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<div>Does God hate religion? Is Christianity not a religion?</div><div>Religion should not necessarily be construed as a negative reality. As the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion">Merriam-Webster Dictionary</a> relates, religion is a “set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/religion">The Catholic Encyclopedia</a> elaborates further, and we can also speak of <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=36024">the virtue of religion</a>.
The real issue is: who sets up a particular religion? If God does so, religion provides the greatest fulfillment available for humanity. Jesus Christ, the God-man, founded the religion of Christianity by establishing his Church (Matt. 16:18-19) and commanding his apostles to make disciples of all nations, meaning a “catholic,” or universal, Church (Matt. 28:18-20).
Acts 2:42 affirms the basic religious structure of Christianity, including the “teaching of the apostles,” showing again the divinely ordained leadership of Peter and the other apostles as well as the celebration of “the breaking of the bread,” an early-Church term for the sacrifice of the Mass.
St. Paul affirms the religious nature of Christianity when he writes that it’s the Church, and not simply the Bible, that is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). And what or who is the truth? It’s Jesus Christ (John 14:6), a fact that reaffirms the Church is the religious pillar and bulwark Jesus established to teach and otherwise minister to his people.
Finally, we see that the word religion is used positively in the Bible, as St. James writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27, Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition [RSVCE]). The King James Version, a classic Protestant biblical translation, uses the same word religion in James 1:27. James contrasts worthy religion with worthless religion (James 1:26). St. Paul also uses religion positively in 1 Timothy 3:16, right after affirming the Church as “the pillar and foundation of truth” (RSVCE). Other translations use godliness, a synonym for holiness or religion, which in practice encompasses one&#8217;s voluntary subjection to God.
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Does God Hate Religion?

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<div>If the saints are in heaven, then why is King David not in heaven (Acts 2:29-34)?</div><div><blockquote>My brothers, one can confidently say to you about the patriarch David that he died and was buried, and his tomb is in our midst to this day. But since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld nor did his flesh see corruption. God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you (both) see and hear.
For David did not go up into heaven, but he himself said:
&#8220;The Lord said to my Lord, &#8216;Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.&#8217;”
Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:29-35).</blockquote>
The author is not saying that David did not go to heaven after the resurrection of Jesus. The context is that Peter is pointing out that in certain Psalm passages David was not talking about himself but about Jesus.
Peter began his preaching by saying, &#8220;For David says of him . . . you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption&#8221; (Acts 2:25,27).
By saying David was buried in their midst and was not resurrected, Peter was saying that David could not have speaking about himself, because the Psalm clearly states that the person will not remain in the grave. Peter was preaching the fulfillment of Scripture in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
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Is King David in Heaven?

How Does the Church Respond to Protestant Martyrs?

<div>Where does the Church address children leaving Mass during the liturgy of the word?</div><div>The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (21) directs us to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship&#8217;s 1973 Directory for Masses with Children. In that document (<a href="https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/SOS/DCM.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">16-17</a>) the Congregation states:
<blockquote>In many places parish Masses are celebrated, especially on Sundays and holy days, at which a good many children take part along with the large number of adults . . .
. . . if the place itself and the nature of the community permit, it will be appropriate to celebrate the liturgy of the word, including a homily, with the children in a separate, but not too distant, room. Then, before the Eucharistic liturgy begins, the children are led to the place where the adults have meanwhile celebrated their own liturgy of the word.</blockquote>
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Children’s Liturgy of the Word

What is the point of having a pope?

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What is the point of having a pope?

What Are Some Similarities Between Catholics and Orthodox Christians?

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DAY 203
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CHALLENGE
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“The pope’s title Vicarius Filii Dei (‘Vicar of the Son of God’) adds up to 666, identifying him as the beast of Revelation.”
DEFENSE
Vicarius Filii Dei is not one of the pope’s titles (see Day 175), and a careful study of Revelation shows that the number likely refers to a Roman emperor.
Revelation 13:18 says 666 is the “number of a man” (literal translation). Revelation gives several clues about who this was.
He likely was alive in John’s day. Revelation 1:1 and 22:6 say the vision John sees “must soon take place.”
The beast has seven heads that represent seven hills (Rev. 17:9), suggesting the city of Rome. The heads also represent seven kings, “five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while” (Rev. 17:10). This suggests the line of first-century Roman emperors.
The beast is associated with the whore of Babylon, who John sees “drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev. 17:6). This suggest the beast persecuted Christians, which the Roman Empire did.
We are told people worshipped the Beast, which had great military might (Rev. 13:4). The Roman Empire was the dominant military power of the day, and people worshipped the emperor by the Roman imperial cult.
It is thus natural to identify the beast with the line of Roman emperors, and, in a special way, with Nero. In Hebrew and Ara- maic, the name “Nero Caesar” (NRWN QSR) adds up to 666 (N+R+W+N+Q+S+R = 50+200+6+50+100+60+200 = 666). A variant spelling (NRW QSR) adds up to 616, and this number is found in some ancient manuscripts of Revelation.
Nero was famous for persecuting Christians, again strengthening his identification with the beast (see the Roman historians Tacitus, Annals 15:44, and Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, “Nero” 16).
In A.D. 68, Nero was declared an enemy of the state by the Roman senate and committed suicide. He was likely one of the five fallen kings of Revelation 17:10. Two of Nero’s successors in A.D. 69—Otho and Vitellius—emulated and honored Nero (see Suetonius, “Otho” 7, “Vitellius” 11), making them possible fulfillments of the prophecy of the beast’s return after being struck down (Rev. 13:3, 17:8–11).
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666 and the Roman Emperors

As a “Primitive Christian,” how do you justify replacing 1st-century Holy Days with modern celebrations that have pagan roots?

If Apostles no longer exist, how does the Catholic Church fulfill the fivefold ministry of Ephesians 4:11?

Is there historical evidence of where Apostles like Peter and John went to spread Christianity?

Are there any early church writings regarding Mary?

&#8220;How do you justify replacing Holy Days?&#8221; This question leads to a discussion on the evolution of celebrations and supposed connections to pagan roots. Additionally, the conversation touches on how the Catholic Church fulfills the fivefold ministry of Ephesians 4:11 in the absence of the Apostles and explores historical evidence regarding the journeys of Apostles like Peter and John.
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How Do You Justify Replacing Holy Days? Apostles and Mary

“Now the Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity; Neither confusing the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.”
So says the Athanasian Creed, also known as the Quicunque vult, which for many centuries was recited in the Western divine office every day at prime. This creed summarizes in its own way the dogmatic tradition of the Church given in the Nicene Creed and the ecumenical councils of the first millennium.
I call it the “dogmatic tradition” deliberately, and not as an insult. People today may dislike the concept of dogma, or authoritative teaching, but there’s no other true way to describe the way that trinitarian theology functions in the Christian and Catholic tradition. It is dogma, which is to say, it is not an opinion that you can take or leave based on personal preference. It is not one interpretation of things that can be revised at any time. It is a line in the sand, a boundary, a marker, that says, Here is something that is so central that we cannot be who we are if we deny it. In other words, we may wrestle with the dogma of the Trinity, we may try to understand it better, we may try to state it in new ways—but we cannot revise it or alter it and remain who we are as the Church for which Christ gave his life
But maybe many people will then ask, So what? Perhaps we feel no need to maintain a creed that is recognizable to the apostles and their successors. We have moved on, after all, in so many things. For certain strands of skeptical modernity, embracing a creed from the fourth century makes about as much sense as embracing medicine from the fourth century.
And yet, I think, the intrusion of that larger and longer story is exactly why the dogma of the Trinity matters to us in a direct and personal way. I hope it goes without saying that, as a Catholic priest, I believe what the Creed says about God’s unity and trinity; it goes without saying that the Church has insisted, since a very early time, that this was the only way to understand what happened in the life, death, resurrection, and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/hope-until-we-meet-again">ascension</a> of Jesus Christ. But those are intellectual responses to intellectual problems, and I doubt that most of us spend much time from day to day wondering how it is that God could have an eternal Son, and what it would mean for that Son to become incarnate, and how they could both be one unchanging God while remaining distinct.
I wonder if the gift of trinitarian dogma is valuable and useful for us precisely as dogma. What I mean is this: By giving us a foundational tradition that can neither be proved nor disproved through normal human reason, God’s self-revelation has shown us not just what God is like, but also what the world is like. We are born into a world that we did not choose. Creation, life—everything that we know and love about existence—is a gift. Sure, we can look at it and think about it and try to understand it, but to do all this in any meaningful sense, we have to take that first leap of faith, which is to just acknowledge that it is, that we are. This has always been the most basic existential proof of God.
Our takeaway, then, from the givenness and permanence of the Church’s faith in the Trinity is that the life lived in faith is a gift. We do not have to make it up as we go along. We are not thrown into the cosmos naked to fend for ourselves. We are free because we are born into a story that we did not choose, a story whose foundation is the infinite love of God’s own choice to create us and to be with us forever.
On this Octave Day of Pentecost, we do well to remember our baptism. Baptism is birth. Did we choose to be born, in biological terms? The notion is ridiculous. Life is simply given. And even though the Catholic Church views adult baptism—the baptism of converts, in other words—as the theoretical norm, the baptism of children is a norm in another way, for it highlights the graciousness of God’s gift. When we baptize a child, the choices, the stories, that precede her own choices frame her story and shape it toward freedom and love. She doesn’t need to figure out or invent who she is, and neither do we; we are children of God, made heirs of God’s kingdom in Jesus Christ.
God delights in us, his children, and he wants us to take for granted that this is so, however much we sin, err, and choose bad over good. Consider this: I may be disappointed in or angry with my children, but I never want them to have to stop and think and puzzle their way to the conclusion that I am still their father and that I love them. I want them to take my love for them, and their identity as part of my family, as dogma—non-negotiable, unalterable, absolute.
God is, thank God, more of a Father than I will ever be. And I give thanks that God’s eternal identity, and his love for me, is not dependent on what I happen to think about it. To this God most holy, in his divine majesty of Trinity in Unity, be praise, honor, power, and glory, now and forever. Amen.

The Trinity: Make Dogma Great Again

The necessity of baptism for salvation is a longstanding and widely accepted doctrine within most of Christianity. However, some argue that exceptions found in the Bible, such as the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-good-thief-isnt-good-for-protestant-doctrines">thief on the cross</a>, invalidate this requirement. This argument is extremely ahistorical and commits a fallacy known as the argument by exception.
Before getting into logical arguments, I should remind you that the idea that baptism regenerates and is necessary for entering heaven is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-necessity-of-baptism">unanimously believed</a> in the early Church. This can be demonstrated by two Protestant scholars who both recognize this fact. For instance, in his book on early Christian doctrines, JND Kelly says that baptism <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Early-Christian-Doctrines-J-Kelly/dp/006064334X">was always seen</a> as a way of remitting sins, not just a symbol of faith (pp. 193-194). Protestant William Webster in his anti-Catholic history book likewise notes that the doctrine of baptism as taught by the Catholicism is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Church-Rome-at-Bar-History/dp/0851517102/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PR302K9AX719&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4lFO0X6vIEBToHDojpeJylwuf1qcTx7awxA9oVmCSIA.pVzSlAJcIkxjv69ipAshSc6gid4hGdYUQk79lw6I5t0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=church+of+rome+at+the+bar+of+history&amp;qid=1718681862&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=church+of+rome+at+the+%2Cstripbooks%2C130&amp;sr=1-1">universal</a> among the Fathers. Therefore, when Protestants who deny baptismal regeneration try arguing that sola scriptura is not anti-tradition, this is not something that can be demonstrated honestly.
In any case, some Protestants who deny baptismal regeneration will argue against it using exceptions in the Bible. Baptist pastor Mike Winger makes this argument <a href="https://youtu.be/7ZVHHmCOjOg?si=CE74q_H98HGL1Uds">in a video</a> about Catholicism:
<blockquote>[In Catholicism,] baptism is one of the many steps that you need to take in order to be saved. Now, against this, the Bible actually has examples of unbaptized saved people even after the gospel was being proclaimed.</blockquote>
No Christian argues that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation—that is, needed for everyone, without exceptions. Granted, this is plainly contradicted by people in the Bible who went to heaven without water baptism. However, we would argue that baptism is conditionally necessary: generally necessary for most, but for people in extreme circumstances (such as those who physically cannot be water baptized), <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/gatorade-a-sin-quencher">we have exceptions</a>. God normally communicates grace through sacraments, but God is not bound by his sacraments.
Back to the argument by exception. This fallacy occurs when someone cites an exception to attempt to invalidate a general rule. Here is an example:
&#8220;The law states that it is illegal to exceed the posted speed limit on public roads. However, there are occasions when ambulances exceed the speed limit to reach an emergency situation more quickly. Since ambulances are allowed to break the speed limit rule in certain exceptions, this proves that the law prohibiting exceeding the speed limit is invalid and does not actually need to be followed.&#8221;
This is not a valid logical structure. Just because speeding is allowed in extreme circumstances, that does not mean that everyone can speed all the time. Someone who argues that baptism cannot be necessary for salvation because of exceptions in the Bible is committing a similar fallacious argument.
This fallacious argument can also be demonstrated by using another, more relevant example. Many Protestants who deny baptismal regeneration would also argue that someone who does not believe in Jesus could be saved in extreme circumstances. We could imagine a nine-year-old who dies, and all she ever knew was atheism because both of her parents were atheists. Since this individual was quite young and would not have known anything besides atheism, she could be saved, even though she did not believe that Jesus is God.
However, what if someone then says, “See? You don’t need to believe in Jesus to go to heaven! We have an exception right here. Christians are wrong when they argue that one must believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven.”
Most Christians would not believe that this is a valid line of logic. Just because there are exceptions, this does not invalidate the general rule that has been accepted universally by the Fathers.
I should also add this—if baptism is universally accepted as way of regenerating God’s people, it must also be the case that <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/where-is-eternal-security-in-the-bible-hint-nowhere">eternal security</a> is unanimously rejected. After all, since baptism saves, and not everyone who is baptized stays a Christian for his entire life, it must be so that the Fathers also believed that a genuinely saved Christian could lose his salvation. Therefore, Protestants who argue that Christians cannot lose their salvation while also trying to argue that sola scriptura is not anti-tradition are likewise not being consistent.
In summary, using exceptions found in the Bible, such as the thief on the cross, to argue against the necessity of baptism for salvation is an example of the argument by exception fallacy. This faulty reasoning attempts to invalidate a widely accepted general principle by citing isolated exceptions. However, as demonstrated through examples like speeding laws, the existence of rare exceptions does not negate an established rule or requirement.
The doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the necessity of baptism was unanimously upheld by the early Church Fathers. Trying to use exceptional cases to undermine this longstanding belief commits a logical fallacy and fails to provide a valid counterargument.

Baptism Is Logically Necessary

<div>What is the Church's position on priests who publicly identify as gay and are living a celibate life?</div><div>First, I think you mean “chaste” rather than “celibate.” Celibacy denotes refraining from getting married, whereas chastity in the case of someone who is single, such as a Catholic priest, refers to total continence, i.e., abstaining from any sexual activity. In the case of a Catholic who is celibate, the two terms should go together, but that isn’t necessarily the case in practice.
While the Church has no formal policy on this matter, a priest who publicly identifies as “gay” yet pledges to lives chastely and also support the Church’s teaching otherwise will likely continue in his priestly ministry.
Such a case occurred with Fr. Gregory Greiten of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, who in December 2017 announced to his parish congregation, <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2017/12/18/am-roman-catholic-priest-and-yes-am-gay/960447001/">“I am Greg. I am a Roman Catholic priest. And, yes, I am gay!”</a>
In an official statement responding to Fr. Greiten’s announcement, Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee said, “We support Fr. Greiten in his own, personal journey and telling his story of coming to understand and live with his sexual orientation. As the Church teaches, those with same-sex attraction must be treated with understanding and compassion. As priests who have made a promise to celibacy, we know that every week there are people in our pews who struggle with the question of homosexuality.&#8221;
Fr. “Greg’s own story reminds each of us of God’s call to continue to grow in understanding and to live holy, chaste lives,” Listecki added.
The Church has never endorsed use of the word gay in any of its official documents, because it doesn’t believe a person’s identity should be reduced to their sexual inclination, especially in the case of those dealing with same-sex attraction (SSA) and who thus, in contrast to men and women who can truly marry, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html">have no moral recourse to express themselves sexually</a>.
For anyone dealing with SSA and desiring to live a joyfully chaste life, we heartily recommend the work of the Catholic apostolate <a href="https://couragerc.org/">Courage</a>.
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What About a Chaste Priest Who Is ‘Gay’?

