 38–39, 43–44). The authority with which he taught was remarkable even in his own day: “The crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matt. 7:28–29; cf. Mark 1:22, Luke 4:32).
Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. His teaching is backed by divine authority—“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (John 7:16)—and one is not a faithful Christian if one rejects what Christ taught. That has implications, because Christ did not keep this authority to himself. He gave teaching authority to the ministers he put in charge of his Church, telling them: “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).
He further promised them, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13), and he declared: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:18–20).
Jesus thus invested his Church with the authority to teach until the end of the world, and if we want to be Jesus’ followers, we cannot simply pick and choose our own beliefs.
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Cafeteria Christianity

Some Protestants believe that the Catholic Church is not just spiritually dangerous—it’s also a threat to the liberty (and even the lives!) of those who challenge its authority. Fringe fundamentalists like Jack Chick have peddled all kinds of lurid conspiracies, one of my favorites being that “the name of every Protestant church member in the world” <a href="/magazine/print-edition/meet-jack-chick">is kept</a> in a “big computer” in the Vatican for future persecutions. And even though most Protestants won’t go that far down the rabbit hole, many are quick to share claims of historical atrocities committed by Catholics.
“Appeals to atrocity” might be good at raising people’s blood pressure, but they aren’t good at raising the level of discourse between Catholics and Protestants. That’s because they suffer from logical and factual flaws—the same flaws we see when we examine similar atheistic appeals to atrocity made against Christianity and religion in general.
In online discourse, you often hear people say things like, “Religion is the cause of most wars.” Richard Dawkins <a href="https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-god-delusion_richard-dawkins/248257/item/27968715/?mkwid=%7cdc&amp;pcrid=77172150940733&amp;pkw=&amp;pmt=be&amp;slid=&amp;product=27968715&amp;plc=&amp;pgrid=1234751854563929&amp;ptaid=pla-4580771612621121&amp;utm_source=bing&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=Shopping+-+Low+Vol+Scarce+-+%2410+-+%2450&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=%7cdc%7cpcrid%7c77172150940733%7cpkw%7c%7cpmt%7cbe%7cproduct%7c27968715%7cslid%7c%7cpgrid%7c1234751854563929%7cptaid%7cpla-4580771612621121%7c&amp;msclkid=f1694a71166412504adc2eebc023cd0b#isbn=1784161926&amp;idiq=27968715">references</a> “the immense power of religion, and especially the religious upbringing of children, to divide people and foster historic enmities and hereditary vendettas” (257). Other critics say that just Christianity has uniquely contributed to historical violence. The late atheist Christopher Hitchens <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/God_Is_Not_Great.html?id=8kgjU4wbM5oC">claimed</a> that violence was so essential to Christianity that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s commitment to non-violence meant he wasn’t really a Christian (176).
Indeed, we don’t have to go far into history to find accounts of Protestants killing Catholics. This was fairly common in England after the Reformation in episodes like the execution of eighteen priests at the “massacre of Michelade” or the Carthusian monks who were drawn and quartered because they refused to recognize Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church. Protestants have also used violence against other Protestants—for example, the sixteenth-century Anabaptists who said most believers do not possess valid baptisms. The Lutheran theologian Philip Melanchthon published a pamphlet about the Anabaptists, signed by Luther, <a href="https://archive.org/details/historyofgermanp10jansuoft">concluding</a> that, in some cases, “the stubborn sectaries must be put to death” (222-223).*
There are other evils committed by Protestants, too—like Luther’s anti-Semitism and Southern Baptist involvement in the slave trade. Such examples are why atheists would say that Protestants can’t avoid appeals to atrocity by pinning the blame on Catholics. They have to explain their own shameful historical episodes, and in doing so, they leave themselves open to those same defenses being used against anti-Catholic appeals to atrocity.
Now let’s examine the flaws in appeals to atrocity. First, there is a logical flaw in these kinds of arguments. Even if it were true that Catholicism, Christianity, or religion in general uniquely contributed to violence, that wouldn’t prove that those belief systems were false.
Consider the common yet false claim that religion has been the cause of most wars. The comedian George Carlin once quipped that “more people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.” But The Encyclopedia of Wars <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Encyclopedia_of_Wars.html?id=1ghxQgAACAAJ">classifies</a> only about 120 out of over 2,000 armed conflicts (or about 7 percent) as “religious wars” (vol. 3, 1484-1485). It turns out that most conflicts in human history involve disputes over resources rather than dogma and are fueled by nationalist pride rather than religious zeal.
Let’s focus on one of those primary causes of war: disputed claims of ownership regarding resources like land. Fighting to reclaim certain lands assumes the truth of the belief that land can be owned. Now, some people might believe that it is never legitimate to have things like borders or sovereign states, but that controversial claim wouldn’t be proven just because large groups of people have frequently fought over land rights. In other words, fighting over a thing doesn’t make that thing illegitimate.
Similarly, many jealous spouses throughout history have killed adulterers because of their passionate belief that marriage is a sexually exclusive relationship. Such acts of violence, however, don’t prove that their belief in monogamy is bad or wrong. Those murderers’ belief in monogamy could be exactly right, even though their actions done in the name of that belief were wrong.
The same is true for religion. That people have, over history, viewed religious beliefs as something important enough to fight over does not prove that those beliefs, or religious beliefs in general, are false or bad.
Then there is the factual problem with these claims. Appeals to atrocity often rely on exaggerated body counts and shoddy historical inferences that claim that one group or idea was uniquely responsible for violence. For instance, the claim that Catholics (and/or Christians, depending on whom you ask) killed 50-68 million people during the Inquisition is laughable, given that 25 million Europeans died during the fourteenth-century bubonic plague (or “the Black Death”), a devasting number that constituted one-third of Europe’s population. The Inquisition’s activities were well recorded, and reputable scholars give much lower numbers. Historian Edward Peters <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520066304/inquisition">says</a>, “The best estimate is that around 3,000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that in contemporary secular courts” (87). Even thoughtful Protestants like Greg Koukl <a href="https://www.christianbook.com/tactics-discussing-christian-convictions-anniversary-edition/gregory-koukl/9780310101468/pd/0101468">can recognize</a> when an appeal to atrocity against Catholicism defies common sense—“let’s just say this seems highly unlikely” (182).
Vilifying Catholicism because of the violence its representatives inflicted upon heretics in the post-Reformation period is not at all different from the atheistic tactic of vilifying the Jewish/Christian God because the Bible records his followers executing heretics. Moses, for instance, ordered anyone who worshiped the golden calf to be put to death (Exod. 32:27-29). Steve Wells, author of the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, <a href="https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ex/16.html">says</a>, “When the people complain to Moses, he tells them they aren’t complaining about him, but about God, making them apostates and heretics, and therefore deserve severe punishment. Religious leaders have used this tactic ever since.”
In their critique of religion, atheists like to bring up episodes of Catholic and Protestant intolerance, including the time when John Calvin executed the Spanish theologian Michael Servetus because he denied the Trinity.
So if it’s true that the Bible can be the word of God even if people used it to justify evil practices that would no longer be acceptable today, then the Catholic Church can be the custodian of God’s revelation even if it provided some people with the rationale to engage in practices that are no longer acceptable today. The Catechism says this about the use of violence in Church history:
<blockquote>In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors (2298).</blockquote>
When comparing competing worldviews, we should reject the ghoulish standard of simply asking, “Who killed the most people?” We should also condemn the reduction of a complex worldview to stereotypes that make for easy “gotcha moments” like the amoral atheist, the violent Muslim, the money-grubbing televangelist, and the pedophilic priest. We should instead critically examine the content of the worldviews behind these stereotypes to see if violence is an unfortunate deviation from those beliefs or a natural product of them.

How Many People Did the Catholic Church Kill?

I have trouble with Marian dogmas because I believe they contradict the bible. The Assumption of Mary is never mentioned in scripture. How can Mary be sinless if the bible says that all have sinned and have fallen short.

I’m going to leave Orthodoxy for either High Church Anglican or Catholicism. What advice do you have for me?

I’ve studied Catholicism as a Protestant for years now. Does the Holy Spirit leave you when you commit a mortal sin and get the Holy Spirit back when you repent?

I grew up protestant and was taught that worshipping idols is wrong. Praying to the dead seems wrong.

&#8220;Choosing Anglican or Catholic &#8221; This episode explores the complexities of Marian dogmas and their biblical foundations, addressing concerns about the Assumption of Mary and the concept of sinlessness. Additionally, we delve into the journey from Orthodoxy to Catholicism and the implications of mortal sin on the Holy Spirit, along with the topic of idolatry in worship practices.
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Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

Choosing Anglican or Catholic – Why Aren’t You Catholic?