Catholics believe we will be judged based on our works. And there’s no better argument for this belief than one that appeals to Jesus’ teaching about judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats.
The difference between the sheep and the goats is what they did and did not do. Performing the works of charity merits eternal life, and failure to perform works of charity leads to damnation. For a Catholic, it doesn’t get much clearer than this.
But for some Protestants, it’s not so clear. And they have reasons why they don’t agree.
Consider, for example, Protestant scholar Robert Wilkin. He <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Views-Works-Final-Judgment-Counterpoints/dp/0310490332">argues</a> that it’s “erroneous” to equate Jesus’ statement, “inherit the kingdom prepared for you,” with “entering it” or “that these people have eternal life.” He interprets Jesus as saying, “They will be rewarded with the privilege of reigning with him forever.” Protestant author Joseph Dillow takes the same line as Wilkin, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reign-Servant-Kings-Eternal-Security-ebook/dp/B007U79V1U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1R003P3X41W6W&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ca7z02nPFWm1CdNMWP_vUN4JWkTRrkHp5f8Vnr5LDevGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.q3z343z3vb9hNof4yKuT97Ds2WKSz3JyAVkhDtOqreQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=The+Reign+of+the+Servant+Kings%3A+A+Study+of+Eternal+Security+and+the+Final+Destiny+of+Man&amp;qid=1725478818&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=the+reign+of+the+servant+kings+a+study+of+eternal+security+and+the+final+destiny+of+man+%2Cstripbooks%2C120&amp;sr=1-1">writing</a>, “‘To inherit the kingdom’ is a virtual synonym for rulership in the kingdom and not entrance into it.”
Since Jesus isn’t talking about entrance into the kingdom, but rather ruling in the kingdom, so it’s argued, the works that the sheep perform don’t play a causal role in their (or our) final salvation.
For our first response, let’s concede for argument’s sake that “inherit the kingdom” is equivalent to “reigning with Christ forever.” By itself, this doesn’t exclude the Catholic view that serving Christ in others is a condition for entrance into the kingdom.
Consider, for example, the contrast Jesus makes between those who “inherit the kingdom” and those who do not. Those who don’t inherit the kingdom depart from Christ “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . They will go away into eternal punishment.” “Eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” both convey the nature of the individual’s experience as he departs from Christ.
But it would be ridiculous to think this somehow excludes the idea that the goats don’t ever enter the kingdom because of their failure to practice love in serving Christ in others. Jesus explicitly says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire . . . for I was hungry and you gave me no food.” Jesus’ statements about what the damned will experience also involve exclusion from the kingdom.
Since “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” involve both what the damned will experience, being separated from Christ, and that they are excluded from the kingdom, and Jesus explicitly contrasts “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” with “inheriting the kingdom,” it’s reasonable to conclude that “inheriting the kingdom” involves not only what the saved will experience in heaven (e.g., ruling with Christ forever), but also entrance into the kingdom. And since serving Christ in others is a condition for ruling with Christ (assuming that “inheriting the kingdom” refers to ruling with Christ), it follows that serving Christ in others is also a condition of entering the kingdom.
A second response is that the word inheritance implies entering a new state that you didn’t have before. For example, if I were to say to my son, “You will inherit my money when I die,” I would mean that my son would eventually enter a state of possessing my money that he doesn’t have now, before my death. Another example is the Israelites’ inheritance of the promised land. Given that the term inheritance signifies entering a new state, we can interpret Jesus’ statement about Christians “inheriting the kingdom” to mean Christians entering the kingdom of heaven.
A third <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Gospel-Matthew-Jonathan-Pennington/dp/080103728X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3862CZWXVX21Z&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DqiaYEXWcYkkX8qPSzIFp_IcZNOky6MPu4_lAze2IEZAts1DsI0KD5cuiCu6i4zUdev2wCD-KNf7KT7xdbEP-FvlnYJGxeNjdVzOt2UiulDRGmKbezWiypKsw3QrcE5RqFruJyOmG6ijBRcN1xDW2-Nm9gM-YchAgdfhoHaGVq5hlsuEcbAdarJjlfeknQZhf0849vt7YbYwgdOlnlbGNtP0zVWfq3zTzV7KBoxwbtQ.B-ulqnL36cX-dCgBKfZog0kvhVCZWs8MO-HN2wYO0Hk&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Heaven+and+Earth+in+the+Gospel+of+Matthew&amp;qid=1725479034&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=heaven+and+earth+in+the+gospel+of+matthew%2Cstripbooks%2C134&amp;sr=1-1">response</a> is that we have biblical grounds for thinking the phrase “inherit the kingdom” refers to receiving eternal life. First, Jesus explicitly identifies the sheep who “inherit the kingdom” as the “the righteous” who “go . . . into eternal life.” Eternal life here is not to be equated with merely a reward, such as ruling with Christ, since it’s contrasted with “eternal punishment.” Jesus is contrasting two eternal destinies: one for the righteous and the other for the unrighteous.
Moreover, as R.T. France <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Matthew-International-Commentary-Testament/dp/080282501X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JCMOJFMN08AH&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2sxcHGe0UBaFIbxQFOD-dmxtXvQYaPjE3TD_IuJE271ATbyYitVIF0GHMFdsgAD-H30Az9ernid5pFzZ_fD331l2sn02py_tU43yJO3YO0lH7s_rtGMF08xgekhKKWAUrtmBVtpjdLg_tOf5jDoDCXmLwPih_WRB80h-qp302P0.o9Bb72TruPtCPzkfHPMT6730wIR2-MtKv3WnKkpVsX0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=r.t.+france+The+Gospel+of+Matthew&amp;qid=1725478947&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=r.t.+france+the+gospel+of+matthew%2Cstripbooks%2C117&amp;sr=1-1">points</a> out, the phrase “eternal life” is already familiar to the reader of Matthew’s Gospel as being equated with being saved or entering the kingdom of heaven. For example, in Matthew 19:16, the rich young man asks Jesus, “What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” Then, in verses 28-29, Jesus makes clear that the eternal life the rich young man asked about refers to the life the righteous will receive at the Final Judgment: “Truly, I say to you . . . when the Son of Man shall sit on his glorious throne . . . everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake [what the rich young man didn’t do], will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.”
Second, Matthew elsewhere in his Gospel records Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom, and it specifies that entrance into the kingdom is conditioned on whether Jesus’ followers perform loving actions. For example, in Matthew 7:21, Jesus is clear that only those who do the will of his Father will “enter the kingdom of heaven.” Doing God’s will is the essence of the theological virtue of charity.
Matthew two chapters earlier records Jesus: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). Jesus goes on to list a variety of things that make up this righteousness:
<ul>
<li>Making amends with someone we’ve offended before we offer our sacrifice.</li>
<li>Avoiding lust.</li>
<li>Refusing to divorce or to attempt marriage after divorce.</li>
<li>Not swearing.</li>
<li>Turning the other cheek and being generous.</li>
<li>Loving enemies.</li>
</ul>
Notice that each item in the above list involves charity. And it’s this charity, manifest in deeds or the avoidance thereof, that is necessary to have the righteousness required to “enter the kingdom of heaven” and be called “sons of your Father who is in heaven” (v. 45). Therefore, charity, and the behaviors associated with it, is a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom.
Given this context of Matthew’s Gospel concerning entrance into the kingdom and its relation to charity, as shown both in Matthew 5:20-47 and Matthew 7:21, it makes sense to think that when Jesus speaks of “inheriting the kingdom” based on charitable actions in Matthew 25, he has in mind the same teaching he gave concerning entrance into the kingdom based on charity in Matthew 5 and 7.
In sum, this Protestant counterargument fails on multiple grounds. It doesn’t jibe with Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom and its relation to charity elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel. Nor does it succeed even if we grant for argument’s sake that “inherit the kingdom” refers to ruling with Christ. As such, this comeback shouldn’t cause a Catholic to stop using Matthew 25:31-46 for biblical support of the belief that works play an essential role in entering heaven.

Protestants Reign on the Catholic Parade

<h2>What Are Mortal Sins?</h2>

Everyone knows—or almost everyone does—that there are morally good actions and morally evil actions. But when is an action not only wrong, but sinful? And particularly mortally sinful? After all, as St. John says, “all wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” just as “there is sin which is mortal” (1 John 5:16,17). A <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/mortal-sin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mortal sin</a> is one that “destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible. Unrepented, it brings eternal death,” as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) puts it (1874). That’s what makes it “mortal,” or deadly: it cuts us off from God forever, unless it is “redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness” (CCC 1861). 
Thanks be to God, not every evil action is mortally sinful. So how do we know which is which? Just as there are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/do-circumstances-determine-the-sinfulness-of-an-act">three ingredients</a> in evaluating a moral action (the object, intention, and circumstances), so there are three ingredients in a mortal sin: (1) “grave matter,” (2) “full knowledge,” and (3) “deliberate consent.” And the Catechism is clear that all “three conditions must together be met” (1857).  
If all three are met, it’s mortally sinful. Otherwise, “one commits <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mortal-and-venial-sin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">venial sin</a> when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent” (CCC 1862). That’s still a problem, since venial sin “weakens charity” and “impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good,” and “deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin,” but venial sin does not (of itself) “deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness” (CCC 1863). 
What does “grave matter” mean? It means that the sin is serious. But how do we evaluate the seriousness of a sin? The Catechism is explicit about the grave nature of particular sins, including sacrilege (2120), blasphemy (2148), perjury (2152), deliberately avoiding Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation (2181), murder (2268), hatred of neighbor “when one deliberately desires him grave harm” (2303), prostitution (2355), sexual relations outside marriage (2390), and adulation that “makes one an accomplice in another’s vices or grave sins” (2480). St. Paul likewise gives lists in Galatians 5:19-21 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 of sins whose practitioners will not “inherit the kingdom of God.” But none of these lists is exhaustive. 
More broadly, the Catechism says that “grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments” (1858), pointing to Jesus’ words to the rich young man. When the man asks him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”, Jesus answers, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother’” (Mark 10:17,19). Jesus’ clear implication seems to be that those who do commit adultery, steal, etc. shall not inherit eternal life. 
Even here, there are two important caveats. On the one hand, not every violation of the Ten Commandments is a mortal sin. For instance, the person who steals a dollar is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-are-some-examples-of-venial-sins">not necessarily damned</a>. On the other hand, not every mortal sin is a direct and obvious violation of the Ten Commandments. St. Thomas Aquinas <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3148.htm">considers this objection</a> directly in considering the sin of gluttony: “Every mortal sin is contrary to a precept of the Decalogue: and this, apparently, does not apply to gluttony.” Aquinas argues that gluttony is an indirect violation of the Third Commandment (keeping the Sabbath holy) by turning us away from holiness. That’s a strange answer, but he explains: “Mortal sins are not all directly opposed to the precepts of the Decalogue [Ten Commandments], but only those which contain injustice: because the precepts of the Decalogue pertain specially to justice and its parts.” In other words, the Ten Commandments lay out “the first principles” of the moral law; they’re not an exhaustive list of every serious sin. The right question is this: is this the kind of behavior that places something else above God or turns me away from God? If so, it’s grave matter. 
In considering whether or not a sin is mortal, circumstances matter. For instance, the Catechism points out that “one must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger” (1858). Likewise, stealing from the excess wealth of a millionaire is less evil than stealing the food of a starving man. Taking the example of lying, the Catechism explains how to determine the gravity of a sin: “The gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity” (2484). 
<h2>Related Content</h2>
<h3>Articles</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/sin-the-debate-between-catholics-and-protestants" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sin: The Debate Between Catholics and Protestants</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-hard-is-it-to-commit-a-mortal-sin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How Hard Is it to Commit a Mortal Sin?</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Podcasts</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/scw/why-god-lets-us-sin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Why God Lets Us Sin</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/sp/are-some-sins-worse-than-others" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Are Some Sins Worse Than Others?</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Resources</h3>
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<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-catholic-answers-guide-to-an-examination-of-conscience" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Examination of Conscience</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/catholic-answers-guide-for-getting-to-mass?_gl=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Find a Church Near Me</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/spiritual-warfare-and-the-discernment-of-spirits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Discernment of Spirits</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.catholic.com/20-answers-good-and-evil/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">20 Answers: Good &amp; Evil</a></li>
</ul>

Mortal Sins: The Basics

Catholics will sometimes criticize Protestants for being their own popes. Instead of the Church being the judge of true doctrine, Protestants make their private judgment the final authority. Some Protestants have objected that Catholics are equally guilty: They have to use their own private judgment to decide that the Catholic Church is the true church. Aren’t Catholics, then, their own pope, too?
The answer is no. This objection rests on several points of confusion.
First, Catholics aren’t saying that weighing evidence and arguments is bad. The Church has no problem with human reason—some of the greatest philosophers, theologians, and scientists have come (and still come) from the Catholic Church. The Church also acknowledges, and prominently at <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html">Vatican II</a>, that people have to make decisions for themselves as rational agents.
Catholics object to the idea that the Church’s own authority cannot possibly be decisive evidence for the truth of its teaching. This is because the Church’s authority comes from and is protected by God. Thus, because God would not allow the Church to definitively teach error, the definitive judgment of the Church would be <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2265.00050">decisive evidence</a> for the truth of a Church teaching.
But since Protestants don’t see Church authority in that way, they instead rely upon their own private judgment or assessment of the facts. In other words, Catholics’ problem is not that Protestants are using human reason. It’s that they prefer their individual, private judgment over and against the public judgment of the Church, a divinely protected authority. To Catholics, that’s unreasonable.
Here is the second problem with the objection: It does not use “private judgment” in the same way that Catholics do, and so it fails to show any internal inconsistency.  When Catholics condemn “private judgment,” they aren’t condemning human reason itself. Private judgment in this context is when you prefer your own evaluation of the evidence over and against a legitimate authority’s judgment. Instead, the latter’s judgment, due to the nature of the authority issuing it, should be compelling.
<a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/faith-and-private-judgement-13761">St. John Henry Newman</a> used the time of the apostles as an example. When the apostles were giving divine revelation, either you submitted to it or you did not. If you came to believe that the apostles were sent by God, you really couldn’t just pick and choose which teachings you would accept based on your own assessment. Newman writes, “There was no room for private tastes and fancies, no room for private judgement.” The same holds true today if the Catholic Church was established by Christ.
Thus, the third and final problem with this objection is clear: Catholics aren’t their own pope, because they have a pope! The Church’s authority is supposed to be enough for a Catholic to affirm Catholic teaching, <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df07ls.htm">not his personal evaluation of the evidence</a>.
But a Protestant might object that if, after weighing the evidence, someone decides to trust that Christ established the Catholic Church, then that is an instance where he is relying upon his private judgment and not the Church’s authority. The Church’s authority wasn’t enough to immediately convince him.
This still isn’t private judgment in the sense that we’re using. You aren’t preferring your evaluation of the evidence over and against the Church’s judgment in this scenario, because you aren’t concluding against the Church’s judgment if you convert.
You are, however, reasoning over the Church’s authority in the sense that you are subjecting the Church’s authority to evaluation in your mind. This doesn’t mean that you somehow have greater authority. If God commanded me to do something, but I first stopped to see if it’s truly God speaking, that doesn’t mean I momentarily had more authority than God. God has real authority apart from me, as does Christ’s Church.
Moreover, Protestants are actually being inconsistent here. They also condemn private judgment but have no problem persuading people to accept biblical inerrancy. For example, if a theologian kept relying upon his private judgment over and against Scripture, any Bible-loving Protestant would chastise him for not submitting to God’s word.
And so the final nail in the coffin is that no Protestant would take this objection seriously if it were presented to him regarding Scripture, a legitimate and divinely given authority. Protestants see no inconsistency in condemning private judgment but also persuading people with evidence and arguments to accept biblical authority. The fact that the Bible doesn’t immediately convince people of its inerrancy is no problem for them. But Protestants would affirm that someone should reason differently after he’s accepted the authority of Scripture from how he thought before.

‘Catholics Are Their Own Pope, Too!’

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

Where Did the Romans Drive the Nails?

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

Remember, God Is Atemporal

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss how one can lose grace through mortal sin. Joe explains the serious implications of sin and how it can sever our relationship with God, using biblical examples to illustrate his points.
Transcript:
Caller: How would you answer this? As a Protestant apologist has said, like, how can you call it good news that Jesus saved you and he forgives your sins if you can just lose that grace all of a sudden by one sin? And I, I&#8217;m not a 1A Calvinist, so I&#8217;m asking this from an Armenian standpoint, but I always thought of it like habitual sin can eventually turn your heart kind of off towards God. Like Hebrews 4 says and verses, just one time and bam, it&#8217;s gone. And so maybe in my perspective, I just don&#8217;t see. I don&#8217;t take sin as seriously as I should. And I know it&#8217;s the mortal sin, and mortal sin has the three parts that require it to be mortal. So could you kind of talk about,
Joe Heschmeyer: yeah, I like the way Cardinal Arenze once said how many times you have to get run over by a car before you die? There are some things you can do that are just like, how many times did Judas have to betray Christ? It. There are things you can do that are serious enough to cut you off from the life of God. That, yeah, one thing could be the thing that does it. Now, I think if you were to do an actual spiritual analysis of the person, it probably wasn&#8217;t one thing that just as a matter of fact, somebody living a really holy life doesn&#8217;t immediately jump to mortal sin. There are usually a lot of sins leading up to it. Take for example, David and Bathsheba, because this is a grave sin and it is even a deadly sin. Like David&#8217;s son dies and the physical death in the Old Testament is a sign of spiritual death. Not that the, you know, the baby dies spiritually, but a sign of the gravity of sin. So anything that had the death penalty attached to it, we would say is a deadly sin. And that this is one of the ways God is teaching us. Because you can&#8217;t see that things happening at the level of the soul, so you see them at the level of the body. So in the case of David, at the time when kings are out campaigning, he is at home. So he has left his generals to do the leading and he&#8217;s abandoned his leadership. And then while he is at home already being slothful, he then is watching women bathe and he is lusty. That then leads to adultery, that then leads to the pregnancy, that then leads to murder. And so it&#8217;s not one sin, it&#8217;s a bunch of sins in order. Now, if you were to look at the spiritual fall of almost anyone else, I think you&#8217;d be able to trace a similar kind of trajectory. We often just don&#8217;t know all the little sins that led to the big ones. But that&#8217;s how that happens. This is one of the reasons why we take even venial sins seriously, is because those baby sins can grow up. And the more you give in to little sins, the more you&#8217;ve weakened your defenses against big sins when they come. So that&#8217;s the first part. The other part you asked, why is it good news? In a way, it&#8217;s like this. If somebody said, I&#8217;ve discovered a cure for cancer, and the people they were talking to said, wait, what&#8217;s that? What is cancer? We don&#8217;t know about this. You&#8217;d be like, all right, I&#8217;ve got some bad news, and then I&#8217;ve got good news. And the reason it&#8217;s still good news is because cancer exists whether you know about it or not. And likewise, mortal sin exists whether you know about it or not. And so the reason the gospel is good news is not because, well, you can commit mortal sin. You already could commit mortal sin. People already were committing mortal sin. The reason the gospel is good news, it is the remedy to that. Now it&#8217;s true. A world in which it was impossible to commit a mortal sin would be wonderful. That&#8217;s great. But that&#8217;s like saying, oh, you&#8217;ve found a cure for cancer. I&#8217;ve got something even better. Cancer doesn&#8217;t even exist. And it&#8217;s like, well, that&#8217;s not good news because it&#8217;s just self delusion. Like if I said everyone is automatically going to heaven, that sounds like better news than the gospel. The problem is just, it&#8217;s not true. It&#8217;s not rooted in reality. And so it&#8217;s not good news to just believe something willfully, regardless of its truth. So if you want to know if you know what is the actual good news, well, read what scripture says and read including the parts about the fact that people can and do reject their salvation. Now, I often use the language of lose your salvation. I noticed you did as well. And I think it&#8217;s important sometimes to catch ourselves and say, well, this isn&#8217;t a set of car keys that you&#8217;ve just misplaced. You&#8217;re forfeiting your salvation. You&#8217;re choosing something over relationship with God because you&#8217;re valuing something. In the same way, you don&#8217;t just like lose your marriage. If you commit adultery, you&#8217;re forfeiting something in your marriage. Well, that&#8217;s what&#8217;s happening here. So what do we see biblically? I want to give Just a couple passages, if you&#8217;ll permit me to we see first of all warnings that you can lose or forfeit your salvation. Hebrews 6 has some of the strongest language about this, for it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account, and hold him up to contempt for a land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed. Its end is to be burnt. So it is possible to be the good soil for a while and then to become the bad soil and end up burnt. This is not just. There are two categories of people and you can never go from one to the other. That&#8217;s not the actual biblical teaching. You can go from being good soil to bad soil. You can go from living in the word of God to then committing apostasy and being separated from God in this radical way. You have as well the example in Acts 8. You want an example of one mortal sin, the sin of Simony. So Simon the magician, he hears the preaching, he believes and is baptized. This is Acts 8:13 and that is the formula for salvation. Think about Mark 16:16. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. So he gets saved objectively. That&#8217;s what the Bible says. He then sees the apostles performing miracles and including the miracle of laying on of hands. And he verse 18. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles hands, he offered them money, saying, give me also this power, that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.
Caller: Now.
Joe Heschmeyer: How many mortal sins did Simon commit there? As far as we know, just one. But it was enough to set him apart. Where Peter could say, you have no part or lot with us, and that he&#8217;s destined for hell unless he repents. And then he just prays that he will be converted. I mean, that&#8217;s the actual biblical data. And then the last example, just say all of 2 Peter 2 is about those who are ransomed by Christ and then who deny the Master who ransomed them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And we&#8217;re told it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, then after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. And they&#8217;re compared to a dog turning back to its own vomit and a sow washing, only to wallow in the mire again. So we have plenty of biblical evidence that it is possible to be saved and then to reject your salvation through disbelief or through grave sin. And the response to that is basically just like, well, that sounds worse than a version of the Gospel where that doesn&#8217;t happen, but we have to live in reality. Similarly, I would just say, as I said before, a universalist version of Christianity might sound nicer, but the question is, well, which one&#8217;s actually true? Does that make sense?
Caller: Yeah. Yeah, definitely makes sense.
Caller: Wonderful.
Caller: Can I follow up, please, Stephanie?
Caller: Yeah, go ahead. You waited a long time.
Caller: Yeah. This is really a whole other question. I guess so. I don&#8217;t know if you have time to answer it, but something that sounds universalist is when the church says almost some people can. The ignorant, the invincibly ignorant can be saved. It&#8217;s possible if they follow God&#8217;s. Whatever God has placed in them. Is that universalist? It kind of sounds like it on the surface.
Joe Heschmeyer: I understand why it sounds like it, but it&#8217;s not. It is. It is recognizing that we are judged based on what has been revealed to us. So imagine during the days of the prophets, let&#8217;s say there&#8217;s some. Just take an easy case, like Old Testament, you&#8217;ve got some pious Jews. And one of them knows that Elijah has come on the scene and he&#8217;s announcing new things. One guy, let&#8217;s say he hears Elijah&#8217;s message and he rejects it. Another guy doesn&#8217;t live in that town. He&#8217;s never heard the message. Now both of them die. Neither one of them believed what Elijah was preaching, but one of them believes because. Or one of them doesn&#8217;t believe because he knowingly rejected it. The other one doesn&#8217;t believe because he just didn&#8217;t know about it, but he believed everything else that the prophets had ever proclaimed. Well, we would expect, reasonably, that God, being just, is not going to treat those two men the same, because they&#8217;re not. Actually. There&#8217;s a difference between disobeying and not hearing. Like. Like when you call for your kids to come and one of them ignores you and one of them doesn&#8217;t hear you, those are not treated the same. And so the Bible verse I&#8217;d give you Here is Luke 12:48. To whom much is given, much is expected. To whom more is given, more is expected. That God is perfectly just. He knows what you know and how you should respond to the gift he&#8217;s given you. And that&#8217;s just the justice of God. It&#8217;s not relativism. It&#8217;s not universalism.
Cy Kellett: Stephanie, hang on. Give us an address. Cause you won Catholic Answers today. We rarely have a winner on the show, but you were the clear winner today. We&#8217;re going to send you Pope Peter. Joe&#8217;s book, Pope Peter. And we&#8217;ll send you evidence. No. Yeah, let&#8217;s send evidence for Christmas.

Caller Asks How a Catholic Gospel can Be ‘Good News’

Even for some who fully accept the Church’s teachings on the Virgin Mary, the language used can feel over the top. When speaking to Protestants and sometimes even other Catholics, they soften the language, as if this exaltation of Mary were somehow blasphemous or at least unnecessary. They distance themselves from titles like Coredemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces and the language of Mary’s intercession as “omnipotent by grace” and holy slavery to Mary, used by saints such as St. Louis de Montfort or St. Alphonsus Liguori.
But are we really in danger of exalting Mary or loving her too much? St. Maximilian Kolbe says absolutely not: “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”
This is a common theme when it comes to explaining Marian doctrines that sound almost jarring. “How could Mary be called Coredemptrix?! Jesus is the only Redeemer!” St. Teresa of Calcutta responded in loving simplicity: we know that Mary is the Coredemptrix (and even Mediatrix of all Graces) because she participated in the redemption. Without Mary, there is no Jesus. If we so easily accept that all grace comes to us through Jesus, and Jesus came to us through Mary, then it is simple to say that all grace comes to us through Mary!
<h2>The Difficulty of Human Language in Expressing God’s Mysteries</h2>
When discussing the language of Marian devotion, we must first admit something foundational: all language about God is limited because human language is finite and God is infinite. Human language is a gift that tries to describe something incomprehensible. This is why St. Thomas Aquinas famously concluded, “All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me” in describing his work the Summa Theologiae (one of the greatest works of theology ever written).
When applying this to Marian language, we must remember that it is not that our language of Mary is too big, but that our language to express God’s grandeur is too small. Because of the graces God has given to the Immaculata, our language is even too small to express the degree of dignity and grace he has bestowed upon her.
There is an obvious caveat, though. We must be clear that we are never expressing Mary as equal to God. Mary is elevated to her unique position in salvation history purely because of grace. This grace is that of a unique union with the Holy Spirit, which emanates from her unique vocation as Mother of God. (The Fathers say that Mary was created equal to Eve but given more grace due to her vocation.) Therefore, the intention of lofty and poetic language about Mary is not meant to compete with language of God; rather, it is an attempt to do justice to the indescribable work that he has done in her as a gift to the Church.
<h2>Mary as the First Theosis</h2>
This is the key to understanding the language of Marian devotion: Mary is what we are all called to become. She is the blueprint for the spiritual life. The Church Fathers recognized that “God became man so that man might become God” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation). We are called to become, by grace, what God is by nature. That’s theosis. Each of us is called to become partakers of the divine nature, where, in the beatific vision, we participate in God’s life (see 2 Pet. 1:4).
Mary is the model par excellence of this transformation in grace. She received this grace at the moment of her immaculate conception. She was perfectly united to the Holy Spirit and preserved from all stain of original sin (and its formal effects). This gift was given to her in view of her vocation to be the Mother of God and was an application of the grace merited on Calvary. (All grace flows to us from the cross, both forward and backward in time.)
Marian language tries to express this high degree of exaltation God has given Mary through the lens of Mary being a gift to the Church. We also keep in mind that this exaltation provides a foretaste of the reality to which we are all called. Certainly, Mary is exalted beyond where we will all be because of her vocation, but that’s okay!
Now let’s address the two most controversial Marian titles head on.
<h2>Coredemptrix</h2>
At first hearing, Coredemptrix might throw up a red flag. Does it mean Mary is equal to Jesus in redeeming the world? Not at all.
The prefix co- comes from the Latin cum, which means “with,” not “equal.” So Coredemptrix means that Mary cooperated with Christ in his work of redemption, in a unique and unparalleled way.
She did this by her fiat, her free and total “yes” at the Annunciation (see Luke 1:38), which brought about the Incarnation. She continued by offering Christ to the Father at the Presentation (see Luke 2:22-35) and standing at the foot of the cross (see John 19:25-27), uniting her maternal suffering to Christ’s passion—even suffering the pains of the Passion within her own heart (see Lumen Gentium 58, Salvifici Doloris 25, Luke 2:34-35).
Pope St. John Paul II frequently used the title Coredemptrix. In a 1993 address, he said, “Mary’s role as Coredemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her son.” This does not lessen Christ’s work as Redeemer, but rather gives him more glory by allowing a creature to participate—something God has done from the very beginning, for example in allowing Adam to name the animals in the garden of Eden; using mediators throughout the Old Testament; and using the apostles, bishops, and priests today.
<h2>Mediatrix of All Graces</h2>
The biggest obstacle to the title Mediatrix is found in 1 Timothy 2:5, where it is clearly stated that Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. So is it an issue to call Mary the Mediatrix of All Graces?
All of us participate in the distribution of graces. We pray for one another, and through our prayers, God blesses others. Neither Catholics nor Protestants have issues with intercession.
Mary simply does this in a more defined and profound way as the one who mediated Christ’s physical presence to us. She continues her mediation now in heaven, sitting in the rightful place of queen mother—who in the Davidic kingdom was responsible for bringing the subjects’ petitions to the king. Mary does this now, bringing our intentions to her son, our king.
Pope Leo XIII wrote that “nothing is imparted to us except through Mary” (Adjutricem Populi 3), and Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, and John Paul II all echoed this teaching. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux said, “just as an aqueduct receives water from the spring and conveys it to us, so Mary receives grace from the divine fountain and dispenses it to us.”
<h2>Should We Apologize for Marian Devotion?</h2>
No. But we must explain it clearly.
We do not worship Mary. We venerate her because of what God has done in her and what he continues to do through her. Her greatness does not compete with Christ—it magnifies him. She is the great magnifying glass, just as she said of her soul in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46).
When we use bold titles for Mary, we aren’t conflating her own actions with God’s. We are praising God’s presence in her and offering thanksgiving for the gift he has given us in her.
<h2>The Cult of Mary?</h2>
Marian devotion uses poetic, rich, sometimes startling language because Mary’s role in salvation is anything but ordinary. She is the New Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, the Mother of God, the Coredemptrix, the Mediatrix, and our advocate.
The title of this article is even a little bit of clickbait. The “cult of Mary” throws people off because of the popular notion of the word cult. It is important to have an answer for this: the meaning of “cult” comes from the historical word cultus, which simply refers to formal and liturgical veneration. We have feast days for Our Lady on the calendar, and we celebrate them within the life of the Church. That’s the cult of Mary. It simply describes the Church’s official devotion, veneration, and theology.
So it is my opinion that we shouldn’t be worried about this language. Rather, we should lean into it. It doesn’t pose a threat to Christ, as if his role were usurped by his own mother. Instead, it helps us to glorify him even more!