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DAY 166
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“God is simply an exalted man. The Bible says we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27), and it refers to the strong right arm
of God (Deut. 4:34), his all-seeing eyes (Prov. 15:3), and so on.”
DEFENSE
Scripture is clear that God and man are fundamentally different.
Mormonism is known for teaching that God and man are the same species. Mormons frequently use the couplet, “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”
By contrast, Scripture states: “God is not a man” (Num. 23:19), “he is not a man” (1 Sam. 15:29).
God has always been God; he was never a man: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God” (Ps. 90:2).
There are no other gods. In Isaiah, God declares: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” (Isa. 44:6). He also states: “Is there a God besides me? . . . I know not any” (Isa. 44:8).
Similarly, men do not become gods. In Isaiah, God states: “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me” (Isa. 43:10).
The “image” of God that Genesis 1 says we bear is an aspect of our rational soul, which separates us from the animals, which God created in the same chapter.
References to God’s strong arm, his eyes, and such, are metaphors referring to God’s power and knowledge. They are not to be taken literally any more than Scripture’s references to God having feathers and wings (“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge,” Ps. 91:4).
Other verses make the immaterial nature of God clear. In John 4:24 Jesus teaches, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Elsewhere he notes, “a spirit has not flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39).
There is a difference between being a spirit and having a spirit. Jesus indicates that the Father is a spirit, not that he merely has one. This means that the Father lacks a body and is entirely spiritual.
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God as an Exalted Man

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Did the Early Church believe in Sola Scriptura?

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“If God is outside of time and knows everything that we’re going to do, then we don’t have free will.”
DEFENSE
Knowing about an event does not mean causing it. God can know about things people choose without depriving them of free will.
It’s true that God is outside of time and knows both our past and future choices, but this does not determine them.
Consider: You know about many events in the past—in your personal history, your family history, and world history. But your knowledge did not force any of them to happen. They occurred, for whatever reason, and you just happen to know about them.
Some occurred because of the choices of others. For example, your father may have chosen to enter a particular trade. But your knowledge of his trade does not reach back in time and force him to make this choice. It doesn’t deprive him of free will.
You might object that we are talking about the past, but the same applies to the present and the future. Suppose that you know of a place where, right now, someone is singing a song. Your knowledge does not force the person to sing.
Or suppose that you are standing on top of a building, and you see two cars about to collide in the street below. Your knowledge of what is about to happen does not cause it. The choices of the drivers were what led to the accident.
Whether we are talking about the past, the present, or the future, knowledge of an event does not force it to happen or deprive those involved of free will.
Neither does God’s knowledge of events. God dwells in an eternal now outside of time. All times are equally present to him, and he knows what people choose to do in those times, but his knowledge of what people choose does not make their choices unfree any more than our knowledge of their choices does.
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God’s Eternity, Knowledge, and Free Will

<div>Is the kiss of peace an optional part of the Mass—i.e., may the priest remove it without violating any Church law?</div><div>Yes, the sign of peace is optional, based on the discretion of the priest celebrant at Mass, whose directive should be followed by the faithful gathered. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) states that the priest celebrant asks the congregation to exchange the sign of peace &#8220;when appropriate&#8221; (GIRM 154). When the GIRM describes a Mass with a deacon (181), it repeats this language by stating the deacon asks the congregation to exchange the sign of peace &#8220;if it is appropriate.&#8221;
It is therefore at the discretion of the priest celebrant whether it is appropriate at a particular Mass to exchange the sign of peace. If a member of the faithful gathered for Mass has health concerns and thus doesn&#8217;t want to shake hands to convey Christ&#8217;s peace to a nearby brother or sister in Christ, he should still comply with the directive of the priest celebrant (or deacon) by turning and wishing Christ&#8217;s peace to those near him through a simple and sincere oral greeting (see John 14:27).
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The Kiss of Peace Is Optional

I come from a protestant family and am about to start OCIA. The obstacle I find is explaining the intercession of saints to my family.

I struggle with not being able to consume from the chalice. Why does only the priest consume from the chalice?

When does Intercessory prayer become a superstitious tradition?

How do I approach my fallen away Catholic friend about returning to the Church?

&#8220;Can saints intercede for us?&#8221; This episode delves into the role of saints in prayer and tradition, addressing common concerns such as explaining intercession to Protestant family members and understanding why only the priest consumes from the chalice. We also explore the line between intercessory prayer and superstition, along with tips for inviting fallen-away Catholics back to the Church.
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When Can Prayer to Saints Become Superstitious?

Joe Heschmeyer, author of <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/pope-peter-defending-the-churchs-most-distinctive-doctrine-in-a-time-of-crisis-digital/">Pope Peter &#8211; Defending the Church&#8217;s Most Distinctive Doctrine in a Time of Crisis</a>, is back with more help explaining how to deal with the modern papacy. In this episode, we talk about talkative popes and the proper way to disagree with them when what they say seems out of bounds.

How to Disagree with the Pope

In this special Catholic Answers Live episode, Cy Kellett interviews Dr. Jacob Imam—convert from Islam, founder of New Polity and the College of St. Joseph the Worker. They discuss Catholic education, political renewal, and building institutions rooted in Catholic social teaching.
To watch the entire episode visit the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0WwundQWb8">Cy Kellett Show YouTube Channel</a>
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From Islam to Catholicism – Interview with Dr. Jacob Imam

<div>Jskh1993 q1: how was the skull of Jesus pierced when none of his bones were broken?</div><div>You ask a worthwhile question, given that Jesus’ head was undoubtedly wounded by his crown of thorns (John 19:2-5; Matt. 27:27-31), and yet John 19:36 conveys that none of Jesus’ bones were broken, because he is the New Covenant fulfillment of the Passover lamb (see Exodus 12).
However, one’s head can be wounded significantly without one’s skull being broken. Consider a concussion, even a severe one that knocks a person out. There is not necessarily an associated  fracture of the skull. In addition, the skin of the scalp is the thickest on the human body, meaning it can be pierced and experience great trauma without the skull/bone beneath it being fractured. The scalp has <a href="https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/834808-overview">five layers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalp_reconstruction">with the skin being the thickest</a>.
In this light, Christ experienced great head trauma in his Passion, and it’s possible his skull may have been bruised, but definitely not broken as Scripture makes clear.
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Did the Crown of Thorns Break Jesus’ Skull?

<div>Did the Freemasons evolve from the Knights Templar?</div><div>There is no historical connection between the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/knights-templars">Templars</a> and the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/masonry">Freemasons</a>. These entities are centuries apart and share no common foundation. It is true that the accusations against the Templars outlined in the decrees of the Ecumenical Council of Vienne sound a lot like some the accusations commonly made against the Masons, but surely the Masons are not interested in that connection.
What the Freemasons want to do is to identify with those whom they hold were mistreated by the Catholic Church and to spread teachings against the integrity and authority of the Church, and that is why they try to co-opt the Templar name.
Read more: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-church-say-about-freemasonry">What Does the Church Say about Freemasonry?</a>
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Are Freemasons Related to the Knights Templar?

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“This book doesn’t include my objection to the Faith!”
DEFENSE
A single book can only do so much. Therefore, let me recommend some more resources that may help.
<ul>
<li>The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli: This is an excellent survey of the general evidences for the Christian faith, written by a pair of scholars who communicate in a manner easily accessible to all.</li>
<li>Scaling the Secular City by J.P. Moreland: This was one of the first apologetic books I read when I began studying the field. Dr. Moreland is an outstanding scholar who carries the discussion to a level satisfying for those who want to go deeper.</li>
<li>Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: This is another popular-level work that covers the basics of why one should choose to be a Christian, written by one of the greatest Christian authors of the twentieth century.</li>
<li>Miracles by C.S. Lewis: The topic of miracles and how they relate to science is one of the most misunderstood subjects in apologetics. This book contains valuable insights.</li>
<li>Hard Sayings by Trent Horn: There are many books about passages of the Bible that are difficult to accept for one reason or another. Trent’s book is written from a Catholic perspective and takes advantage of the current state of magisterial thinking.</li>
<li>The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin: As we’ve seen in this book, the Church Fathers are an important witness to the teaching of Christ and the apostles. My own book on the subject shows what they taught on numerous subjects and how this corresponds to the teaching of the Church today.</li>
<li>The Drama of Salvation by Jimmy Akin: One of the most sensitive subjects between Protestants and Catholics is how we are saved. This book discusses the subject in what I hope is a calm and constructive manner.
I hope these recommendations help. God loves you; may he reward your further studies and bless you richly!
Your pal,
—Jimmy Akin</li>
</ul>
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What This Book Doesn’t Cover

Questions About Mary (Encore)