The Dreaded Cult of Mary

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Karlo Broussard to discuss the Catholic belief about salvation and what happens after death. Karlo explains the essential role of baptism in salvation and how it connects believers to the mystical body of Christ.
Transcript:
Caller: I&#8217;m not a Catholic, I would say non denominational, I guess, and just listening. I&#8217;m kind of hearing a couple interesting, things. And so one, the biggest one to me, I think I want to ask about is what is the Catholic, belief, or what does Catholicism teach about how you are safe? I think that&#8217;s the most important aspect of our faith is how we are saved and how we, after, death, are raised up with Jesus.
Karlo Broussard: Okay, very good question, Josh. so we would acknowledge what Jesus says, you know, in John 3. 16, who believes, you know, the, you know, for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whosoever shall believe in him shall not perish. So for, for us as adults, it is important to note that belief and faith is necessary.
Caller: Ok?
Karlo Broussard: And by no means do we deny that. We absolutely affirm that. But at the same time, Josh, we also see in Scripture, for example, in 1 Peter 3. 21, that baptism saves us. As St. Peter would write, that baptism is not merely a removal of the external dirt from the body, but an appeal, to a clear conscience, right? So according to Peter, baptism saves us. St. Paul writes in Romans, chapter 6, verses 3 through 4, that through baptism we die with Christ, but we also rise to a newness of life. And in verse seven, through that death, we are freed from sin. So we recognize that baptism does have a salvific effect on our soul. And according to St. Paul, in First Corinthians 12, baptism incorporates us into the mystical Body of Christ. So as Catholics, we would say that baptism by virtue of the command of Christ and the teaching of the apostles, initially saves us, initially puts us into a saving relationship with God, namely, being a member of the mystical body of Christ, where grace is flowing and existing within our soul. We call it divine charity. Now, once we enter into that saving relationship with Christ and we come to the use of reason, then we must cooperate with God&#8217;s grace to remain in relationship with him. And this is where St. James would talk about works such as corporal works of mercy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked in James, chapter 2, verses 14 through 17, without which James says, our faith is dead. And then in James 2:24, talking about how we&#8217;re just justified by works and not by faith alone. James is talking about works done in Christ, through Christ, with Christ, by the power of Christ&#8217;s grace, not our own works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 9, but works done in and through Christ. And we would have to persevere in those works of love or charity, as Jesus says in Matthew 10:22 Unto the end, in order to achieve this final salvation. So we enter into Christ through baptism. We work, in Christ by his grace with charity, love which manifests itself in our external behaviors, in order to remain in that grace, in order to increase and grow in our sanctification. and we hope to persevere in that love until the end of our life so that we can achieve that completion of our. Of this salvific process that Christ has started within us. So that would be, in a nutshell, sort of the Catholic view of salvation. So what do you think of that, Josh?
Caller: So at what point, could I be confident of my faith, knowing that if I died, I would be in heaven? At one point, after I do all the things and maintain and do all this, all this stuff to please Jesus, or to please God, if you will, or to keep in faith with him. Where, at what point can I be assured of my faith?
Karlo Broussard: Okay. Well, we would say as Catholics, that we have to nuance a little bit and talk about what kind of assurance are we talking about? Are we talking about a sort of moral assurance or moral certitude that I could experience a life of joy and not falling to this idea of scrupulosity, oh, my God, I&#8217;m fixing to go to hell, or are we talking about Sort of this metaphysical certainty that I know that I&#8217;m going to heaven, as much as I am certain that two plus two equals four. If we&#8217;re talking about the latter. If we&#8217;re talking about the latter, the Church would deny that. But the Church does teach, as St. John the Apostle teaches in First John, chapter 5, verses 13 through 15, that the knowledge that we have that we know we are saved is a confident assurance. It&#8217;s sort of a. It&#8217;s a confident knowledge. And John makes a parallel between our knowledge of us being saved and our knowledge that God will hear our prayers. When I make a request of God, Josh, I don&#8217;t have this metaphysical certainty that God will absolutely answer my prayer as I see it should be answered right. But I have a confident assurance. Given my limited knowledge, given my circumstances, I make this request of God. I have a confident knowledge that God&#8217;s going to respond. Similarly, St. John draws a parallel with our knowledge of salvation. Although I don&#8217;t have an absolute certitude, I have a moral assurance that if I am in a state of grace, I haven&#8217;t committed any serious sins. As St. John would say in 1st John 5, A sin unto death. Then I have a moral assurance that if I die today, I have good reason to think that I will be saved. But I can&#8217;t say, as St. Paul would say. I would say with St. Paul, I cannot thereby judge myself, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, 6. What are your thoughts?
Caller: Well, you know, for me, a part of what Jesus has done is given me a hope of knowing that since I have come into a faith with him, that I have, that he has freed me from my sin, if you will, that, that I have a hope that when I die, I will be in heaven. I mean, it doesn&#8217;t matter what I do on this life because God has saved me. He no longer sees me as a sinful.
Karlo Broussard: Okay.
Caller: You know, I don&#8217;t have to do works through our works, you know, through our salvation and because of, you know, honestly, respect for God, and that&#8217;s a terrible word, but respect for God and for what he&#8217;s done for us. That&#8217;s why we do work, you know, that&#8217;s why we, we live a life worthy of God. it&#8217;s not for salvation.
Karlo Broussard: Now, let me ask you this, Let me ask you this, Josh. You just said that you, you need to be doing these works of love out of respect for God and what he has done for you. Now, Josh, if you didn&#8217;t do those works, wouldn&#8217;t that thereby express a lack of respect for God and a lack of gratitude for what he has done for you?
Caller: Yeah. I would say that our lives, you know, after salvation is a growth. You know, sanctification. You know, you&#8217;re at one area and you&#8217;re growing with your faith in God. And for me, honestly, if you have, if you claim to be a Christian, you&#8217;re not doing any good works. I would look at your heart and be like, okay, really? Did you. Did you actually believe that God saved you with. You know, did you actually believe in your heart? And to me, I would say. I would say I have to take a look hard look at that and be like, if you don&#8217;t have assurance of your faith, you&#8217;re probably not safe. Yeah, you probably just said it with your mouth and you did it. And it wasn&#8217;t a heart thing. You know what I mean? Well, I was like, having to do work.
Karlo Broussard: Okay?
Caller: I. Honestly, when I hear the Catholics, and I have lots of Catholics friends, and I talk with, every. And I love debating and stuff, but when I look at what the Catholics require, if you will, what they. What you guys say is necessary, you know, to me, I see that as the teachers of the law. Ah, the Pharisees. These are the things that you have to do to have God accept you. It&#8217;s not about what I do for God. It&#8217;s about what God has done for me.
Karlo Broussard: Amen. Amen. I couldn&#8217;t agree more, Josh. God has done marvelous deeds in my own life and in all of our lives. But because he has called us. I would say in response that, Josh, because he has called us into a relationship of love with him. There are certain things that follow from the nature of a loving relationship, as you just articulated, that we should be doing works of love out of respect for God, out of love for God, I would say not just a matter of justice, but out of, filial love for God. Like this sort of familial love, Right? An intimate love. And an intimate love for Jesus Christ and an intimate love for our neighbor. But fundamentally, Josh, if we do not perform those acts of love, well, then if our failure to perform those acts of love, so whatever behavior that we do violates love, is serious enough to cut us from the divine life flow of the mystical body of Christ, as St. John articulates in 1st John 5, 16, I think it is, where he talks about a sin unto death, right? Well, if we would do such a thing unto death, spiritual death, well, then if we died separated from the mystical body of Christ, well, then hell would be my lot. And it&#8217;s interesting, Josh, because this is articulated by St. Peter in second Peter, chapter two. If you read the whole chapter, St. Peter talks about, I think it&#8217;s in chapter one, how, those have come to Christ, right? And then in chapter two, he talks about those who have tasted Christ, have come to Christ, actually have returned to their evil, sinful ways. They have come out of the world. But then St. Peter articulates in second Peter 2 that they return back to the world, and he says, he compares it to a dog returning to its vomit, the latter state being worse than the first, which would imply that these were Christians who were saved. They came out of the world, entered into Christ, but then returned back to the world. And, Josh, all we&#8217;re saying as Catholics is that we have to be, vigilant, right? That we do not fall into that category of those who return back to sin and wickedness and darkness as a dog returning back to its vomit. For if we do and we die in that state, heaven will not be ours.
Cy Kellett: Josh, thank you so much, for the call. We do have to continue to take calls, and so I just invite you to call back anytime you want, Josh.
Karlo Broussard: And I just want to say, Sy, real quick, I appreciate Josh&#8217;s demeanor. I know the way he conducted himself in having this conversation with me. So, Josh, kudos to you, bro, and
Cy Kellett: I sincerely mean it. Josh, call anytime. 888-318-7884.

Protestant Caller Confronts Us on ‘Being Saved’

Okay, you know what the right answer is supposed to be, but if the Catholic Church is going to make such a big deal about mortal sins being . . . well, mortal, then it kind of makes venial sins look light by comparison.
Even when it comes to confession, the stress is always on the mortal sins: make sure to include them, the frequency, and just what were you thinking? (Okay, maybe that last one is just some repressed Catholic guilt™.)
This superficial understanding of the distinction between mortal and venial sins can be confusing for those without experience in the tradition. This confusion can create a misunderstanding of what role sin has in a person’s spiritual life.
Besides the spiritual complacency it can engender in the individual (“oh, that’s only a venial sin”), it can cause scandal, as a collection of Catholics who dismiss committing venial sins, which are also more common, creates the impression that Catholics do not care about sin at all.
Fortunately, the Church’s extensive reflection on the spiritual life includes specific, concrete ways that venial sins will negatively affect a person and why they should be avoided. One helpful list is provided by spiritual master Jordan Aumann, O.P. in his <a href="https://archive.org/details/SpiritualTheologyByFr.JordanAumannO.p">Spiritual Theology</a>. In it, he lists four such effects of venial sin on the individual spiritual life (155):
<h2>1. Venial sin stifles the offering of God’s grace.</h2>
God is continually offering grace to every person in the way most suitable to that person. However, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/could-mary-have-said-no-to-god">God is also upholding, by his grace, our free will</a>, which is the capacity in us that makes it possible to reject God’s grace. When we commit venial sin, which often forms habits, we dull our sense of recognizing those opportunities to cooperate with the grace God offers.
Consider self-centeredness. When I am always caught up in my own concerns, thoughts, and goals (often exacerbated by the handheld feedback machine constantly providing new concerns, thoughts, and goals), I am less able to recognize others inviting me into deeper engagement with them, experiencing real life. These opportunities for grace—for example, my wife and children—are continually offered to me for my sanctification. If I don’t look around every once in a while, I will miss it.
<h2>2. Venial sin shrinks our capacity for charity.</h2>
Sin, by its nature, is opposed to charity. Any sin, including venial sin, will necessarily oppose the charity present in a person’s soul. Even the seemingly harmless white lie, pear theft (gotta love the classics), or “victimless crime” reflects a rejection of charity. Arguably, the “lighter” material of a sin betrays a primary motivation simply to rebel. This rebellion is a deeper wound to charity than the lie or the stolen item.
The best example of this is provided by St. Augustine. Reflecting on his rebellious youth in his Confessions, he recognizes the deeper wound of his peer-pressured pear pilfery. The sin for the sake of sin did the real damage to Augustine’s soul. It was technically venial, but Augustine recognized how destructive it was to his young, undeveloped sense of charity.
<h2>3. Venial sin stymies virtue.</h2>
Similar to the first point about preventing grace offered by God, venial sin also undermines the natural virtues latent within us. Virtue, because it is a moderate action between the vices of defect and excess, is hard enough as it is. The human tendency upon recognizing a sin in us is to overcorrect, swinging between defect and excess. The more we do this, the harder that balance is to strike.
For example, a person who struggles with gluttony will perhaps resolve, just after over-indulging, to make up for this sin by taking on a fast. Although a fast is, of course, not sinful, it is likely an imprudent decision on this individual’s part that will surely create another, greater temptation to overindulge again. This makes the balance of a healthy relationship with food more difficult.
<h2>4. Venial sin predisposes us to mortal sin.</h2>
This fourth point is really the culmination of the previous three. A habitual dismissal of grace, severing of charity, and obstruction of virtue could only result in serious sin.
Far from a slippery slope fallacy, this point follows the infallible logic of addiction. Eventually, the addict will need more and more of the drug to get the same high. Whatever excitement the initial sin caused, or, to put a more sympathetic spin on it, the same need threshold that justified the initial sin, will continually change as the sinner repeatedly engages in that sin. Inversely, the justification will produce more sophisticated rationales. The movement is not from stealing one pear to stealing a hundred, it is more like stealing because the sinner thinks no one will be hurt to stealing so that the victim is hurt. This is a change in the quality of the sin, beyond just the quantity.
<h2>Yes, it really does matter!</h2>
If it was not obvious already, yes, venial sin matters on the individual and corporate levels in the Church. We are, after all, the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:29), and our actions, even small ones, have effects. Stubbing your toe really hurts your toe, but it also affects your gait and your posture, which affects your back, which pinches nerves, and now you have a headache, too!
Fortunately, we have spiritual masters like Fr. Aumann, who clearly articulates the finer points of how sin affects us. We also have the sacrament of reconciliation, where we can confess our sins to a properly deputized priest (James 5:16)—and those sins, I have it on good authority (John 20:21-23), will be forgiven.
2about venial sin. It is, itself, an opportunity for God’s sanctifying grace, so going to reconciliation is our cooperation with grace. Our contrition in confessing our sins, even if it is imperfect contrition, is formed by charity. Because we humble ourselves by going to reconciliation, we exhibit a foundational virtue that allows for other virtues to grow. Finally, the sanctifying grace of reconciliation washes away any actual mortal sin in the soul, and all the more any predisposition to mortal sin.
Athough the “bad news” of venial sin is still bad (it is sin, after all), the good news, the gospel, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/no-gospel-without-the-church">which necessarily includes the Church</a> and the sacraments, is much, much greater!

Do Venial Sins Really Matter?

The Sinister Plot of the Transgender Movement

Sometimes I joke (at least partly) about having these words of St. John the Baptist engraved over the doorway arch of our church dedicated in his name: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Or perhaps we could put that on our Christmas cards.
It’s funny because it’s true. Though John’s words aren’t fun and games, we almost have to laugh at them to realize how serious they are. We find it a little funny to imagine him there scolding the Pharisees… until we realize that he could just as well be speaking to us.
In all seriousness, there are many places in the world today where fleeing a “wrath to come” may feel quite pressing, where a reasonable person might find himself filled with anxiety just going about his business, wondering when disaster will strike, when everything he knows and cares about is threatened or destroyed. That feeling, that fear, is pretty much what John the Baptist evokes in our Gospel today. In this first half of Advent, the theme is not, as we might expect, waiting for the birth of Jesus. It is waiting for the end of the world, waiting for the Judgment, when, as John says, the Son of God will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Even if you don’t know much about harvesting wheat, and don’t know what chaff is, you know this: you don’t want to be chaff. You want to be one of the good guys, the ones who are saved, the ones who avoid the unquenchable fire of judgment. But John’s message—and this is in the end why it is so difficult to hear, both then and now—is that no one is safe. You may think you have a right to be numbered among the good, but rank and position, wealth and heredity—none of these means anything. Whether you’re a Pharisee or a priest, a tenth-generation missionary, the best parent in the world, the most productive and ethical businessman in the world, or you’re the person who always seems to end up in trouble, God owes you nothing. The kind of things that mark you for success in this world are not the things that matter on the Day of Judgment.
This seems kind of scary, actually. Probably a lot scarier than many of the things that normally make us jump. And that raises for me this pretty obvious question: why aren’t we scared of God’s judgment? Why are we more worried about what a president or a pope said in the latest interview, or how the market is going to go tomorrow, or whether we will be late for school, than we are about the searing judgment of a perfect and righteous God?
Being modern, enlightened people, we’re not really supposed to worry about this. We’re supposed to dismiss it as the worry of another, less educated age. But sometimes I wonder if that easy dismissal is just a way of hiding ourselves from the possibility that maybe it’s all real.
It is real. Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead. But this is not necessarily a scary thing. We know this judge, after all. Or at least we have the opportunity to know him. He came to us as a child in history, lived among us, died and rose again. The whole logic of Advent is that if we prepare to meet Jesus again for the first time at Christmas, we will at the same time prepare to meet him when he comes again as judge.
Judgment doesn’t have to be scary, because judgment isn’t a question of Jesus going down a list of pluses and minuses and figuring out whether you pass or fail some abstract moral law. It’s a question of whether you know the judge, whether you have tried to know him, because in the end, he is not a judge in a human sense.
I’ve met a few judges in my life, and I think all of them would say that their job is to apply the law as impartially as possible. Our system is supposed to be about not the judge, but the law. In God, there is no such distinction. God is the law, and the law is God. And this God became man, of the Virgin Mary, so that we might know him and pursue his goodness and justice, motivated not by fear, but by love.
But here’s the thing: it’s still not easy. It sounds great to say that judgment is about love more than fear, but it’s still judgment. We don’t get to just lie back and make it up as we go along, forgetting about rules and traditions, because those things are how relationships sustain themselves. If you think you can get to know God without getting to know the complicated relational and institutional life of his Church and its people, you may be getting to know not God at all, but your own reflection. And that is why we have these classic lists of what you should do and not do: do go to Mass and say your prayers; do contribute to the Church and help those in need; do read the scriptures and stories of the saints; do your work well; do not waste your resources or talents; do not use your bodies in ways that cheapen their purpose; do not lie to yourself or others.
Advent is a time to remember these basic disciplines—not because we’re terrified that God is going to tackle us from behind like a petty criminal looking to catch us off guard, but because these disciplines help us, in the end, to know and receive the beautiful and wonderful gift of God’s own life to us at Christmas. Amen.

The Kind of Judge God Is

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

A Fake Quote from C.S. Lewis

<div>Does the Church believe in "speaking in tongues"?</div><div>The Church recognizes speaking in tongues as an authentic charism, which St. Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 12. For more on speaking in tongues, the phenomena of praying in tongues and related matters, please see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-catholic-charismatic-renewal">our response on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in general</a>.
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Is Speaking in Tongues an Authentic Charism?

Over on Twitter, J.D. Flynn of The Pillar begins <a href="https://twitter.com/jdflynn/status/1673407901216694272">an insightful thread</a> with this tweet:

I recommend reading the whole thread. Flynn, as a father of mentally disabled children, delivers moving testimony.
The postscript to his thread, however, left the greatest impression on me:
<img class="wp-image-135436 aligncenter" src="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/JD-screenshot-2-300x205.png" alt="" width="448" height="306" srcset="https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/JD-screenshot-2-300x205.png 300w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/JD-screenshot-2-587x400.png 587w, https://cdn.catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/JD-screenshot-2.png 597w" sizes="(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px"/>
Flynn’s point here reminds me of one often made by Bishop Robert Barron: we must not dumb down the Faith for young people. Just as the notion that Down syndrome kids can’t sin might lead us to deprive them of religious education, so too the notion that ordinary kids can’t engage with the richness of the Faith might lead us to give them a watered-down version. These are both injustices.
It also reminds me that those least likely to make anthropological errors (in the particular) are parents. After all, isn’t parenthood an intensive eighteen-year (or more!) study of an individual human? Little Mike’s mother knows better than any other what Little Mike likes to eat, how he behaves at different times of day, the dangers particular to him (like allergies), and what type of learner he is. I’m not saying parents never misjudge their children; but a good and loving parent is in a better position than anyone else on the planet to learn what makes this person tick.
Having no experience parenting kids (of any mental capacity), I can only speculate on their spiritual needs. I’m susceptible to the very error Flynn corrects with such authority. If, God willing, I’m blessed with my own children in the future, I’ll be sure to pay close attention to what they tell me with their behavior. The quality of parenting I give them in return may depend on it.

Parenthood: the Great Science

<div>What is a lukewarm Christian, and what is the difference between someone who is "lukewarm" and someone who is "hot" or "cold?"</div><div>The allusion refers to Christ&#8217;s words to &#8220;the angel of the church of Laodicea&#8221; in Revelation. Christ said to John:
<blockquote>To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: &#8220;The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God&#8217;s creation. I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked&#8221; (Rev. 3:14-17).</blockquote>
This is sometimes interpreted to refer to all of the faithful of Laodicea, but it is possible that Christ is speaking only of &#8220;the angel of the church,&#8221; which is thought to be the head of that church, or the bishop. If so, then Christ may be saying that the bishop of the faithful in Laodicea is lukewarm. From the context, &#8220;lukewarm&#8221; means a condition of being neither antagonistic (&#8220;cold&#8221;) or passionate (&#8220;hot&#8221;) in the pursuit of his Christian duties. Rather, this Christian, perhaps the bishop, is self-satisfied with what he has, and evidently is unwilling to extend himself on behalf of Christ. Christ would rather he be cold or hot because antagonism or passion requires that someone cares. The hardest people to convert are not those who hate Christ but those who don&#8217;t care about anything but their own satisfaction.
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Defining a “Lukewarm Christian”

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?

Episode 22: Year A &#8211; Third Sunday of Easter
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on three details in the readings for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year A. The first detail is Peter’s speech on the Day of Pentecost, which makes up the first reading from Acts 2:14, 22-23. This corresponds to the apologetical topic of the Papacy. The second detail, coming from the second reading (1 Peter 1:17-25), is Peter’s comment about God judging us according to our works, which, of course, relates to the topic of salvation and the relationship that good works have with it. The third detail is Luke’s mention of Mary’s “sin offering” made at the Presentation of the Lord, which is narrated in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 2:13-35. This raises questions concerning Mary’s sinlessness.
Reading: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042323.cfm">https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042323.cfm</a>
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday</a>

Peter’s Papal Authority

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

Yes, It’s Okay to Venerate the Saints

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

Are the Olympics Pagan?

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

The Church’s Current Position on Medjugorje

What do Protestants misunderstand about Jerome on the Canon?

The tension between Jerome’s intellectual views and his submission to Church authority.

I disagree with your view on when the accepted canon. I want to challenge you on it.

Are the Deuterocanonical books in the Jewish bible?

Regarding the KJV. Can we go through the nuances of the Masoretic texts of the Old Testament?

How much influence did the Jews have on the early canon?

&#8220;What do Protestants get wrong about Jerome and the Canon?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the complexities of Jerome&#8217;s views and their implications for understanding Church authority. Other topics include the tension between Jerome&#8217;s intellectual stance and submission to Church teachings, as well as the role of the Deuterocanonical books in the Jewish Bible.
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What Do Protestants Get Wrong About Jerome and the Canon?

<h3 class="headline3">What is Lent?</h3>
According to the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/lent">Lent</a> is a preparation for the celebration of Easter. For the Lenten liturgy disposes both catechumens and the faithful to celebrate the paschal mystery: catechumens, through the several stages of Christian initiation; the faithful through reminders of their own baptism and through penitential practices&#8221; (27).
<h3 class="headline3">Is Lent actually forty days long?</h3>
Technically, no. According to the General Norms, &#8220;Lent runs from <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/ash-wednesday">Ash Wednesday</a> until the Mass of the Lord&#8217;s Supper, exclusive&#8221; (28). This means Lent ends at the beginning of the Mass of the Lord&#8217;s Supper on Holy Thursday. Count it as you will—that&#8217;s more than forty days. Therefore, the number forty in traditional hymns such as &#8220;Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days&#8221; is only an approximation.
<h3 class="headline3">Are Sundays excluded from Lent?</h3>
No. The definition of what days are included in Lent is given above, in General Norms 28. No exception is made for Sundays. Indeed, the General Norms go on to specifically name the Sundays of the period as belonging to the season: &#8220;The Sundays of this season are called the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent. The Sixth Sunday, which marks the beginning of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/holy-week">Holy Week</a>, is called Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday)&#8221; (30).
Some people customarily allow themselves on Sunday to have things they have voluntarily given up for Lent, but since these forms of self-denial were voluntarily assumed anyway, a person is not under an obligation to practice them on Sunday (or any other specific day of the week).
<h3 class="headline3">Why is the season called Lent?</h3>
Lent is the Old English word for spring. In almost all other languages, Lent&#8217;s name is a derivative of the Latin term quadragesima or &#8220;the forty days.&#8221;
<h3 class="headline3">Why is Lent approximately forty days long?</h3>
In the Bible, forty days is a traditional number of discipline, devotion, and preparation. Moses stayed on the mountain of God forty days (Ex. 24:18, 34:28). The Israelites&#8217; spies were in the land of Canaan forty days (Num. 13:25). Elijah traveled forty days before he reached the cave where he had his vision (1 Kings 19:8). Nineveh was given forty days to repent (Jon. 3:4). And, most significantly for our Lenten observance, Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting prior to undertaking his ministry (Matt. 4:2). Thus, it is fitting for Christians to imitate him with a forty-day period of prayer and fasting to prepare to celebrate the climax of Christ&#8217;s ministry, Good Friday (the day of the crucifixion) and Easter Sunday (the day of the Resurrection).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, &#8220;&#8216;For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning&#8217; [Heb. 4:15]. By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert&#8221; (CCC 540).
<h3 class="headline3">What are fast and abstinence?</h3>
Under current canon law in the Western rite of the Church, a day of fast is one on which Catholics who are eighteen to fifty-eight years old are required to keep a limited fast. In this country you may eat a single, normal meal and have two snacks. Children are not required to fast, but their parents must ensure they are properly educated in the spiritual practice of fasting.
A day of abstinence is a day on which Catholics fourteen years and older are required to abstain from eating meat. (Though under the current discipline of the Western rite of the Church, fish, eggs, milk products, and foods made using animal fat are permitted, they are not in the Eastern rites.) Their pastor can easily dispense those with medical conditions from the requirements of fast and abstinence.
<h3 class="headline3">Is there a biblical basis for abstaining from meat as a sign of repentance?</h3>
Yes. The book of Daniel states, &#8220;In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia . . . &#8216;I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over'&#8221; (Dan. 10:1-3).
<h3 class="headline3">Isn&#8217;t abstaining from meat one of the &#8220;doctrines of demons&#8221; Paul warned about in 1 Timothy 4:1-5?</h3>
When Paul warned of those who &#8220;forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods,&#8221; he had in mind people with the Manichean belief that sex is wrong and certain foods like meat are immoral. (Thus, the spiritual ideal for many modern New Agers is a celibate vegetarian, as in the Eastern religions.)
We know that Paul has in mind those who teach sex and certain foods are intrinsically immoral because he tells us that these are &#8220;foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer&#8221; (1 Tim. 4:3b-5).
Sex and all kinds of food are good things—which is why the Catholic Church has marriage for a sacrament and heartily recommends the practice of eating to its members. This is why it is fitting for these things to be given up as part of a spiritual discipline. Thus, Daniel gave up meat (as well as wine, another symbol of rejoicing), and Paul endorses the practice of temporary celibacy to engage in a special spiritual discipline of increased prayer (1 Cor. 7:5). By denying ourselves these good things, we encourage an attitude of humility, free ourselves from dependence on them, cultivate the spiritual discipline of sacrifice, and remind ourselves of the importance of spiritual goods over earthly goods.
In fact, if there was an important enough purpose, Paul recommended permanently giving up marriage and meat. Thus, he himself was celibate (1 Cor. 7:8). He recommended the same for ministers (2 Tim. 2:3-4) and for the unmarried in order to devote themselves more fully to the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32-34), unless doing so would subject them to great temptations (1 Cor. 7:9). Similarly, he recommended giving up meat permanently if it would prevent others from sinning (1 Cor. 8:13).
Since the Catholic Church requires abstinence from meat only on a temporary basis, it clearly does not regard meat is immoral. Instead, it regards it as the giving up of a good thing in order to attain a spiritual goal.
<h3 class="headline3">What authority does the Church have to establish days of fast and abstinence?</h3>
The authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus told the leaders of his Church, &#8220;Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven&#8221; (Matt.16:19, 18:18). The language of binding and loosing was (in part) a rabbinic way of referring to the ability to establish binding halakah or rules of conduct for the faith community. (See the Jewish Encyclopedia: &#8220;Binding and loosing (Hebrew, asar ve-hittir) . . . Rabbinical term for &#8216;forbidding and permitting.'&#8221;) It is especially appropriate that the references to binding and loosing occur in Matthew, the &#8220;Jewish Gospel.&#8221;
The Jewish Encyclopedia continues:
<blockquote>The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees, says Josephus (Wars of the Jews 1:5:2), &#8220;became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.&#8221; . . . The various schools had the power &#8220;to bind and to loose&#8221;; that is, to forbid and to permit (Talmud: Chagigah 3b); and they could also bind any day by declaring it a fast day (Talmud: Ta&#8217;anit 12a). . . . This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age of the Sanhedrin, received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice (Sifra, Emor, 9; Talmud: Makkot 23b).
In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt. 16:19, 8:18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees who &#8220;bind heavy burdens and lay them on men&#8217;s shoulders, but will not move them with one of their fingers”; that is &#8220;loose them,&#8221; as they have the power to do (Matt. 23:2-4). In the same sense, [in] the second epistle of Clement to James II (Clementine Homilies, Introduction [A.D. 221]) Peter is represented as having appointed Clement as his successor, saying: &#8220;I communicate to him the power of binding and loosing so that, with respect to everything which he shall ordain in the earth, it shall be decreed in the heavens; for he shall bind what ought to be bound and loose what ought to be loosed as knowing the rule of the Church&#8221; (3:215).</blockquote>
Thus Jesus invested the leaders of this Church with the power of making halakah for the Christian community. This includes the setting of fast days (like Ash Wednesday).
To approach the issue from another angle, every family has the authority to establish particular family devotions for its members. If the parents decide that the family will engage in a particular devotion at a particular time (say, Bible reading after supper), it is a sin for the children to disobey and skip the devotion for no good reason. In the same way, the Church as the family of God, has the authority to establish its own family devotion, and it is a sin for the members of the Church to disobey and skip the devotions for no good reason. Of course, if the person has a good reason, the Church dispenses him.
<h3 class="headline3">In addition to Ash Wednesday, are any other days during Lent days of fast or abstinence?</h3>
Yes. All Fridays during Lent are days of abstinence. Also, Good Friday, the day on which Christ was crucified, is day of both fast and abstinence.
All days in Lent are appropriate for fasting or abstaining, but canon law does not require it. Such fasting or abstinence is voluntary.
<h3 class="headline3">Why are Fridays during Lent days of abstinence?</h3>
Because Jesus died for our sins on Friday, making it an especially appropriate day of mourning our sins by denying ourselves something we enjoy. (By the same token, Sunday—the day on which he rose for our salvation—is an especially appropriate day to rejoice.)
<h3 class="headline3">Are acts of repentance appropriate on other days during Lent?</h3>
Yes. The Code of Canon Law states, &#8220;All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and time throughout the universal Church&#8221; (CIC 1250).
<h3 class="headline3">Why are acts of repentance appropriate at this time of year?</h3>
Because it is the time leading up to the commemoration of our Lord&#8217;s death for our sins and the commemoration of his resurrection for our salvation. It is thus especially appropriate to mourn the sins for which he died. Humans have an innate psychological need to mourn tragedies, and our sins are tragedies of the greatest sort.
<h3 class="headline3">What are appropriate activities for ordinary days during Lent?</h3>
Giving up something we enjoy, engaging in physical or spiritual acts of mercy for others, prayer, fasting, abstinence, going to confession, and other acts expressing repentance in general.
<h3 class="headline3">Is the custom of giving up something for Lent mandatory?</h3>
No. However, it is a salutary custom, and parents or guardians may choose to require it, since the spiritual training of their children is their prime responsibility.
<h3 class="headline3">Why is giving up something for Lent such a salutary custom?</h3>
By denying ourselves something we enjoy, we discipline our wills so that we are not slaves to our pleasures. Just as over-indulging in the pleasure of eating leads to physical flabbiness, over-indulging in pleasure in general leads to spiritual flabbiness. When the demands of morality require us to refuse something pleasurable (such as sex outside marriage) or endure hardship (such as being scorned for the faith), spiritual flabbiness may well make us fail.
<h3 class="headline3">Is the denying of pleasure an end in itself?</h3>
No, it is only a means to an end. By training ourselves to resist temptations when they are not sinful, we train ourselves to reject temptations when they are sinful. We also express our sorrow over having failed to resist sinful temptations in the past. There are few better ways to keep our priorities straight than by denying ourselves things of lesser priority to show us that they are not necessary and focus our attention on what is necessary.
<h3 class="headline3">Can we deny ourselves too many pleasures?</h3>
Definitely. God made human life contingent on certain goods, such as food, and to refuse to enjoy enough of them has harmful consequences. For example, if we do not eat enough food, we can damage our bodies (and, in the extreme, even die). Just as there is a balance between eating too much food and not eating enough food, there is a balance involved in other goods.
If we deny ourselves too much, it may deprive us of goods God gave us in order that we might praise him or decrease our effectiveness in ministering to others. It can also constitute the sin of ingratitude by refusing to enjoy the things God wanted us to have because he loves us. If a child refused every gift his parent gave him, it would displease the parent; if we refuse gifts God has given us, it displeases God because he loves us and wants us to have them.
<h3 class="headline3">Aside from Ash Wednesday, what are the principal events of Lent?</h3>
There are a variety of saints&#8217; days that fall during Lent, and some of these change from year to year, since the dates of Lent itself change based on when Easter falls. However, the Sundays during the Lenten season commemorate special events in the life of our Lord, such as the Transfiguration and his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which begins Holy Week.