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DAY 218
CHALLENGE
“Christians are a bunch of hypocrites.”
DEFENSE
Yes. And?
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Consciousness of the fact that we don’t think and act the way we should is a human universal. So is the desire for others to think well of us. Everyone wishes to save face and, at one time or another, either shades the truth or flat out lies to appear better than he is. This makes hypocrisy another human universal, and it applies to Christians and everyone else.
When confronted with the fact that we don’t live up to our moral standards, we have several options. One—which is not good at all—is to abandon our standards. Reviewing them to make sure they are correct is one thing, but tossing them aside so we can indulge in im- moral behavior is another. It also will not work in the long run, for we cannot escape the moral law written on our hearts. We can only temporarily suppress it.
A second choice—also not good—is to pretend we are better than we are. This is the option of hypocrisy. It is not good because it’s an offense against the truth. Hypocrisy is a form of lying—specifically, lying about our own behavior, using either words or deceptive actions (CCC 2483). Hypocrisy is also risky, because in the long run the truth tends to be found out, and people will see you for the hypocrite you are. For Christians, hypocrisy takes on added gravity because it can push people away from God (Rom. 2:23–24).
The third choice—and the only good one—is the hardest. It means maintaining our moral standards, being honest about the fact that we don’t live up to them and seeking God’s grace to do better in the future. This doesn’t mean telling everyone everything we’ve done wrong (CCC 2489). Frequently, it is none of their concern, and in some situations knowing could even hurt them (e.g., marriages can be harmed by a naive and imprudent sharing of information about one’s sexual failings). However, it does mean being humble and willing to admit the fact that we are sinners.
Christians may share the universal inclination to hypocrisy, but that doesn’t mean Christianity is false. Christianity teaches that we are all sinners. The good news is that there is mercy, even for hypocrites like us.
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Christian Hypocrisy

One of the most common objections to the idea of hell is that it&#8217;s incompatible with the idea that God is both all-powerful and all-loving. But is that the case? To answer this, we need to reconsider what we mean about God, heaven and hell, and goodness.

Is Hell Consistent with the Idea of a Loving God?

It’s almost Valentines Day so what better topic than how to keep marriages together! Trent and Leila discuss the culture of divorce outside and inside the Church and her upcoming book Impossible Marriages Redeemed.

Overcoming the Culture of Divorce (with Leila Miller)

In a world where one man had to pick a great topic for free-for-all-Friday, he chose the secrets behind our favorite commercials for upcoming films.

The Secret World of Movie Trailers

Why doesn’t the Church field the Spirit the way Pentecostals do?

I’m not Catholic because the Church requires you to believe in all its dogmas.

How do I debunk the claim that the Roman curia is run like the mafia?

Could you explain Icons to me and the history of their veneration?

My family’s obstacle to the faith is that God preserved the true Church as a remnant and not a big visible church.

&#8220;Why doesn&#8217;t the Church embrace the Spirit like Pentecostals?&#8221; This episode explores the differences in spiritual expression between traditions, while also addressing questions about the necessity of dogmas in Catholicism, the misconceptions surrounding the Roman curia, and the significance of icons in the faith. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these important topics.
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Why Doesn’t the Church Embrace the Spirit Like Pentecostals? Icons, Dogmas, and the True Church

On a scale of 1-10 . . . how interested are you in rating how much something hurts? Whether it’s chronic back pain, insect bites, or impossibly spicy peppers, Trent takes you on a tour of how experts scientifically rate these different kinds of pain.

The Secret World of Pain Indexes

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers?

How can I explain the concept of purgatory to a non-Catholic?

Why do Catholics pray to saints instead of going directly to God?

Can you clarify the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist and transubstantiation?

What should I do if I feel unworthy to receive Communion?

How do we reconcile the existence of evil with a good God?

What is the significance of the Immaculate Conception?

&#8220;What is the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the transformative presence of the Holy Spirit in believers&#8217; lives. Additionally, the episode addresses how to explain purgatory to non-Catholics and why Catholics pray to saints, providing a well-rounded exploration of key Catholic teachings.
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What Is the Role of the Holy Spirit in Our Lives? Purgatory, Saints

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent shares a clip of him surprising everyone at a high school assembly and reveals the backstory behind this musical escapade.

FFAF: The time I sang to a girl in front of my entire high school

Trent and his family are on their way to Texas, so enjoy his thoughts about the famous “tourist traps” they pass and some more you can probably visit near you!

The Secret World of “Tourist Traps”

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent explores the medieval folklore surrounding “changelings” as well as two real missing-persons cases from the early 20th century that have “changeling” elements to them.

The Mystery of the Changelings

If Jesus is God and Mary is His mother, then Mary is the Mother of God. ✝️

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent counts down his all-time favorite Christmas movies.

FFAF: My All Time Favorite Christmas Movies

In this episode Trent is joined by the Catholic Answers video production team to get an inside-look at the new school of apologetics and a sneak peek at Trent’s course: Moral Apologetics.

Behind the Scenes of the School of Apologetics

In this episode, Trent gives an update on the future of the Counsel of Trent and how you can get a free copy of his latest book Confusion in the Kingdom.
Transcript:
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<div class="react-pdf__Page__textContent textLayer" data-main-rotation="0">Here’s something I never want to do on the Counsel of Trent. I never want to say “Today’sepisode is sponsored by”. I hate that. I scroll right past those ads. And the reason the Counsel of Trent has been ad free is because of our patrons at trenthornpodcast.com. But I need your help because I want to expand the Counsel of Trent and do even more. First, we hired Vanessa aka That One Catholic Girl to handle all of the Counsel of Trent’s social media. That includes TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube shorts that have the potential to reach millions of people. Vanessa will also help me sift through the thousands of YouTube comments you all leave on every video. Second, we hired Thomas West who previously ran the Theology of the Body YouTube channel to be the editor for Counsel of Trent. He’s already edited some of our episodes and you guys have really liked his work. Up to this point I have been editing all the episodes for YouTube because I used to work at a TV station and I have some video editing skills, but staying up late to get these edits done for each episode has been killing me. Also, I want to maximizing my time researching and writing and let pros like Thomas handle the technical end of production.  I want our episodes to be pleasing to watch on YouTube but also easy to listen to on podcast apps. Some of you podcast listeners have been with us since the beginning in 2018 and I am so grateful for your longtime support. You guys also get to hear our free-for-all-Friday content which Thomas will now be putting on a separate YouTube channel. I also want to host more in-person dialogues but that will require a full redesign. We already moved into a space big enough for these kinds of interviews, we just need to purchase new gear and equipment to make it a fully functioning studio. But the only way to make all of this happen is with your financial support. The goal of the Counsel of Trent is to help people see the Catholic faith is reasonable and I’m inviting you to partner with me to make that happen. Even if you are Protestant, I would love your help to engage issues we agree on like countering atheism, LGBT ideology, and pro-abortion activism. Here’s how you can help: If you give 5 dollars a month or 50 dollars a year you get access to my 18-hour Catechism study series, a personalized video thank you from me, an annual subscription to Catholic Answers print magazine, and the ability to comment on episodes in our online community.</div>
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<div class="react-pdf__Page__textContent textLayer" data-main-rotation="0">If you give 10 dollars a month or 100 dollars a year you get all of that and my 18 hour New Testament study series. If you make this pledge during the month of May, you will also get a free copy of my new book Confusion in the Kingdom: How Progressive Catholicism is Harming the Church. If you give 25 dollars a month or 250 dollars a year you get all of that and mug with my mug on it. And if you give 50 dollars a month or 500 dollars a year you get all of that and a signed copy of every new book I publish, including my recent book Confusion in the Kingdom. Remember anyone who donates 10 dollars a month or 100 dollars a year in the month of May also gets a free copy of my new refutation of liberal Catholicism Confusion in the Kingdom. If you listen regularly you know I rarely ask people to financially support the Counsel of Trent but I’m asking you today to partner with us to spread God’s truth as far as possible and change people’s lives in the process. Thank you guys so much for your support and helping us reach millions of people so far. Please pray for everything we are doing here at the Counsel of Trent and I pray you have a very blessed day.</div>
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Big Channel News (and New Book Giveaway!)

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Charlie Kirk’s life lost to violence. Let’s pray for his soul & family. Lord, have mercy.

Marian Dogma Refutes Muslim and Secular Critics of the Virgin Birth

The Sign of Peace: What Are We Supposed to Do?

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent discusses his favorite villains and why he always enjoyed playing the villain in his “acting days.”

FFAF: My favorite movie villains

In this episode Trent points out a double-standard in Protestant apologetics and reveals one doctrine that enjoyed “universal support” in the early Church.

Protestants Should Embrace this “Universal” Doctrine of the Church Fathers

How to respond to charges of bigotry?

What’s wrong with contraception?

Why not sleep in the same bed before marriage?

In this episode, we tackle the question, &#8220;How to respond to charges of bigotry?&#8221; as we explore the complexities of faith and perception. Additionally, we delve into the issues surrounding contraception and discuss the reasons for not sharing a bed before marriage.
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How to Respond to Charges of Bigotry – Contraception and the Sexual Revolution

In this rebuttal video Trent examines Gavin Ortlund’s case against belief in the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Bodily Assumption into heaven.

The Assumption of Mary: Protestant Critique

In this episode, Trent breaks down the recent controversy surrounding Pope Francis’s remarks about civil unions and gives us some tips for defending the Church’s teaching on marriage.