What You Need to Know About Lent

Recently Msgr. Kevin Irwin wrote an <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/07/11/eucharist-christ-245645">article</a> for America magazine entitled “The Eucharist is the body of Christ, not the body of Jesus. What we call it matters.” Msgr. Irwin worries that “phrases [of the Roman missal] can be misquoted and possibly lead to heterodox ideas.”
Irwin claims, as one example, that this happens when someone refers to the Eucharist as “the body of Jesus.” But he never gives an example of someone doing so; instead, his own explanation creates confusion and can lead to heterodox ideas:
<blockquote>To describe the Eucharist as the “body of Jesus” or “the real presence of Jesus” would be too limiting to the historical body and earthly reality of the Word made flesh and the incarnate Son of God. The “body of Christ” refers to the entirety of the mystery of the totality of Christ: his whole earthly ministry and also his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand to intercede for us in heaven. The Eucharist is the real presence of this body of Christ, not Jesus only.</blockquote>
This explanation risks causing more problems than it solves.
Yes, the Eucharist is more than just the sacrifice of Calvary under the form of bread and wine. We receive the glorified body and blood of Christ that existed after his resurrection.  “The bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven” (Paul VI, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19680630_credo.html">Credo of the People of God</a> 24).
However, “Body of Christ” does not refer to, as Irwin says, “the totality of Christ: his whole earthly ministry and also his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension.” The Tridentine text Irwin is quoting from specifies four things the Eucharist contains: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/where-does-the-bible-say-soul-and-divinity">the body of Christ, his blood, his soul, and his divinity</a>. This is a reference to Christ’s physical body, in contrast to his blood, soul, and divinity.
Saying the Eucharist contains “the Body of Christ” does not mean the Eucharist contains a “trans-temporal body” spanning the entirety of the Incarnation from the annunciation to today. In fact, the quote from the Credo of the People of God rules that out. The Eucharist is Christ’s body and blood “enthroned gloriously in heaven” right now, not when his body was on Earth.
Moreover, saying the Eucharist is not “only” Jesus risks implying that “Jesus” and “Christ” are two separate persons. It sounds like “Christ” must be present in the Eucharist because “Jesus” would be insufficient. However, the title “Christ” and the name “Jesus” refer to the same divine person – the Word that became flesh. Those who try to divide the Son into “Jesus” and “Christ” risk the heresy of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/nestorianism">Nestorianism</a>. Fr. Richard Rohr comes perilously close to that when he says <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/the-false-christ-of-fr-richard-rohr">“Jesus and Christ give us a God who is both personal and universal.”</a>
Msgr. Irwin is not courting heresy like Fr. Rohr, but his wording can still confuse people. He defends his statement by saying “The Roman Missal assiduously avoids using the title “Jesus” without a modifier”. Msgr. Irwin then says that, during the liturgy, Jesus is always called “Lord” or “Christ”, never just “Jesus”.
Assuming this is accurate, that doesn’t mean the liturgy texts are affirming that “Christ” represents everything the Son did in the Incarnation, whereas “Jesus” only represents his earthly ministry and death. After all, Philippians 2:9 says, “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend”. A better explanation would be that “Jesus” is a human name, whereas “Lord” and “Christ” are titles that Jesus holds. Therefore, it is fitting that in biblical and magisterial documents we usually (but not always) include Jesus’ titles like “Christ” or “Lord” to give him proper respect.
For example, if someone said this was “Monsignor Irwin’s” article, or “Monsignor’s” article rather than “Kevin’s” article, that wouldn’t mean those descriptors are necessary. This wasn’t something “only Kevin” wrote. “Monsignor Irwin” and “Kevin” refer to the same person, but one is a more acceptable way to refer to him in most contexts. Both terms refer to the same person. In the same way, whatever is true of “Christ” is true of “Jesus”.
Jesus was born. Christ was born. Jesus sits at the father’s right hand. Christ sits at the Father’s right hand.
So, because I agree with Msgr. Irwin that “words matter”, I would recommend choosing different words to explain why the Eucharist is called the “Body of Christ”—words that do not have the potential to divide God the Son into a “Christ” and a “Jesus,” who are really one and the same person.

Jesus Is Christ. Christ Is Jesus.

Returning again to the issue of church music, we build upon <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-tell-if-your-church-music-is-ugly">our last article</a>, which touched on official Catholic guidelines for liturgical music, to explore specifically why the piano is not a desirable liturgical instrument.
It may seem odd to exclude an instrument that is a touchstone of the musical West, and a king of instruments among the musical tradition that grew organically out of Christendom. The piano is so universal an instrument that many pedagogues consider it as specifically representative of the Western musical system, and music students must all practice theory on the piano and learn to be competent keyboard players. Being a crowning achievement of Western musical and technological development, the greatest composers have composed a wide and dazzling array of repertoire for this instrument.
Yet it is the acoustic nature of the instrument, along with contemporary cultural considerations, that renders it unfit for use in the Mass.
For most of the Church’s history, the development of instruments was pursued to support the singing voice, culminating in that centrally important liturgical instrument, the pipe organ. Where piano is concerned, there is record of a few small chapels and mission churches using piano as a pitch source when organ was not available in the later nineteenth century, though Church teaching at this time declared the instrument profane and not fit for the sacred liturgy (Pope Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini). It is important to point out that churches lacking the money for an organ did not automatically turn to the piano at this time, especially as the Church’s foundational (and, according to Vatican II, still primary) musical expression—Gregorian chant—requires no harmonic accompaniment. The Church’s guidance, its tradition, and a mature sense of the sacred naturally set healthy limits on music for the Mass.
By way of illustration, we can consider the piano as akin to the modern guitar. Proponents of guitar in the liturgy point out the many mentions of plucked string instruments in the Bible, or the fact that “Silent Night” was originally premiered in a mass using guitar accompaniment. What is missing from this surface-level argument is context: those ancient Davidic-era instruments were gut strings strung over primitive resonators. Therefore, they were by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnPsE61hC4s">nature very quiet</a> and would require the near absolute stillness of a congregation to be heard. Even then, they would not be able acoustically to fill large spaces. Likewise with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7WMnJoauL8">the modern classical guitar</a> on which “Silent Night” was premiered: these are very quiet instruments, entirely meant for chamber performance. Furthermore, the playing style of these instruments generally supported harmony and melody and was not primarily for rhythmic drive. They therefore belonged to an involved classical style with which most modern Church players are entirely unfamiliar.

Context, therefore, is quite important in this conversation. Very few people attending a modern Catholic Mass have heard the classical guitar being performed, let alone the old European lute or the types of plucked instruments that would have dominated in antiquity. Rather, today, the guitar is a ubiquitous symbol of pop culture.
Similarly, while the piano is a great cultural accomplishment, most people do not come to mass with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZh-dbDgjnQ">Chopin preludes</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyHT1sFmsg">Beethoven sonatas</a> echoing in their collective memory. For most people in our culture, the piano, like the guitar, is a bright and rhythmic accompaniment instrument for popular song. It is the instrument of “salons” (to use a papal term) and is tied more to entertainment than contemplation.
Piano is furthermore technically a percussion instrument, which lacks the sustain necessary to adequately support voices without playing in a consistently loud and repetitive manner. With its rapid onset attack (again, percussive) and rapid diminution, devoid of a true voice-like sustain, it is further not suitable for the accompaniment of the Church’s pre-eminent music, Gregorian chant, nor for much vocal accompaniment in general.
That being said, a fair examination of the use of piano in the Western classical tradition in solo song witnesses a variety of ingenious approaches, many of which require a virtuosic touch to effectively execute. Take, for instance, the varied accompaniments in Schumann’s masterwork, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaaBlfBdBO8">Dichterliebe</a>:
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Another striking example is the simple but penetratingly profound modern masterwork by Orthodox composer Arvo Pärt, “<a href="https://youtu.be/jvXy69eF__Y">Für Alina</a>.” Coming out of eight years of self-imposed creative silence, Pärt drew on the nature of Gregorian chant to craft a new musical style. The resulting work is haunting in its simplicity, but it also demands a fine technique to deliver effectively. In the end, though not liturgical, it is nothing if not a profoundly sacred work. And yet as a purely instrumental expression, it is not fit for the liturgy, and this music would lose its particular character if a sung voice were added.
Now compare that with the accompaniment style of that perennial post-conciliar favorite (or not-so-favorite, depending on the audience): “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEZ4YkZ0FdY&amp;list=PLQPAnQzxVsFP1fApYHkxzaxG9se7yqmkO&amp;index=7">Gather Us In</a>.”
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The accompaniment to the latter is considerably simple and yet also entirely percussive and pop-adjacent in its execution. This is an appropriate and functional compositional choice, given the setting: to support any congregation —indeed, to not only support, but also urge them forward—musically requires a transparent, boisterous, and (here is that word again) percussive style of playing, reminiscent of pop music. (Anyone familiar with the technical aspects of music production in the pop realm will not be surprised by this, as the bright onset of a piano must frequently be artificially boosted in mixes in order for the instrument to be effectively heard.)
When used in churches large or small, the technical subtleties that make up fine piano playing—the kind of highest expressions found in the masterworks written for the instrument—simply cannot translate or even be heard. What you have left, then, is the musical equivalent of a modern pop guitar, struck loudly, repeatedly, and without nuance, which renders it sonically unsuitable for Catholic liturgical composition.
We must admit that the ears of modern men hear guitar and piano as instruments of popular music. The more our popular culture devolves into profanity, the more inappropriate these instruments become for the liturgy, whereas the traditional sacred music and instruments of the Church simply sound even more sacred to us as a matter of cultural contrast. For instance, the flowing metrical nature of Gregorian chant is foreign to our modern rhythmic sensibilities, making it arguably even more transcendent and spiritually contemplative than back in the early centuries of the form’s emergence, therefore becoming therefore even more spiritually potent and liturgically necessary. The organ, in turn, has no popular style to claim it, and therefore—like Latin itself—it remains a means of communication free from profane pollution.
Finally, there is the nature of percussive instruments in reverberant spaces. The piano generally is intended to be a chamber instrument. Concert halls designed to host great pianists are surprisingly acoustically dry for buildings of their size (this to allow for the clear perception of the musical detail that is the hallmark of the tradition). The piano, in any truly reverberant space, loses the characteristic acoustic details that render it such an expressive and powerful instrument in certain contexts. This is because the reverberant nature of a cathedral, which helps sustained instruments like voice and organ blend and bloom, instead swallows up the dynamic life of the piano. It simply does not work.
Conversely, although one might make a begrudging (and temporary) allowance for a piano in a small or dry church that cannot afford an organ, to do so is still to invite mediocre playing in support of a pop-adjacent musical style that has never been fit for the liturgy.
In an era that encourages us always to turn to experts, we can see that the musical experts of history have spoken conclusively on the topic of the piano with choral writing. Mozart completed seventeen Mass settings and over 200 keyboard works, and a single one of his Masses or sacred choral works includes the piano. Indeed, before 1900, we are hard pressed to find successful works by the great composers where piano is used as an accompaniment to the choir. Starting in the twentieth century, there are some famous examples of composers including the piano in large-scale choral works, but only as percussive support to the accompanying organ or orchestra (Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms comes to mind, or Orff’s Carmina Burana, or Britten’s War Requiem). If piano is employed anywhere in a choral work, it is primarily as a percussion instrument.
If we are to take the greatest composers as our guide, then the use of piano in sacred spaces and for accompaniment in sacred choral works is almost entirely absent. The reason for this is simple: acoustically, it is a clumsy pairing, by its nature an instrumental combination that yields subpar and unsatisfying musical results.
The reason our modern ears desire this combination at all is because of our being suffused in pop culture, and per church teaching, pop (profane) culture is to have no place in our liturgical expression. Taken in turn with an honest consideration of what the Church has traditionally asked for in liturgical music, it seems that a general conversion of cultural preference is in order.

No Piano in Church

On his last full day as president of the United States, it is reported that Joe Biden <a href="https://www.conferenceofgrandmasterspha.org/news-events-scholarships">joined the Freemasons</a>.
Canonists <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/did-joe-biden-join-the-freemasons">are debating</a> whether one incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication for joining the Masons, given that the 1983 Code of Canon Law does not explicitly forbid Catholics to join, whereas one did incur an automatic excommunication under the previous 1917 Code (<a href="https://www.canonlaw.info/1917vatorig.htm#LIBER_QUINTUS">see can. 2335</a>). There is also the issue of President Biden’s mental capacity in making such a choice, as his cognitive decline was evident in his one debate in June 2024 with President Donald Trump, after which Biden was pressured by his Democratic Party colleagues to end his re-election bid.
In <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19831126_declaration-masonic_en.html">a 1983 declaration</a> from the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, now DDF), the Church reaffirmed that “the faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave [mortal] sin and may not receive Holy Communion.” Although excommunication and being in a state of grave sin usually go hand in hand, they don’t always, depending on who levies the excommunication and on what basis. Being in a state of grave sin is more serious, though, given that one who does not repent of such wrongdoing will go to hell (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#IV">see CCC 1861</a>). In addition, to be subjectively culpable of a mortal sin, one must fulfill three criteria: its moral object must be grave matter, and one must commit the sin with full knowledge and deliberate or complete consent (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm#IV">see CCC 1857-1860</a>).
In 2023, the DDF reaffirmed <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231113_richiesta-cortes-massoneria_en.html">the Church’s ban</a> on membership in the Freemasons, and the president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-church-say-about-freemasonry">reaffirmed it again in February 2024</a>.
Whatever his personal culpability in joining the Masons, President Biden’s choice sadly caps a series of decisions in which he as a public official repudiated the Faith. That includes his many decisions to uphold legalized abortion as a U.S. senator as well as president. Others include supporting the redefinition of marriage and even <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vice-president-joe-biden-officiated-wedding-sex-couple/story?id=41058123">officiating</a> at the “wedding” of at least one same-sex couple.
We can make principled arguments <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/dialogue-is-abortion-a-human-right-or-an-inhumane-wrong-with-nathan-nobis">against abortion</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/prepping-for-pride-month">the redefinition of marriage</a> based on objective biology and basic human rights, despite the empty attempt by Biden and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-light-toward-the-darkness">other politicians</a> to say, “I am personally opposed” on these issues, “but I cannot legally impose my religious convictions on others.” In any event, let us pray for our brother in Christ, President Biden, that he might yet see the light and publicly repent, both for his benefit and for many others’.
Many Catholics don’t understand why the Catholic Church forbids the faithful to become Freemasons, including because they may have neighbors or co-workers who are Masons, and because they see positive philanthropic work the Masons oversee, such as providing major health care for children at their hospitals.
The Freemasons were established in Europe several centuries ago to oppose the Catholic Church, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-great-modern-attack-on-the-church">and indeed to destroy the Church</a>. Because of this enmity, popes issued a series of pronouncements, beginning with Pope Clement XII’s constitution <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/clem12/c12inemengl.htm">In Eminenti</a> in 1738 and including Pope Leo XIII’s 1884 encyclical <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus.html">Humanum Genus</a>. In addition, St. Maximilian Kolbe founded his Militia of the Immaculate in significant part to combat the Masons, whom he observed proclaiming in 1917—as part of their bicentennial celebration in Rome—that “<a href="https://saintmaximiliankolbe.com/st-maximilian-kolbe-and-the-second-page/#:~:text=The%20secret%20founding%20of%20the,of%20heresies%20called%20M%20o%20d%20e%20r%20n%20i%20s%20m%20.">Satan must reign in the Vatican</a>. The pope will be his slave.” Also, a key reason Fr. Michael McGivney established the Knights of Columbus in 1882 was to provide fraternity and life insurance for the faithful, as many Catholic men were being tempted to join the Masons for those reasons.
In modern-day America, Masonic lodges typically serve as social clubs that also help members network professionally. But make no mistake: the Masons are qualitatively different from the Kiwanis Club or your local Elks lodge, because Masonry is a naturalistic religion. As the New Catholic Encyclopedia states,
<blockquote>Freemasonry displays all the elements of religion, and as such it becomes a rival to the religion of the Gospel. It includes temples and altars, prayers, a moral code, worship, vestments, feast days, the promise of reward or punishment in the afterlife, a hierarchy, and initiation and burial rites.</blockquote>
In his <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2024-02/chiesa-massoneria-stagliano-inconciliabili.html#:~:text=Chiesa%20e%20massoneria%2C%20Staglian%C3%B2%3A%20%E2%80%9CEcco%20perch%C3%A9%20sono%20profondamente%20inconciliabili%E2%80%9D,-Il%20presidente%20della&amp;text=%E2%80%9CQuella%20massonica%20%C3%A8%20un'eresia,tra%20Chiesa%20cattolica%20e%20massoneria.">February 2024 interview with Vatican News</a>, Bishop Antonio Stagliano, the president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, distinguished Freemasonry from Catholic belief on several important matters.
For example, Masons view God as “the Great Architect,” and their <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/masonry">longstanding emblem is an architect’s basic instruments</a>. Consequently, <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/bishop-who-participated-in-freemasonry-event-affirms-its-incompatibility-with-catholicism">Stagliano said</a>, “Freemasonry is a heresy that is fundamentally aligned with the Arian heresy,” because it was Arius “who imagined that Jesus was a great architect of the universe” while also denying Christ’s divinity. In addition, Stagliano said, as a natural religion, Freemasonry “is the fruit of human reasoning that tries to imagine a god, whereas the God of Catholics is the fruit of the very revelation of God in Christ Jesus!”
“In essence,” he added, Catholicism “is the result of a historical event in which God became flesh, drew near to men, spoke to all human beings, and destined them for his salvation.”
Similarly, Masonry and Catholicism differ on the concept of mystery. Freemasonry is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-church-say-about-freemasonry">a secret society</a> that espouses a form of Gnosticism—special, secret knowledge available only to its initiated members. In marked contrast, Stagliano notes, for Christians, the mystery “hidden throughout the centuries does not cease to be a mystery but rather ceases to be hidden, because the mystery hidden throughout the centuries has been revealed,” referring to God’s self-revelation, especially through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, infallibly taught in and proclaimed by his Catholic Church to the whole world (Matt. 28:18-20).
The bishop also distinguished Catholic from Masonic brotherhood: “Our fraternity is established on the sacrament of the love of God in Jesus; it is founded on the Eucharist, not only on the generic idea of being brothers.” He also said that Freemasonry’s concept of doing good works should not be confused with the life in Christ that Jesus calls the faithful to exemplify. The practice of Christian charity “has nothing to do with Masonic philanthropy,” he says, because “Christian charity is based on the historical event of a God who died and rose again for us and asks his children not to be merely philanthropic but to be, finally, crucified for love.”
“In short,” <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/bishop-who-participated-in-freemasonry-event-affirms-its-incompatibility-with-catholicism">Stagliano summarized,</a> “when we talk about incompatibility, we are referring to profound contradictions.”

Joe Biden, Freemason?

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

Scott Hahn, Bishop Barron, and Guilt by Association

In December 2022, Pope Francis <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-francis-rants-against-delinquent-priests-who-withhold-absolution-2/">gave a talk</a> to a group of seminarians in December.
Reportedly, the pope said that priests should not refuse absolution to penitents. However, the same story discusses him saying priests should check with their bishop before denying absolution.
Unfortunately, there are no recordings or transcripts of exactly what was said, so we can’t know. However, we can review the basic principles on this topic.
The first thing to say is that withholding absolution is a real possibility. When Jesus granted the power of absolution to the disciples, we read,
<blockquote>Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21-23).</blockquote>
Jesus thus told the disciples that they needed to make a choice: to either forgive or retain sins.
He thus did not envision the disciples granting absolution in each and every case. Rather, he called upon them to make a decision—to exercise discernment, as our Jesuit friends would say.
Jesus thus envisioned the disciples withholding absolution in some cases, but on what basis? Obviously, as wrenching a decision as withholding absolution is not to be made capriciously. So what would justify a priest in doing it?
In Scripture, the fundamental condition on which God forgives sin is repentance. If a person repents of his sins, God is willing to forgive. But if he clings to his sins, his salvation is in jeopardy.
This is the rational basis on which a priest can decide whether or not to absolve a penitent. If the individual has repented of his mortal sins, he is to be absolved, and if he has not repented of them, he is not to be.
The mere fact that an individual has come to a priest for confession indicates a desire for forgiveness, and it creates a presumption that the person is repentant. Confessing your sins is not fun, and subjecting yourself to the shame of doing so in order to be forgiven suggests that you regret what you did and have repented.
Therefore, in general, priests should presume that the individual has repented and absolve him. But the presumption of repentance can be overcome.
If a penitent behaves in the confessional in a way that is inconsistent with repentance, the priest is warranted in inquiring further—asking questions to see if the individual is repentant or not.
This can be a delicate matter. Many penitents recognize that, out of human frailty, they are likely to fall into the same sins in the future. But that does not mean that they are not repentant now. They may regret what they did, they may want not to sin in the future, and they may be hoping for grace—including the grace of confession—to help them not to sin, even though they are objectively likely to.
Such penitents are to be absolved as long as their will is currently turned away from sin.
But if the individual is genuinely non-repentant—showing no signs of contrition and being perfectly comfortable with committing mortal sin in the future—then denying him absolution is warranted.
Discerning this is a delicate enough matter that in some cases it could be advisable for a priest to check with his bishop.
Fortunately, stark unrepentance is rare when it comes to people going to confession, and—at least in the United States—the denial of absolution is very rare.

When Would a Priest Withhold Absolution?

Frank Turek on the Bible & the Church

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

<div>I've heard several times that the Church is cannibalistic, since it teaches that bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. Looking at the definition of cannibalism, they seem to be correct. Are they correct, and how should I respond?</div><div>The charge of cannibalism is not new. Roman pagans called early Church Christians cannibals precisely because the disciples spoke of eating and drinking their God. In doing so, the pagans provide further evidence that belief in the Real Presence of the Eucharist is an ancient Christian doctrine, and that the first Christians understood Jesus to be speaking literally when he established at the Last Supper the ritual we have come to call the Mass.
Yet the charge of cannibalism is misplaced. Cannibalism, simply put, is the eating of human flesh, typically after a person has died. A corpse (dead body) is usually present, or at least a dead body part. Second, the quantity of the flesh diminishes as it is being consumed. Third, digesting flesh results in physical nourishment, protein included.
In the banquet of the Eucharist, however, Jesus is not dead but is a living sacrifice. Second, his substance is not diminished by consuming the Eucharist. To the contrary, Jesus is bodily in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, though his body becomes miraculously present wherever the Eucharist is celebrated. Third, the eating of his Body and Blood does not result in practical physical nourishment on a natural level, although some have miraculously subsisted solely on the Eucharist. The purpose of the Eucharist is to provide spiritual nourishment.
In summary, cannibals consume the flesh of a dead person in a way that diminishes and profanes the corpse. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus freely gives himself to us; and we consume his living body, blood, soul, and divinity in a way that mysteriously and miraculously does not diminish him but instead enhances our spiritual life.
For more on how receiving the Eucharist is not cannibalism, please see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/what-catholics-believe-about-john-6">Tim Staples’ article on John 6</a>.
</div>

Is Receiving the Eucharist Cannibalism?

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

Baptize the Environmentalist

In recent times, the online world has witnessed a trend of individuals from diverse religious backgrounds, including Catholics, converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. Catholics who embrace Eastern Orthodoxy often feel a sense of disillusionment with certain aspects of their former faith, whether it be perceived doctrinal developments, ecclesiastical structures, or liturgical practices. Yet, in their quest for what they perceive as &#8220;greener pastures,&#8221; it&#8217;s crucial to consider the implications of leaving behind the apostolic lineage and doctrinal continuity inherent in Catholicism.
Canonical Confusion
The Bible embodies the word of God, carrying profound significance for believers worldwide. The early Church grappled with the task of identifying the precise contents of the Bible. In the fourth century, local councils, such as those convened in North Africa, sought to establish a definitive canon. This North African code, as it came to be known, encapsulated the sacred texts deemed authentic and inspired by God. These early local councils, with the prime mover being St. Augustine of Hippo, received their stamp of approval from the bishop of Rome. For many centuries, the contents of the Catholic canon of Scripture were recognized in the East and the West.
Pope St. Agatho&#8217;s <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-eastern-orthodoxy-made-me-catholic">affirmations</a> during the Sixth Ecumenical Council, or Constantinople III, highlighted this consensus, validating the canonical status of the scriptures as recognized by both traditions. However, the schism between East and West ushered in a period of divergence on many vital issues, one being the canon of Scripture.
One significant divergence emerged with Patriarch Cyril Lucar&#8217;s rejection of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/debunking-a-protestant-case-against-the-deuterocanon">deuterocanonical books</a> in the seventeenth century, wherein he labeled them apocryphal. But the subsequent Orthodox synod&#8217;s condemnation of Lucar&#8217;s heresies reaffirmed the canonical status of the deuterocanon.
Nonetheless, the Eastern Orthodox approach to the canon today remains fraught with ambiguity, debate, and contention. Scholars grapple with varying interpretations, with some outright denying the deuterocanonical books&#8217; canonical status, whereas others advocate for the inclusion of additional texts not universally recognized by early councils.
The Catholic Church stands as a guardian of the complete canon, rooted in ancient councils and apostolic authority. Eastern Orthodoxy grapples with the legacy of schism and theological discord.
A Painful Purge
The doctrine of purgatory stands as one of the most debated topics within Christian theology, particularly between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy. Central to the Catholic understanding of purgatory is the belief in a state of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/purgatorys-purifying-fire">purification after death</a>, wherein souls undergo a process of cleansing to attain the holiness necessary for entrance into the fullness of divine glory. This purification carries connotations of suffering and penance for past sins.
This doctrine has been a point of contention between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, who usually <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-orthodox-view-of-purgatory-is-surprisingly-catholic">admit to the possibility</a> of purification after death but vehemently reject the claim that it involves any suffering.
The Bible offers passages that suggest such a post-mortem purification.
In 1 Corinthians 3, St. Paul speaks of a salvation through fire, indicating a purification process that takes place after death. St. Cyprian, a prominent figure in the early Church, spoke explicitly of purgatory as a post-mortem prison where souls undergo fiery purification before entering into glory.
Likewise, St. Basil the Great, a revered Eastern Church Father, <a href="https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2021/07/12/the-early-church-fathers-on-1-corinthians-3/">alludes to</a> a fiery-like suffering in the afterlife:
<blockquote>If therefore we have disclosed our sins by confession, we have dried up the grass as it was growing, clearly suitable to be consumed and devoured by the purgatorial fire. It does not threaten destruction and extermination, but beckons to purgation (Commentary on Isaiah IX).</blockquote>
Even within the ranks of Eastern Orthodoxy, there are voices that hint at the possibility of post-mortem suffering for purification. Stalwarts like Mark of Ephesus, while refuting the idea of a literal fire in post-mortem purification, nonetheless acknowledged the existence of post-mortem suffering for sins in the afterlife.
Therefore, modern-day Eastern Orthodox believers should find no contradiction in accepting the possibility of a post-mortem purification process. This is also an area where, as Catholics, we should call our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters to return to the faith of their fathers.
Our Immaculate Mother Mary
Few doctrines evoke as much debate and division as the dogma of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption">Immaculate Conception</a>. This belief, central to Catholic Mariology, asserts that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, preserved from the moment of her conception from the stain of Adam&#8217;s transgression. The origins of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception can be traced back to the language Sacred Scripture uses for Holy Mary as well as the picture the early Church painted of the Mother of God. Although the precise formulation of the dogma took centuries to develop, the seeds of the belief can be found in the writings of early Church Fathers, both East and West.
Eastern saints such as St. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/mary-full-of-grace">Ephrem the Syrian</a> and St. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/immaculate-conception">John Damascene</a> articulated notions of Mary&#8217;s sinlessness and purity at creation, laying the groundwork for later theological developments. Their hymns and treatises extolled Mary as the &#8220;all-holy&#8221; and &#8220;all-pure,&#8221; emphasizing her unique status.
However, despite these early affirmations, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has gradually become a point of contention between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. As Eastern Orthodoxy evolved and theological differences deepened, the once-held belief in Mary&#8217;s immaculate creation widely fell out of favor.
One notable figure in Eastern Orthodox theology who affirmed the Immaculate Conception is Gregory of Palamas. His writings underscored the purity and sanctity of Mary from the moment of her conception, aligning closely with the Catholic understanding of the Immaculate Conception. Additionally, Mark of Ephesus articulated the concept of the immaculate creation of Mary, emphasizing her unique role in salvation history.
Remarkably, at the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, which aimed at reunion between East and West, the Immaculate Conception was not a point of contention. Instead, the council focused on issues such as papal authority and the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/defending-the-filioque">filioque clause</a>.
The call for Eastern Orthodoxy to return to the faith of their fathers in affirming the Immaculate Conception is not a call to abandon tradition, but rather a call to return to the roots of the apostolic faith.
The Strength of the Shepherd
At the heart of Christian ecclesiology lies the foundational belief in the establishment of the Church by Jesus Christ himself. In Matthew 16:18-19, Christ declares to St. Peter, &#8220;You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.&#8221;
The recognition of Peter as the rock upon which Christ founded his Church is not merely symbolic, but holds great theological significance. Peter, as the chief among the apostles, was uniquely entrusted with the keys to the kingdom of heaven, signifying his authority to govern and guide the Church on earth.
The recognition of papal prerogatives, including primacy and infallibility, finds firm support in the writings of early Church Fathers and the decrees of early ecumenical councils. The unity between East and West in affirming the authority of the papacy is evident in the historical record, with councils such as the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) recognizing the primacy of the bishop of Rome. It should also be noted that at Constantinople III, convened in the seventh century, Pope St. Agatho made a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/that-time-the-eastern-churches-accepted-papal-infallibility">significant assertion</a> that continues to resonate in Catholic theology: Agatho famously applied the biblical passage of Luke 22:31-32 to the office of the papacy. It is here that Agatho clearly teaches that the gift of infallibility is to be provided, confirming the words spoken by Christ when he confirmed the strength of the shepherd to the apostle Peter.
What&#8217;s particularly noteworthy about this assertion is that it wasn&#8217;t a point of contention between East and West. Both Eastern and Western representatives at the council acknowledged and accepted the papal prerogatives articulated by Agatho.
However, with the schism between East and West, the unity and recognition of papal authority within the Eastern Orthodox tradition were severed. Whereas the Catholic Church continued to uphold the primacy of Peter&#8217;s successors and the infallibility of the papal office, Eastern Orthodoxy broke from this biblical and patristic divine model, set up by Christ himself.
As Catholics, we firmly believe that although Eastern Orthodoxy embodies aspects of the apostolic faith, it does not represent the fullness of that faith. The Catholic Church, with its unbroken apostolic succession, sacramental richness, doctrinal clarity, and universal communion, stands as the beacon of unity and the bearer of the fullness of Christian truth.
For those earnestly seeking authentic Christianity and desiring the fullness of the faith as established by Jesus Christ, we extend an invitation to explore or return to Catholicism. Within the Catholic Church, we find not only the richness of apostolic roots, but also the fullness of divine revelation preserved and proclaimed through the ages.

Considering Eastern Orthodoxy?

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

Remembering a Spellbinding Catholic Artist

What Does God Really Want?

Who Are the Nephilim?

Catholicism’s claim of having a historically continuous teaching authority going back to the apostles is an asset when it comes to explaining things like our knowledge of the canon of Scripture. But some Protestants say this teaching authority is actually a liability for Catholics, because it provides numerous opportunities to falsify Catholicism. Jerry Walls, for example, says Catholic belief about the papacy having an apostolic origin grievously contradicts the historical record. He <a href="https://jbtsonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/JBTS-4.2-Article-6.pdf">writes</a>,
<blockquote>Roman apologists are reminiscent of young-earth creationists who continue to assert that the earth is only 10,000 years old in the face of the massive scientific evidence that it is much older, evidence which is acknowledged by leading Christian physicists and cosmologists, as well as other scientists. Popular apologists who continue to assert traditional papal history in the face of the best scholarship of their own church are doing the same sort of thing (254). </blockquote>
Catholicism may seem to have excellent explanatory power, say these Protestants, but scholarship shows that Catholic teaching over the past 2,000 years contradicts itself or the historical record. And since the Church claims to have infallible teaching authority, it follows that Catholicism is false because infallible authorities can’t be in error or contradict themselves.
Fortunately, Catholics have ample resources when it comes to answering this kind of argument—because atheists have been lobbing similar objections at Christianity for centuries.
One common tactic among atheists is to say that the Bible can’t be an infallible source of revelation because it is riddled with contradictions, and so Christianity is false.
The Church teaches that, when it comes to Sacred Scripture, “everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit” (Dei Verbum 11). Notice that the word asserted is used instead of written. Just because something is written in Scripture, it doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit is asserting that word or sentence as a truth of divine revelation.
For example, in Genesis 1:6, God says, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The word firmament comes from a Hebrew word that means “to be firmly hammered,” and this “firmament” was thought to be a solid dome that held up waters above the earth. This is scientifically incorrect, of course, but it doesn’t represent an error in Scripture because the author of Genesis wasn’t trying to assert a geographical or cosmological truth.
Instead, the first two chapters of Genesis assert theological truths about God creating the world from nothing and making man in his image (which is also an anthropological truth). The language used to express these truths can reflect a variety of styles and literary approaches, and the Church acknowledges this. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, said the “firmament” could refer to many kinds of celestial bodies and that “Moses was speaking to ignorant people, and that out of condescension to their weakness he put before them only such things as are apparent to sense” (Summa Theologiae1.68.3). 
Most Protestants understand this, too. Jerry Walls, for example, says that Genesis does not teach a literal, six-day creation that occurred thousands of years ago because that interpretation contradicts “massive scientific evidence.” Instead of being in error, the Bible must be asserting some other truth about God creating the world. But then Walls claims that Catholicism must be in error because the First Vatican Council teaches something about the papacy that seems to contradict the historical record:
<blockquote>It was known in every age that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and forever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the holy Roman see, which he founded and consecrated with his blood (Pastor Aeternus 2). </blockquote>
This statement is false, say Walls and some other Protestant apologists, because early Christian witnesses disagree about the extent of the papal office. James White <a href="https://archive.org/details/romancatholiccon0000whit">says</a>, “Remember that Vatican I tells us that the Catholic Church has always [emphasis in the original] understood these passages, specifically Matthew 16 and John 21, in the way presented by Rome today. This is manifestly untrue” (119). Moreover, these critics point out that the early writings of the Apostolic Fathers don’t clearly articulate the grand claims of Vatican I in their description of the bishop of Rome.
But Protestants should give this statement in Vatican I the same flexibility they give to statements in Scripture that atheists claim are erroneous.
For example, Mark says John baptized “all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” (1:5) even though John didn’t baptize every resident of Jerusalem. When Jesus said the mustard seed is “the smallest of all the seeds on earth” (Mark 4:31), he was wrong from a strictly agricultural perspective, since there are smaller seeds. But it is a small seed, probably one of the smallest that local farmers knew about in the area. That means Jesus used an illustration that accommodated their limited knowledge and did not assert an erroneous scientific truth.
Similarly, the statement from Vatican I that these facts about the papacy were “known in every age” should be interpreted to refer to the knowledge of the papacy having an apostolic origin. This quotation from Vatican I comes from a representative (called a legate) of Pope Celestine I named Philip, who uttered it at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The fathers of Vatican I considered it fitting to include Philip’s declaration in their decree defining papal infallibility, since it is a very early witness to the doctrine of the papacy, even if the statement is not a strictly literal description of the knowledge of the papacy among every author in Church history.
This truth about the papacy was known during the time of the Church Fathers, even if it was not explicitly described in the earliest Fathers. To give a similar example, Protestants might say that the doctrine of the Trinity was known “in every age of Church history” even though the term was not used until the end of the second century, and the doctrine was not clearly articulated until the beginning of the third century. (The term is first used in Theophilus of Antioch’s To Autolycus, Book II. An early defense and explanation can be found in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas.) Or they might say that true Christians “always understood and followed the Bible” even though the first unambiguous witness to the canon of Scripture comes from the fourth century.
We should also consider that, unlike Sacred Scripture (all assertions of which are inerrant), statements of Church teaching are guaranteed to be free from error only when they involve infallible declarations of Christian truth. This happens in the solemn definitions of an ecumenical council, or when the pope speaks ex cathedra. But the content of most magisterial statements in the Church’s history are not such infallible declarations.
This quotation from Vatican I about knowledge of Peter’s successors being known “in every age” is not an infallible teaching. The only decree from that council that is infallible is the part that defines the conditions under which the pope is infallible. It begins by saying, “We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that . . .” The subsequent definition of papal infallibility does not make any historical claims about the papacy, and the prior language about the history of the papacy is not claimed to be inerrant (see Donum Veritatis 24). And if it is fair for Protestants to distinguish what is written in Scripture from what is infallibly asserted in Scripture, then it is also fair for Catholics to make a similar distinction in the Church’s magisterial teachings.