Pope Francis, Same-Sex “Marriage”, and Civil Unions

The Betrayal and Hypocrisy of Catholic “LGBT Pride”

Trent sits down with senior apologist Jimmy Akin to talk about how all of us can become better apologists, both informally in our everyday conversations and formally for those who feel called to do this as a full-time profession.

So, You Wanna be an Apologist? (with Jimmy Akin)

I heard a claim that writing goes back 20 or 30 thousand years, and that Jesus was taking things from these texts, and also that Noah’s flood was copied from one of these ancient texts. Is this true?

It seems like liberal Catholic theology is focused on advancing political initiatives. But are there “liberal” Catholic theologies that are still within the bounds of orthodoxy?

After the death of Jesus, did the Jewish people stop being the chosen people?

Can you explain Marcianism to me? Did they believe in two separate gods? How did that come about?

If Jesus gave the Church the power to bind, then why are married people no longer married in heaven?

Could Protestants get married at my home?

What is the Catholic understanding of Jesus’ statement that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church?

What is the Church teaching on head coverings and women wearing makeup to Mass?

&#8220;Are the Jewish People Still God&#8217;s Chosen People?&#8221; In this episode, Jimmy Akin answers biblical questions from callers.
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Are the Jewish People Still God’s Chosen People?

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In this episode Trent offers advice for how to handle members of the Church who act in callous or uncaring ways.
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Being Faithful to an Irritating Church

FFAF: Scary Stories to Give Kids “Goosebumps”

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent sits down with fellow apologist Jimmy Akin to discover what have been his favorite mysteries to explore on his podcast Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World.

FFAF: The mysterious world of Jimmy Akin

In this episode Trent and Suan Sonna breakdown a Protestant argument which claims that Catholic approaches to proving the papacy could also be used to show that St. Paul was the first Pope, thus invalidating the argument. But Trent and Suan show how these arguments misunderstand scripture and Catholic defenses of the papacy.

The “Pauline Parody Argument” Against the Papacy (with Suan Sonna)

What is “Norming the norm that cannot be normed?”

What are some ways to communicate to non-Catholics and fallen away Catholics that devotionals are not obligatory?

Why are Anglican sacraments not valid?

Why does the New Testament not talk about the fulfillment of the prophecies of the destruction of the Temple?

Are there any historical records of the laity in the early church being able to celebrate the Mass?

What is Joe’s preferred Bible?

If it weren’t for human politics between East and West, would there not have been a split between Orthodox and Roman rites?

Does Catholicism have a good answer to modern Biblical scholarship?

&#8220;What are Anglican sacraments?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the validity of Anglican sacraments, alongside inquiries about communicating the nature of devotionals to non-Catholics and the historical role of laity in the early Church. The conversation also touches on the impact of politics on the split between Orthodox and Roman rites, providing a rich exploration of faith and history.
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Are There Anglican Sacraments? Early Church and Politics

In this episode Trent reviews statements from German priests and even cardinals about their growing dissent over the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

A German Cardinal’s “homosexual dissent”

In this episode, Trent shares a dialogue with the one critic of the Faith that keeps him up at night!

The Apologist I Fear the Most . . .

In this episode, Trent celebrates the feast day of St. Francis by exposing the harm of famous &#8220;Fake Francis&#8221; quotes.
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Transcript:
Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, so I thought it&#8217;d be helpful to sort out those fake St. Francis quotes from the ones he actually did say. So here&#8217;s the first fake one. &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget to subscribe to the Council of Trent podcast to help Trent reach more people and definitely support trent@trenthornpodcast.com.&#8221; It turns out St. Francis never said that, but it&#8217;s still a good idea, so I&#8217;m going to let that one slide. But some of these fake St. Francis quotes, they actually caused spiritual harm, because they either encourage us to ignore the good things in our faith, or they encourage us to trust ourselves instead of God.
A good example of a former attitude can be seen in the granddaddy of all fake St. Francis quotes, &#8220;Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.&#8221; How many posters in religious ed classrooms have that one up? But Mark Galli, the author of Francis of Assisi in his world, writes, &#8220;No biography written within the first 200 years of Francis&#8217; death contains the saying. It&#8217;s not likely that a pithy quote like this would&#8217;ve been missed by his earliest disciples.&#8221;
Father Pat McCloskey, the Franciscan editor of St. Anthony Messenger writes, &#8220;I had been a Franciscan for 28 years and had earned a master&#8217;s degree in Franciscan studies before I heard the, &#8220;if necessary, use words&#8221; quote. That was during when Senior Kenneth Vellows homily at Cardinal Joseph Bernadine&#8217;s funeral in 1996. In fact, a lot of people who share this quote admit that it&#8217;s fake. Gary Kraus writes in his book, God&#8217;s Great Missionaries, &#8220;There&#8217;s no evidence that St. Francis actually made this statement, but it certainly fits the spirit of his teachings,&#8221; except it doesn&#8217;t.
You see, a lot of people have this idea that St. Francis of Assisi was just a kind of medieval hippie, but that completely glosses over the man who renounced his former sinful way of life and wanted to preach extensively about Jesus Christ. Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of St. Francis writes, &#8220;His words were neither hollow nor ridiculous, but filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, penetrating the marrow of the heart, so that listeners were turned to great amazement.&#8221;
You see, in St. Francis&#8217; time, homiletic training at Europe&#8217;s universities, it stressed scholarship more than pastoral sensitivity. So the homilies were often dry or really harsh, but St. Francis didn&#8217;t attend one of these universities. When he preached, he drew primarily from his own conversion experience. His preaching was vibrant and energetic. In fact, St. Francis would often sing and dance with joy, and then, he would openly weep about God&#8217;s mercy.
Mark Galli says that, &#8220;Francis imitated the troubadours, employing poetry and word pictures to drive the message home. When he described the nativity, listeners felt as if Mary was giving birth before their eyes. In rehearsing the crucifixion, the crowd, as did Francis, would shed tears.&#8221; St. Francis himself said, &#8220;What are the servants of God, if not his minstrels, who must move people&#8217;s hearts and lift them up to spiritual joy?&#8221;
St. Francis&#8217; focus on sharing the interior spiritual life is also seen in this advice. He gave other members of his order. &#8220;The preacher must first draw from secret prayers what he will later pour out in holy sermons. He must first grow hot within before he speaks words that are in themselves cold.&#8221; Ugolino Brunforte, who collected some of the earliest traditions about St. Francis, records what happened when St. Francis drew from that spiritual well, when he was preaching in his hometown of Assisi. &#8220;St. Francis ascended the pulpit and began to preach and sow wonderful away on holy penance, on the world, on voluntary poverty, on the hope of life eternal, on the nakedness of Christ, on the shame of the passion of our blessed savior, that all those who heard him, both men and women, began to weep bitterly being moved to devotion and compunction. And in all Assisi, the passion of Christ was commemorated as it never had been before.&#8221;
St. Francis would never have said, &#8220;Use words, if necessary.&#8221; For him, words were vital to preach the gospel of Christ, the good news and the bad news. St. Francis once said, &#8220;Blessed are those who die in penance, for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven. Woe to those who do not die in penance, for they shall be children of the devil whose works they do and they shall go into everlasting fire.&#8221;
Francis did not sugarcoat the reality of damnation, but he also preached the joy that comes from Christ liberating us from sin and its just punishments. He told his lay and religious followers, &#8220;Oh, how holy and how loving, gratifying, humbling, peace giving, sweet, worthy of love, and above all things, desirable it is to have such a brother and such a son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lay down his life for his sheep.&#8221;
Preaching was so important to St. Francis that he required his religious brothers to get permission to preach. And for those who could not formally preach, St. Francis told them to preach by their deeds. But this did not mean St. Francis thought evangelism should be restricted only to public displays of good deeds. After all, an unconverted person might see an example of piety or holiness that inspires him, but then, just doubt God would love a sinner like him. This person doesn&#8217;t just need an example of holiness. He needs encouraging words about God&#8217;s transforming love for him. He needs the gospel. He needs it explained to him in a way he can understand.
So now, you see what&#8217;s so bad about, &#8220;Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.&#8221; If that just meant you can evangelize with deeds as well as words, well, I could tolerate it even though it&#8217;s not authentic. But two words complicate that interpretation. If necessary. &#8220;Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.&#8221; Consider this advice. Love your spouse. Use words, if necessary. Now, most spouses appreciate acts of service or affectionate gifts, but they&#8217;d be really hurt if they never heard the words, &#8220;I love you.&#8221; Or imagine if I told you, &#8220;Build a fire. Use wood, if necessary.&#8221; You&#8217;d probably assume that I meant use wood as a last resort, or it would be great if you could build the fire without wood. Words are not an inferior tool we use to share the gospel when actions won&#8217;t suffice. Words are to the preaching of the gospel as wood is to the building of a fire.
Now, the ladder cannot be done well without the former. You could make a fire with fabric by burning it, but it wouldn&#8217;t be as good as using firewood. You might be able to present our faith through actions alone, but it wouldn&#8217;t be as effective as carefully chosen words that describe the gospel, that St. Paul says is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who has faith. In fact, St. Paul recognized the need for preaching when he wrote the Christians in Rome a message that is just as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. It&#8217;s a message you should always bring up when someone suggests that you should preach the gospel apart from words. Paul writes, &#8220;For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news?&#8221;
So we need to dump, &#8220;Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words.&#8221; A better replacement is this quote from St. Teresa of Avila. &#8220;We must all try to be preachers by our deeds.&#8221; Notice that this quote, unlike the fake Francis one, it does not say we should only preach with deeds or that we should add words only when necessary. It&#8217;s just a simple reminder that our actions can speak as loud as words, so we should preach with our deeds just as we would preach with our words. Also, we should make sure that what we preach with words matches what we preach in our deeds.
Inconsistent Christians have been around since the very beginning. You can see this, for example, in this advice from St. Jerome. He writes, &#8220;Do not let your deeds belly your words, lest when you speak in church, someone may mentally reply, &#8216;Why do you not practice what you profess?'&#8221; The other problematic fake St. Francis quote is this one. &#8220;Lord, make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred. Let me bring love. Oh master, let me not seek as much to be consoled is to console. It is in pardoning that one is pardoned. It is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.&#8221;
Now, I&#8217;m not going to sing this, but you&#8217;ve probably heard it sung at mass at some point. I mean, it&#8217;s not on eagle&#8217;s wings, but it&#8217;s still pretty popular within that circle of hymns. And many people think this comes from St. Francis, but that&#8217;s not true. This quote in him first appeared in a 1912 issue of a French Catholic magazine, La Clochette. It was just called A Beautiful Prayer to Say During the Mass. Christian Renu, who wrote a book length study of this prayer of St. Francis, he says, &#8220;The pieces in that magazine were anonymous, but they might have been written by the magazine&#8217;s editor, Father Esther Bouquerel. It&#8217;s not known, however, if Father Bouquerel wrote What would Later Become known as the Prayer of St. Francis.
This prayer&#8217;s identification with St. Francis of Assisi probably happened around 1918. A Franciscan priest named Father Ethan Benoit printed the prayer on a holy card, and on the backside, had a picture of St. Francis. According to Renu, the first translation in English that we know of appeared in 1936 in Living Courageously, a book by Kirby Page, a disciple of Christ&#8217;s minister, pacifist, social evangelist, writer, and editor of The World Tomorrow. Page clearly attributed the text to St. Francis of Assisi. During World War II, and immediately after, this prayer for peace began circulating widely as the prayer of St. Francis.
&#8220;In 1967, Sebastian Temple, himself a third order Dominican, set the prayer to music in a song now known as The Prayer of St. Francis, or Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.&#8221; But is this fake quote, is it really so bad? Well, my concern is that these kinds of prayers reinforce a me-centered spirituality. It focuses on God&#8217;s role as just filling up our spiritual gas tanks so we can go and make a difference, go and make a difference, instead of offering worship to God, and being in awe of his majestic glory.
Augustine Thompson writes the following in his biography of St. Francis. &#8220;Noble as its sentiments are, Francis would not have written such a piece, focused as it is on the self with its constant repetition of the pronouns I and me, the words God and Jesus never appearing once.&#8221; In some cases, this attitude borders on pelagianism when the fake quote focuses exclusively on human efforts. You can see this in this fake quote of St. Francis. &#8220;Start by doing what&#8217;s necessary, then do what&#8217;s possible, and suddenly you&#8217;re doing the impossible.&#8221; See that God is nowhere here. This sounds like something you hear at a cheesy motivational workshop.
I prefer what st. Josemaria Escriva said. He said, &#8220;With God&#8217;s grace, you have to tackle and carry out the impossible because anybody can do what is possible.&#8221; Or, if we want a better attitude. Look to the thought of St. Francis that was preserved in the words of his disciple, St. Giles who said, &#8220;Blessed is he who loves and does not therefore desire to be loved. Blessed is he who fears and does not therefore desire to be feared. Blessed is he who serves and does not therefore desire to be served. Blessed is he who behaves well toward others and does not desire that others behave well toward him. Because these are great things, the foolish do not rise to them.
Before I end today&#8217;s episode, I want to mention one more fake St. Francis quote. At least this one is on the right track because it asks God for help instead of just ourselves. You&#8217;ve probably heard this one. &#8220;Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.&#8221; You probably associate this with Alcoholics Anonymous, and for good reason, because that&#8217;s the context where the quote originated, not St. Francis of Assisi. The person who wrote this prayer, called the Serenity Prayer, was actually a Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. The earliest version of the prayer comes from a 1927 Christian student newsletter. It attributes this prayer to neighbor, &#8220;Father, give us courage to change what must be altered serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.&#8221; The prayer increased in popularity after a secretary at Alcoholics Anonymous noticed it in a 1941 New York Herald Tribune obituary.
All right. I hope this is helpful for you. And if you&#8217;d like to learn more about what The Saints never said, you can check out my book, What the Saints Never Said. So thank you all so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.
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The Harm of Fake St. Francis Quotes

Why do I need a priest when I can go straight to God? In this episode Trent and Fr. Walshe answer this and other common arguments people make against the sacrament of holy orders.
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<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/made-this-way-how-to-prepare-kids-to-face-todays-tough-moral-issues/">Made This Way: How to Prepare Kids to Face Today’s Tough Moral Issues</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/why-were-catholic-our-reasons-for-faith-hope-and-love/">Why We&#8217;re Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, And Love</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/persuasive-pro-life-how-to-talk-about-our-cultures-toughest-issue/">Persuasive Pro-Life: How to Talk About Our Culture’s Toughest Issue</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/answering-atheism-how-to-make-the-case-for-god-with-logic-and-charity/">Answering Atheism: How to Make the Case for God with Logic and Charity</a></li>
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Defending the Priesthood with Fr. Sebastian Walshe (Part I)

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent reveals how and why people fake their own deaths and the methods professionals use to catch them.

FFAF: How to Fake Your Own Death

In this episode, Trent continues his rebuttal to Matthew Vines’s revisionist LGBT theology with an examination of what St. Paul says about homosexuality in his letter to the Romans.

“Gay Christianity” Rebutted Part II

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent shares his recent experience of taking his kids to see the Minecraft Movie.

FFAF: The Minecraft Movie, My Honest Thoughts

In this episode Trent shares a clip of him asking college students the question “What is sex for?” and then discusses how we can better share the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics.

I Asked College Students “What Is Sex For?”

The Book of Mormon claims to come from golden plates, but there’s no way that much info could fit.

What Did Daily Life Look Like for the Holy Family?

Were the “brothers of Jesus” children from Joseph but not Mary?

I think I might disagree with you statement that the Holy Family would have been dirty. That Jewish culture was very concerned with being clean.

How does the Bible describe St. Joseph?

Where is St. Joseph buried?

Was Joseph old or young when He married Mary?

What is the earliest attestation of the assumption of St. Joseph ?

&#8220;What did daily life look like for the Holy Family?&#8221; This question opens a discussion about the domestic life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, touching on their cultural practices, including cleanliness in Jewish tradition. Other topics include the identity of the &#8220;brothers of Jesus,&#8221; and insights into St. Joseph&#8217;s life and burial.
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What Did Daily Life Look Like for the Holy Family? St. Joseph, Cleanliness

The Error of “Toxic Anti-Feminism”

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DAY 149
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CHALLENGE
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“Luke says Jesus was born during a census (Luke 2:1–5), but he is wrong about its nature. It wouldn’t have been empire-wide, Joseph wouldn’t have gone to Bethlehem, and Mary wouldn’t have accompanied him.”
DEFENSE
There are solutions to each challenge.
Augustus was emperor from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14, and he began the practice of empire-wide census taking: “Every five years, the Romans enumerated citizens and their property to determine their liabilities. This practice was extended to include the entire Roman Empire in 5 B.C.” (“Census,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016 ed., emphasis added).
Because of the size of the empire, census taking was done in stages, taking place in different countries in different years. The decree of 5 B.C. thus likely wasn’t implemented in Palestine for a few years.
If the census was being done for tax purposes—as was normal—it would explain why Joseph returned to Bethlehem: He was from there and still had property there.
However, the enrollment may not have been a census. It may have been an event that took place in 3–2 B.C. when the people of the empire swore allegiance to Augustus (see Day 182 and 138). In this case, Joseph may have returned to Bethlehem because Israel was organized tribally, and the Romans may have used the tribal structure to ensure that the locals took the oath. Since Bethlehem was the ancestral home of Joseph’s clan, that is where he went.
Mary went with Joseph because she was his wife and she could be better cared for by him and other relatives in Bethlehem than if she were left at home. Contrary to popular depictions in art, we need not suppose that she made the journey to Bethlehem in the last stages of pregnancy. Luke merely says that “while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered” (Luke 2:6).
There are unanswered questions about this event, but Luke and his readers were familiar with the way such enrollments worked. They had taken part in such events themselves. Even skeptical scholar Ray- mond Brown notes: “It is dangerous to assume that [Luke] described a process of registration that would have been patently opposed to everything that he and his readers knew” (The Birth of the Messiah, 549).
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The Nature of Luke’s Enrollment

The “Simp” Smears Are Getting Out of Hand

In this free-for-all-Friday, Trent breaks down his most and least favorite Thanksgiving food.
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Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
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It isn&#8217;t just any Free for All Friday, it is the post-Thanksgiving Free for All Friday. Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I&#8217;m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker Trent Horn. Mondays and Wednesdays, we talk apologetics and theology. One Thursday out of the year, we eat Turkey and a whole bunch of sides, and the following Friday, we just recover. That is what you&#8217;re doing today. It&#8217;s probably what I&#8217;m doing today. I&#8217;m pre-recording this episode, but I&#8217;m imagining the Friday after Thanksgiving, what will I be doing? Probably recovering a bit.
My favorite thing is when people say, &#8220;Oh, you want to know why you get so tired on Thanksgiving? It&#8217;s because turkey has tryptophan in it and tryptophan makes you sleepy, so that&#8217;s why people are always tired on Thanksgiving afternoon.&#8221; No, people are probably tired because they ate like 3000 calories of food that&#8217;s really stock loaded with carbohydrates. As I go through my list here, you&#8217;ll see I love carbs. Isn&#8217;t that funny? Who could have guessed something like that?
You&#8217;re probably recovering today from being stuffed full of goodness, stuffing and tradition, because not all Thanksgiving food is created equally. It is not all equal. Get that egalitarian nonsense out of here. Some Thanksgiving food is better than other Thanksgiving food. Some Thanksgiving food you eat out of politeness or out of a sense of etiquette, or you eat it out of a sense of tradition because you feel like your plate has to look a certain way.
There&#8217;s one thing I can&#8217;t stand, by the way, is people who take pictures of their Thanksgiving plates. That&#8217;s just the most unappetizing thing. No matter how you feel about the way Thanksgiving food tastes, it doesn&#8217;t look very good. It&#8217;s not photogenic. Any other time of the year, if there is a holiday and food related to it, you can usually take a picture of it and it looks good. 4th of July, you&#8217;ve got hot dogs and burgers. Halloween, you can take pictures of all of your candy. Even at Christmas when you have the Christmas ham and the Christmas dinner out, maybe it&#8217;s all the lights in the background. I don&#8217;t know what it is, but you can make Christmas dinner look pretty good and decent, but when you put Thanksgiving food on there, it just looks like a mess. You don&#8217;t want to look at it too long. You want to eat that pretty quickly.
Today, I&#8217;m just going to go through, I&#8217;m going to rank the food. Mostly I&#8217;m going to rank the sides, because the main dish, it&#8217;s usually one of two things. Now, some people will go all out and do something non-traditional. I think that that&#8217;s great actually, because the traditional thing is turkey, or maybe you&#8217;ll do something like a honey baked ham. I&#8217;m really more of a honey baked ham person unless I am attending a Thanksgiving dinner and somebody has put a ton of loving care into that turkey, because it is really hard to get turkey right. It&#8217;s usually dry.
Throughout my whole life, the only turkey that I&#8217;ve ever really enjoyed is deli-sliced turkey because it isn&#8217;t dry, but when you carve yourself into turkey and get the white meat of the turkey, you got to slather that thing with gravy all the way down, saturate that bad boy, because it just does not taste good just straight off. You get to the dark meat, that&#8217;s okay, but it still doesn&#8217;t have that zest that a honey baked ham has. Now, granted, a honey baked ham is usually covered on the outside with brown fried sugar and stuff like that, so that definitely gives it an edge. But yeah, turkey, I feel like it&#8217;s very hard to get it right.
That&#8217;s the main dishes. Let&#8217;s go through the sides. I&#8217;ve divvied them up into three categories, sides I love, sides that are neutral, and sides that I hate. The ranking here, it is not like a top 10 list, no particular order, but when I&#8217;m at Thanksgiving, if I can make my way to the front of the line to go through and get the sides &#8230; It depends how big of a family you have, right? You can all sit around the table and pass the sides around. Other times, you might have so many people you put the sides out on kind of like a serving table, and it&#8217;s sort of like a buffet, like being back at Hometown Buffet. I think those went out of business, and that is really sad, because I have a lot of great memories at Hometown Buffets growing up in life.
But what are the side dishes that I&#8217;ll rush to at your impromptu home buffet table? One would be the fried onion on top of the green bean casserole, so not the green bean casserole itself, but when you dip the giant spoon into the green bean casserole, it&#8217;s hard. You don&#8217;t want to be the bad person who does this, right? You want to just get some green beans and some of the top, but don&#8217;t you really just want to get the top, a few green beans and then the white sauce and the fried onions and just get that and have three or four of the little beans inside and go out? You don&#8217;t want to do that. You can&#8217;t just slice off the fried onions at the top. That&#8217;s what we all want, right? But if there happens to be a glob, and it&#8217;s unintentional, but you get it, and it&#8217;s mostly the fried onions, that is fun.
Next one up are the crescent rolls. You know the ones that you unroll? They&#8217;re in the canisters. You pop them and you roll them, and you put them in the &#8230; They got a little Pillsbury doughboy on it and you put them in and they come out and they&#8217;re so light and fluffy. I could eat probably 87 of them, and then take a nap because of the tryptophan, so fried onion, crescent rolls.
Like I said, it&#8217;s a lot of carbs here, and cheese, mac and cheese. You could do the mac and cheese right, if you could do homemade mac and cheese, a little bit of the crumbly crumbly on top of it, that is good. One of my favorite meals actually, growing up as a bachelor, I would get good chicken cooked from the store or get decent chicken, make a bowl, chicken and macaroni. I mean, it would make me tired because that was too many carbs, but when I&#8217;m 20, I didn&#8217;t really notice the difference. Now I would notice the difference more.
So mac and cheese and mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy. I mean, potato&#8217;s been there our whole lives. Potato has been there for us, whether it&#8217;s in french fry form, scalloped form, mashed form, baked potato form. Potato is really like that lovable uncle of yours. Maybe he&#8217;s not best for you, but he&#8217;s always been there for you, and isn&#8217;t that what should really count?
All right, so those are the sides that I love. Next up, I got two in neutral category. I&#8217;m neutral on these. I don&#8217;t hate them. I don&#8217;t particularly love them. They got pluses and minuses. One would be corn on the cob. Corn on the cob, to be honest with you, it&#8217;s butter. We love butter. If that corn on the cob did not have butter, how much do you really want it? But don&#8217;t you love when you get corn on the cob and you get those little yellow dagger things? As a kid, you&#8217;re like, &#8220;Ah, look at these things.&#8221; You can put them in your knuckles and be Wolverine. You stick it in the cob, and if you have that butter you can keep out that&#8217;s already melted, and you just roll the corn of the cob in it, that little cylinder, rolling it back and forth to lather on that butter.
This is just an elaborate spoon for butter at this point, but the crunchiness is good. You feel like a little chipmunk going along, like a little typewriter back and forth, but corn on the cob gets in your teeth. As soon as I&#8217;m done with it, even before the meal&#8217;s done, I got to run to the bathroom and get the floss out. Trent, too much information. We didn&#8217;t need to hear that, but come on, that&#8217;s happened to you, right? That&#8217;s happened to you. Corn and the cob, it gets really intrusive, but man, to get the nice buttery hit and it&#8217;s warm and the satisfaction of getting through it. I don&#8217;t love it, but I don&#8217;t hate it either. It really is truly neutral.
Here&#8217;s another one that might get me in trouble that&#8217;s on the neutral side, stuffing. I&#8217;m neutral towards stuffing. People say, &#8220;How dare you? Stuffing is the&#8221; &#8230; I&#8217;ve seen multiple lists that say stuffing is the best part of Thanksgiving. Stuffing? Stuffing is the best part of Thanksgiving? I mean, I get it, if it&#8217;s light and fluffy, it&#8217;s got the little green celery things in it and the onions. I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s something you don&#8217;t have the rest of the year, so it&#8217;s like, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m seeing you again. All right. It&#8217;s kind of interesting.&#8221; But at the same time, it doesn&#8217;t really have that much of a taste to it. It&#8217;s not something that I&#8217;m really yearning for.
I guess I can&#8217;t recall when I&#8217;ve had classic stuffing, which would be stuffing that you cook it in the turkey. Maybe I&#8217;ve had it at a previous dinner I&#8217;m going to get reamed over for not remembering, but apparently, I mean, to make it right, it&#8217;s cooked inside of the turkey to roast along with it, the bread and all the other stuff. [inaudible 00:07:54] bread. How can you go wrong with bread, right? Once again, in the neutral category, but it&#8217;s cooked inside of the turkey while it&#8217;s doing that. I guess if I had it done really well, maybe it&#8217;ll rise up to lower level of sides that I love. Right now, I don&#8217;t hate it, don&#8217;t love it. It&#8217;s neutral. Don&#8217;t get in a fight with me about it.
All right, let&#8217;s go to the sides that I hate, the sides that I hate. Oh, man. I&#8217;ll put these on sometimes because I&#8217;m gluttonous and I want to fill up my plate, but then I usually regret it when I go back later. All righty, cranberries. Why cranberries? I know it&#8217;s because Thanksgiving is from New England and cranberries grow out there, but they&#8217;re tart. They&#8217;re not enjoyable, especially if you&#8217;re making cranberries just out of a can. You just open up the can and you dump out this gelatinous dark red blob, and that&#8217;s the cranberry side. I always think, &#8220;Oh, little berries, that&#8217;ll be a nice little treat,&#8221; and I take a bite of them. Every year I forget, and then I sink my teeth in and it&#8217;s tart and sour. I don&#8217;t like it. I don&#8217;t see the appeal there.
Next one is ambrosia salad. You look at it and your brain gets full because it looks like a dessert. You&#8217;re like, &#8220;Oh, Jello and cream cheese, all this other stuff put into it,&#8221; and you take a bite into it and it just doesn&#8217;t taste very good at all. It&#8217;s just weird.
Speaking of ambrosia salad, any salad. I hate any salad. Why are you here taking up my time? Maybe a Caesar salad, but even there, you&#8217;ve got just kind of like little wilted lettuce with the little walnuts on top. It&#8217;s supposed to make you not feel guilty, like, &#8220;Well, at least I had a salad, so I&#8217;m being kind of healthy.&#8221; No way, bro. If I&#8217;m going to go all out, I&#8217;m going to go out with style. That salad is taking up room where I could have had at least two or three crescent rolls. What has spinach ever done for me? Nothing. I tried it once. I didn&#8217;t get super strength. False advertising, buddy. I don&#8217;t like it.
Next one, straight up green beans. Who thought straight up green beans is a good idea? There&#8217;s nothing unhealthy like fried onions on top to encourage me to have it. Green beans. Who thought of that stuff?
This one, though, that I hate is going to get me in trouble with a lot of people. This is a personal Trentism. If you declare me a heretic, that is fine. I stand here and I can do no other. Yams, any kind of candied yams, sweet potato casserole. I don&#8217;t understand the yam. There is starchy and there is sweet. If I want starchy, I&#8217;ll go with a potato. If I want sweet, I&#8217;m just going to have that drizzle dressing and the marshmallows you put on the sweet potato, but I feel like sweet potato, what you trying to do, man? You trying to be starchy or you trying to be sweet? Don&#8217;t try to mix that together. If you do mix starchy and sweet together, you got to make sure it&#8217;s two distinct things, like when you dump your Wendy&#8217;s french fry into a frosty, that&#8217;s amazing. You got starchy, salty, and sweet all in one bite. It&#8217;s wonderful. Yams though, I just don&#8217;t get it. They just seem like an inferior potato to me, but I know that some people really enjoy them.
Finally, there&#8217;s desserts. I mean, people do all kinds of different desserts out for Thanksgiving, little pies and cakes and stuff like that. Pumpkin pie is still traditional, supposed to reign supreme with maybe an apple or a berry pie runner up. Pumpkin pie is not really a pie, though. A pie has a flaky crust top. It&#8217;s technically more of a tart, and honestly, pumpkin pie, it&#8217;s not that great. I&#8217;m sorry, it is really not that great. The pumpkin pie filling doesn&#8217;t taste very good. It&#8217;s okay. The only reason people want pumpkin pie is to have a little bit of filling, then put whipped cream on it so you get the crust, tiny bit of the pumpkin pie filling and whipped cream. You basically want a pumpkin whipped cream cracker. That&#8217;s what you want. That&#8217;s what I want.
I will say, what is better than a pumpkin pie &#8230; I&#8217;ve gone out to stores and gotten this &#8230; is a pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin cheesecake rocks my socks. It&#8217;s what I want. I want the graham cracker crust. I want some kind of flavorful, pumpkin flavored inner, the whipped cream on it. That&#8217;s what I want. We see pumpkin pie and we deep down want pumpkin cheesecake and we eat pumpkin pie because you don&#8217;t have pumpkin cheesecake, and other desserts are always nice to have in there, but I really feel like with a pumpkin pie, go with the pumpkin cheesecake. I find it to be superior in that regard.
Apple pie is also good. It&#8217;s got that flaky crust on it, but if you can get it hot with a la mode [foreign language 00:12:08]. That is delightful. Did I make you hungry enough to go out for leftovers now? I&#8217;m sure you got some leftovers stuffed in the fridge today for you to enjoy.
That&#8217;s all, just a fun episode. Maybe you can commiserate with me and enjoy it. Maybe you have a different list. Maybe you have a different idea. I don&#8217;t know. If you&#8217;re a supporter of trenhornpodcast.com, leave a comment there. Would love to see your favorite foods ranked. Thank you all. I hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving weekend.
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FFAF: The Best and Worst Thanksgiving Food?

<div>How is it fair that gay people may not enjoy otherwise permissible sex?</div><div>If by “permissible sex” you mean “sexual activity between members of the opposite sex,” then a “gay&#8221; person (person with same-sex attraction) is not forbidden from such activity, on condition that it’s done within the right context, i.e., marriage. 
Just because a person has sexual attractions to members of his sex it doesn’t mean he can never get married and have sex. It’s possible for such a person to rightly order his sexual desires to a member of the opposite sex and be married. 
But what if a person is never able to rightly order her sexual desires to members of the opposite sex? Is it unfair to say that she can’t engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex? No. It’s not unfair because same-sex sexual activity is immoral—that’s to say, it’s contrary to the good of our human nature. 
For something to be unfair, there has to be a violation of some good that belongs to us as human beings. Saying that sexual activity between members of the same sex is something that humans ought not do is not a violation of a good that belongs to us as human beings. 
In fact, it seeks the opposite. The moral prohibition of same-sex sexual activity is just precisely because it seeks to preserve the goods of human sexuality: procreation and unitive love. Therefore, to say that same-sex sexual activity is immoral is not an injustice. 
For more information on this topic, see my article <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/for-goodness-sake">&#8220;Sex, For Goodness&#8217; Sake.&#8221;</a>
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Unfair to Deny ‘Gay’ People Sex?

<div>My Catholic friend claimed that when Jesus gave St. Peter the “keys of the kingdom” in Matthew 16:19, he gave Peter and the Church the power to declare anything sinful or not. Thus, if the Church wishes, it could declare so-called gay marriage, sexual promiscuity—whether “gay” or straight—and other sinful behavior morally licit based on the power of the keys. What should I say in response?</div><div>If by “declare anything sinful or not” your friend means the Church can determine acts to be morally good and bad, then your friend is mistaken. Perhaps instead he was trying to say that the Church has the authority to infallibly identify what is sin and what is not a sin. There is a difference.
The Church cannot make up its own morality. It is merely the guardian of the truth concerning upright human behavior (1 Tim. 6:20). However, the Church does have the promise of Christ to infallibly identify those things that are morally harmful to the human person and those things which are morally good for the human person.
So, when the Church definitively denounces a particular action as intrinsically evil, we can know with certainty that such a declaration is true, and the specific action denounced is gravely wrong.
Furthermore, because of the gift of infallibility, the Church can never definitively declare that which is objectively sinful as good, nor can it change a definitively taught moral doctrine later down the road.
Rest assured, the Church cannot definitively declare morally licit the human behaviors you mentioned above.
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Do the “keys to the kingdom” give the Church authority to declare anything sinful or not?

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent explores the myths and realities of card counting and how some people are able to disprove the idea that “the House always wins”.

FFAF: How to Beat Casinos with Card Counting

<div>Can we be for legal access to contraception, even though we morally oppose it?</div><div>Legalized contraception is pretty much an established fact in America, unfortunately, as has been for decades. So there really wouldn’t be an occasion in which Catholics would find themselves even asked to offer such support for legal access to contraception.
One might counter and say, “What about supporting legal access to contraception for those who work for Catholic entities?” Such support would be morally wrong.
In short, contraception is not authentic medical care. It treats no genuine medical problem, but rather treats a woman’s God-given gift of fertility as a malady to be “corrected” or controlled.
Consequently, the government should not coerce or otherwise violate the religious liberty of Catholic entities, forcing them to violate their consciences and offer inauthentic medical care. And Catholics shouldn’t support such government efforts.
When people choose to work for Catholic entities, they should understand that these entities are committed to advancing the mission of Jesus Christ and his Church, including in what they provide their employees re: medical coverage. And those employees who still desire contraception have various inexpensive legal alternatives of which they can choose to partake.
In conclusion, as Catholics, we should never offer support for legal access to contraception, even while recognizing it will likely remain part of the accepted fabric of American life. In this light, elected Catholic leaders in secular government may face passing large bills that include, as a small part, the continued legal funding of contraceptives. They can, in good conscience, vote for the good aspects of such bills while being morally opposed to the bad aspects. And they should never vocally offer a defense of legalized contraceptives. To the contrary, if asked, they should explain how contraception is not authentic medical care.
And Catholics who oversee healthcare benefits for secular entities can do their best to offer moral alternatives to contraception, such as training in NFP, given the various physical side effects to the Pill, for example, not to mention the moral fallout. And they can also offer to women non-abortifacient alternatives to treating various female medical issues, e.g., by covering related treatments offered by the <a href="https://www.popepaulvi.com/">Pope Paul VI Institute</a> in Omaha, Nebraska.
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Personally Opposed but Supportive of Legal Access to Contraception?

Protestants Took Me out of Context (And Proved Me RIGHT!)

Breaking news: Pope Leo XIV is naming St. John Henry Newman the next Doctor of the Church!
Why will Newman be named a Doctor of the Church? Simply put, because of his incredible contribution to the field of theology.
Newman (1801-1890) was no ordinary Catholic. He was a convert from the Anglican Communion. His conversion cost him everything: he lost his job, he lost his relationship with his sister, he lost his friends, and he lost the influence he had on the minds of Anglicans throughout England.
Newman had been a famous theologian, much like Bishop Barron for American Catholics today. But he was Anglican . . . until he wasn’t!
What did he receive by becoming a Catholic? He received what he believed to be the one true faith, and for him, that was electric.
Newman pioneered what would become official Catholic teaching at Vatican II: the development of Christian doctrine. His understanding of development forced him to leave the comforts of Anglicanism for the challenging life that awaited him as a Catholic. Without fear, he followed where God was leading him intellectually. And now we get to learn all about it.
That is why Newman is being named a Doctor of the Church: because he lived on the cutting edge of theology, no matter the cost. In fact, his alma mater, Oxford University, recognized his contribution to the field of theology by granting him an honorary doctorate degree. Now the Catholic Church is granting him an even greater honor.
When I started seminary around ten years ago, my biggest question was “why do we Catholics believe that Mary <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/immaculate-conception-a-smart-take">was immaculately conceived</a> when it doesn’t say that in my Bible?” I assumed that the Bible had to teach it; otherwise, why would the Church mandate it as a belief?
The problem was that I didn’t have a theological framework that extended beyond the Bible. In other words, my theological approach was more similar to the Protestant mindset of sola scriptura, or “Scripture alone,” than it was to the mindset of the Catholic Church. What I didn’t have was a teacher who could show me the ropes of the roots of Catholic theology.
Then came St. John Henry Newman. The crown jewel of Newman’s theological career is his great work, The Development of Christian Doctrine. In fact, it was what he discovered as he wrote this work that made him Catholic.
Newman acknowledged that he wasn’t setting out to prove all Catholic teachings. Instead, he wanted to show that there is a solid theological foundation for the development of Christian doctrines in general. Newman offers us this invaluable tool, which we can carry with us into whatever apologetical discussions we are engaged in. And now the Catholic Church offers it to us in an official way as well.
So how does it work?
Let’s return briefly to my initial example: the Immaculate Conception. Newman didn’t prove the Immaculate Conception using the Bible alone. Instead, he points us to Scripture to show that this doctrine was there in its rudiments from the very beginning (Gen. 3:15).
Newman loved to use images from nature. An apple tree and an apple seed are consistent, although they look very different from each other. Doctrines develop in a manner similar to how a seed becomes a tree, because, like an apple tree, doctrines are alive. Doctrinal developments look different from their seed form, but they are still consistent with them. An apple seed won’t become an orange tree, and if a doctrine were to lose its consistency with its seed form, it would become a corruption rather than a development.
Although the Immaculate Conception isn’t explicitly in Scripture, what is in Scripture is the development of doctrine!
First, according to Newman, Old Testament prophecies took time to develop. We have no evidence that anybody understood in ancient Judaism what God’s cryptic punishment of the devil meant in Genesis 3:15 in its fullness. God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The fullness of Genesis 3:15 wouldn’t be understood until much later, when Christ was born of the woman, who, Newman taught, was the virgin Mary. Christ was the offspring cryptically referred to who crushed the head of the devil through his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. The treasure of Genesis 3:15 was buried there from the beginning. This is an example of the development of a doctrine in Scripture.
Newman also points us to New Testament parables to show that doctrines develop. One of them is the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31-32.
<blockquote>Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”</blockquote>
For Newman, doctrines can be found early on in the Bible in seed form. The mistake I was making when I started seminary was that I was looking for a mustard tree when in reality all I was going to find was the mustard seed. Since I wasn’t looking for the right thing, I was missing the doctrine completely.
Newman asks if the apostles would have known all the theological developments that the Church and her theologians would work out in time. Newman says yes! But there is a caveat. What they wouldn’t have known explicitly, they would have known implicitly. If I sat down with St. Peter and explained the doctrines of the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception with insights from the Church’s writings over the last 200 years, Peter would agree with all of it, even if he couldn’t verbalize it himself.
The clincher for Newman’s insight is that the doctrines found in the Bible didn’t stop developing after Jesus’ ascension. Instead, we find Peter wrestling with the fact that he is supposed to baptize Gentiles, even though Jesus never taught him to do it. Newman wrote,
<blockquote>If we turn our attention to the beginnings of apostolic teaching after [Jesus’] ascension, we shall find ourselves unable to fix a historical point at which the growth of doctrine ceased, and the rule of faith was once for all settled (155).</blockquote>
Therefore, doctrines developed then, and they will continue to develop now. Newman reveals that the Protestant doctrine of sola scripture isn’t biblical.
Above, I gave you a key insight from Newman the theologian. But he likely isn’t going to be named a Doctor of the Church for this insight alone.
Newman also offers us a deep insight into the human conscience. In fact, he wrote that conscience can help prove God’s existence. He also wrote a number of works explaining theological conversion from various angles. First, his own autobiography, the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, documents his theological journey from Anglicanism to Catholicism. His work An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is a heavily philosophical work that explains intellectual conversion. And his novel Loss and Gain is about an Oxford student who converts to Catholicism.
Lastly, I have to mention that Newman is an amazing saint for Catholic Answers and its mission, because Newman himself was a controversialist and an apologist.
Today is an exciting day. The Catholic Church, through the leadership of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, has decided to hand on St. John Henry Newman as a teacher of the universal Church.
It is rare to become the pope, but it is far rarer to be officially declared a Doctor of the Church. Newman will be the thirty-eighth person given this illustrious title in 2,000 years. May this day mark the start of a new and fresh insight into Catholicism for the world.

John Henry Newman: Doctor of the Church!

Should we consider the book of Enoch canonical?

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Is there any biblical direction on if another planet with intelligent life could they receive the Sacraments.

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&#8220;Why Isn&#8217;t The Book of Enoch Canonical?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the nature of scriptural authority, while also addressing varied topics such as the significance of Acts 27:34-36 in relation to the Mass, and whether intelligent life on other planets could receive the Sacraments. Additionally, the conversation touches on the implications of discovering ancient biblical documents and the concept of Divine Inspiration in scripture.
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Why Isn’t The Book of Enoch Canonical? Gospel Insights

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DAY 232
CHALLENGE
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“The Gospels contradict each other about which women went to Jesus’ tomb.”
DEFENSE
The Gospels simply record different details.
The following women are mentioned as going to the tomb:
<ul>
<li>Mary Magdalen and the “other Mary,” who is identified as “the mother of James and Joseph” (Matt. 28:1; cf. Matt. 27:56, 61)</li>
<li>Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (Mark 16:1)</li>
<li>Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them (Luke 24:10)</li>
</ul>
Mary Magdalen (John 20:1)
For a contradiction to exist, one Gospel would have to assert a particular woman was there and another would have to deny she was, but this is not what happens. No Gospel asserts any of the women wasn’t there. This means different evangelists merely chose to record different details, in keeping with the choices every author must make (see Day 258’s discussion of descriptive approximation).
Based on Luke’s list, which is the most extensive, there were a minimum of five women who went to the tomb and possibly more, so it’s not surprising the evangelists chose not to name everyone.
We may be able to determine why they made some of the choices they did. Mary Magdalen is always mentioned first, indicating a special prominence. It’s likely she went on to be the most well-known female witness to the empty tomb in the first-century Church.
The other named women may be mentioned because the evangelist who names them was personally familiar with their testimony. Named individuals in the Gospels sometimes appear to be the key tradents (tradition-bearers) for the sections where they appear (see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, chapter 3). It’s also possible they were mentioned because they were known to the audiences of the individual Gospels (compare the way Mark 15:21 mentions Alexander and Rufus, who were apparently known to his audience). It’s even possible the named women were among the Gospels’ intended audiences.
The reason John mentions only Mary Magdalen is likely because he intended to supplement the synoptic Gospels (see Bauckham, “John for Readers of Mark” in The Gospels for All Christians), because she was involved in his own eyewitness experience (John 20:1–10), and because he had information about her encounter not recorded in the other Gospels (John 20:11–18).
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The Women at the Tomb

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