‘But Catholics Contradict Themselves, Too’

Do people become angels when they die?

Will we eat, sleep, work, or have hobbies in Heaven?

Will there be marriage or romantic relationships in Heaven?

How will I have any mind left over for anything else when I have the beatific vision?

Are there different levels or degrees of glory in Heaven?

Could someone in Heaven ever sin again or choose to leave Heaven?

How can a loving God send anyone to Hell?

Why is Hell eternal? Why can’t someone repent after death?

Can someone go to Hell simply for committing one mortal sin?

Does God predestine anyone to Hell?

If Jesus paid for our sins, why is Purgatory necessary?

Do people become angels when they die, or do human beings remain fundamentally different from angels for eternity? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers apologists tackle some of the biggest questions about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. They discuss whether we will eat, sleep, work, have hobbies, or experience romantic relationships in Heaven, what the beatific vision will be like, and whether there are different degrees of heavenly glory. The conversation also explores whether someone in Heaven could ever sin again, how a loving God can allow anyone to go to Hell, why Hell is eternal, and whether a single mortal sin can lead to damnation. Finally, they address predestination and explain why Purgatory is necessary if Jesus has already paid for our sins.
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Every Question on Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory

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

Is Marriage Supposed to Be Hard?

Episode 100: Year B &#8211; 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode, we focus on several details found in all three readings for this upcoming 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. All the details converge together on a single apologetical theme: the nature of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102024.cfm">Click Here</a>
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The Nature of Jesus’ Atoning Sacrifice

Tim Staples gives a caller advice on how to handle an anti-Catholic family member.
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Transcript:
Host: Danny, in Jackson, New Jersey, listening on <a href="https://www.ewtn.com">EWTN</a>, you are on with Tim Staples.
Caller: Hi guys. Thanks for taking my call. I have a brother-in-law, he, you know, he was raised Catholic also, and stuff like that. And he&#8211;over the years, he was reading a lot of Protestant books and a lot of things like that. And I noticed he started thinking a lot like them, you know? And I told him, I said, &#8220;If you keep on doing that, you know, you&#8217;re gonna&#8230;you&#8217;re gonna start thinking what they believe, and believing what they believe. So anyway, it came to fruition now, he&#8217;s very anti-Catholic. In the last few years he&#8217;s just been posting these things on Facebook, you know, and all the family members are getting very upset. He posts these videos from, like, YouTube, like the history of the evil Catholic Church, and these things are like so ridiculous. If you know your faith at all, you know that they&#8217;re lies and stuff like that.
But when I try to talk to him, I even send them stuff from Catholic Answers to, like, you know, to refute these claims. Yeah. He&#8211;he&#8217;s just got like a wall up. He doesn&#8217;t&#8230; He just, &#8220;I thought the Catholic Church is this,&#8221; you know, the typical stuff. We worship statues, worship Mary, the Pope is the Antichrist. So, you know, my sister-in-law today was telling my wife that, you know, she was upset some of the stuff that was put on Facebook. What&#8211;I know have to pray for them and I do. What would be the best way to&#8230; to, like&#8230;you know, talk to him&#8211;
Tim: Danny, you know what&#8211;yeah, let me jump in because you already took part of my fire. You know my friend, the most important thing of all is that you pray for him. Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for him. My friend, pray your daily rosary, offer up a decade, two, a rosary a day. I will tell you, Danny, that was the secret to Matt Doula that you mentioned before. I would find out later, after I left the Marine Corps, he was offering his mass every day for me, and he was praying a rosary for me everyday. I didn&#8217;t&#8211;and that was for a whole year&#8211;and I didn&#8217;t know it at the time, Cy, but I was a goner because of it. Now, it took a couple years for that to, you know, to come to fruition, but Danny, of course that&#8217;s the most important thing.
I would suggest something else as well. Here is what I do, and I&#8217;ve done it many times over the last&#8230;hard to believe, 29 years that that I&#8217;ve been Catholic. My goodness, 29 years, Cy! It seems like yesterday. But anyway, Danny, ask your brother-in-law: &#8220;What is the single most absolutely crazy thing that you could never believe about the Catholic faith?&#8221; One thing, not ten things, not a hundred things. I tell you, Danny, most people make the mistake of trying&#8211;you know what I&#8217;m doing now? I got myself two thousand emails behind as of Christmas time&#8211;actually by about early February&#8211;and I told everybody, everybody who emails me: &#8220;If you email me 45 questions, I&#8217;m gonna answer one.&#8221; All right, now, I tell everybody now: you send me one. What is your biggest bugaboo about the Catholic faith? And I&#8217;ll answer that. And then we can go from there. Let me tell you, I&#8217;ve got my emails down from 2000 to about a hundred and seventy now and counting. And I am determined, I&#8217;m gonna get them all done.
But Danny, it&#8217;s the same thing with you. One thing. If it&#8217;s worshiping statues, okay. Let&#8217;s deal with that. Let&#8217;s knock this thing every which way but loose. Let&#8217;s turn it upside down, and if you&#8211;let me tell you, Danny, what happened to me was, Matt Doula got me on one thing, and it was &#8220;calling no priest &#8216;Father.&#8217; Don&#8217;t call your priest &#8216;Father.'&#8221; He answered that thing every which way but loose, and even though, Danny, I never even admitted to him&#8211;you know my story&#8211;I never even admitted to him he was right. He was right, and it bugged me to no end. Now we went on to thing after thing after thing. And he answered, he answered, he answered. But you gotta start somewhere. Start with one thing. That&#8217;s number one.
Number two: It may be, Danny, that it&#8217;s just not time to talk to him. And that&#8217;s a hard one for you and I to be able to to come to and say, &#8220;You know what, I&#8217;m just not ready.&#8221; I&#8217;ll give you an example; My father and my brother Mike. My father, who just died about a year and a half ago, and a good Catholic; and my brother Mike, who is now a Catholic as well. But both of those guys, when I was evangelizing my mother, my brother Terry, my brother Ted, those two didn&#8217;t want anything. My dad got mad. He&#8217;s like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want that stuff in my house.&#8221; My brother Mike would just get up and walk away. You know what I found, Danny? It does no good to speak to the back of somebody&#8217;s head. It doesn&#8217;t work. All right? So sometimes it&#8217;s just not time. It took 14 years with my brother Mike before he became Catholic. Took five years with my dad. My brother Terry was wide open. Took six months and now he&#8217;s a Catholic priest. Everybody&#8217;s different.
But here, final thing I will say to you Danny; Take James, chapter 1, verse 5, and this is a prayer that you can pray that you know will be answered, and it will be answered in the affirmative. Isn&#8217;t that cool? Here is a guarantee from God. You ask for this, you get a &#8220;Yes.&#8221; And it&#8217;s this: &#8220;If any man lacks wisdom&#8211;&#8221; and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re talking about, wisdom. Should I talk to this guy, or should I not? &#8220;If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who upbraideth not&#8211;&#8221; in other words, he&#8217;s not going to say no, right? He will respond yes. &#8220;He gives liberally wisdom to all who ask.&#8221; That&#8217;s what the scripture says in James chapter 1 verse 5. Now, wisdom comes with age most often, and with experience. It&#8217;s going to take time and hard knocks, but you pray for wisdom, and God will give you wisdom concerning this situation.
Host: Thank you very much Danny.

Talking to Family Members about Catholicism

Who Is the Antichrist?

In this episode, Trent reviews the CDF’s recent dubium on blessing same-sex marriages and replies to the bad theology promoted by critics who want this change in the liturgy.

Pope Francis says “No” to Blessing Same-Sex Unions

Protestants often claim that the veneration of Mary is a much later accretion into Christianity. However, the truth is the exact opposite: we see a shockingly high view of Mary early. This is not what we would expect if Protestantism were true.
For example, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140194/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-volume-1/">the Second Sibylline Oracle</a>, which scholars generally date to the second century, describes the fate of the damned, who have rejected the opportunity to repent after death. This opportunity was made possible by Mary’s hand: “For he [God] gave seven days of ages to erring men for repentance through the intercession of the holy virgin” (312).
Although the Virgin is not identified by name, there is little doubt about who she is. First, there is no debate that whoever wrote this passage was a Christian. This fact alone drastically narrows down who could plausibly be “the holy virgin.” Second, the Oxford classicist <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-sibylline-oracles-9780199215461?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">J.L. Lightfoot</a> identifies Mary as the holy virgin in her summary of SibOr 2:305-312: “The damned gnash teeth; wish to die and cannot; plead in vain; God turns his face away, for they have had seven days of ages for repentance through the Virgin Mary.”
The eminent Yale scholar <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140194/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-volume-1/">John J. Collins argued</a> (and I think rightly so) that this part of the text was completed before A.D. 150: “Since no other historical event is mentioned after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Christian redaction should probably be dated no later than A.D. 150.” Thus, we have an incredibly early text proclaiming that Mary can intercede for the dead.
It gets worse for Protestants. We have two apparently independent texts converging on a tradition that Mary gave birth to Christ without pain. Given the fact that pain in childbirth was a consequence of the Fall (Gen. 3:16), these texts seem to set up an Eve-Mary typology.
The first text is the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140200/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-volume-2/">Ascension of Isaiah</a>, which the world’s leading expert on the text, Enrico Norelli, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jts/article-abstract/49/1/323/1735633?redirectedFrom=PDF">dates to the end of the first century</a>. After carrying the Lord for a short time, Mary sees her baby suddenly appear outside her womb. Apparently, news of this event spread around Bethlehem: “But many said, ‘She did not give birth; the midwife did not go up (to her), and we did not hear (any) cries of pain’” (11:14).
This text used to be accused of promoting Docetism, a heresy that denies that Christ had real flesh, but that accusation was refuted by Darrel D. Hannah in his 1999 article “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/3175784/The_Ascension_of_Isaiah_and_Docetic_Christology">The Ascension of Isaiah and Docetic Christology</a>.” Since the text elsewhere affirms that Christ had a true body, the emphasis here is that Christ’s birth was miraculous and strange. Indeed, Mary’s “womb was found as (it was) at first, before she had conceived” (11:9).
The second text is <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800660567/The-Odes-of-Solomon">The Odes of Solomon</a>, which is generally dated to either the late first or early second century. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/formation-of-the-biblical-canon-volume-1-9780567668769/">James Charlesworth</a> adds another important detail about this text: “I highlight the Odes of Solomon because it may well have been composed within the community that gave us the Gospel of John and helps us understand the marvelous text and the Logos Christology.” If this is true, then it has enormous historical and theological weight.
Odes 19:6-9 says, “The womb of the Virgin caught [it], and she conceived and gave birth. And the Virgin became a mother in great compassion and she was in labor and bore a son. And she felt no pains/grief, because it was not useless/for no reason. And she did not require a midwife, because he [God] kept her alive like a man.”
The “it” is referring to milk, which came from the Father and was given to Mary through the Holy Spirit. Because of this strange imagery, this text has been accused of being gnostic. However, this charge was refuted by <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/10077">Edward Engelbrecht</a> and <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800660567/The-Odes-of-Solomon">Michael Lattke</a>, who both demonstrated that orthodox Church Fathers (like St. Irenaeus and St. Clement of Alexandria) used similar images of God’s milk. It would be especially strange for Irenaeus, who directly opposed the Gnostics, to use this imagery if it were heretical (<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103438.htm">Against Heresies 4.38.1</a>; cf. Lattke 270).
It is no surprise, then, that in the second century we see Mary being called the New Eve. The world’s leading historian on Marian devotion, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300217216/mary-in-early-christian-faith-and-devotion/">Stephen J. Shoemaker</a>, writes, “The notion of Mary’s virginity would receive further theological development during the course of the second century, first at the hands of Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165) and later by Irenaeus of Lyons (d. 202), both of whom wove from this doctrine a portrait of Mary as the New Eve, whose chastity and obedience undid the original Eve’s primordial immorality and disobedience.”
Among early Christians we find the belief that Mary could intercede for the dead (the concept of interceding saints <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jews-and-the-saints">goes back to ancient Judaism</a>) and that she painlessly birthed Christ, exempting her from Eve’s curse and elevating her to the status of a new, better Eve. Even if Protestants think Catholics are wrong about Mary, they cannot say any longer that Marian veneration was a later accretion.

Early Christians Venerated Mary like Catholics!

<div>If I don’t pray the rosary daily, should I keep wearing my scapular?</div><div>Wearing a scapular is itself an optional devotion, so there is no moral requirement that you can wear one only if you pray the rosary daily.
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Can I Wear a Scapular Without Praying the Rosary Daily?

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

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

Pets as Children

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

Is There a Catholic Case for Abortion?

Why can anybody baptize but only priests can consecrate the Eucharist?

What is a good answer to: why is there a physical dimension to the catholic faith, like blessing ourselves and kneeling?

Why do we refer to Christ as the Son of Man?

What does it mean to love God if he neither gains or loses anything?

Did Jesus have brothers and sisters?

What do you say to the claim that God is not all powerful because he can make a rock so big that he can’t lift it?

Why do we venerate the relics of the saints when we have the eucharist?

Why can’t we take the eucharist home with us?

Why didn’t Jesus want the demons to reveal who he was when he was exorcizing them?

The Whys of Catholic Belief

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent takes on the scourge of adultery and gives us some practical tips to strengthen our own marriages and encourage our married friends to remain faithful to their marriage vows.

How to “Affair-proof” Your Marriage

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

Daily Defense Podcast

In June of 2017, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois decreed that those who die without repenting of being in same-sex relationships were to be withheld funeral rites.
Some of the more histrionic responses made it sound as though Paprocki had told churches to unceremoniously throw the bodies of LGBT people into unmarked graves. The president of Dignity USA said, “This document is mean-spirited and hurtful in the extreme,” while New Ways Ministry <a href="https://www.newwaysministry.org/2017/06/22/bishop-pastors-must-deny-funerals-to-catholics-in-same-gender-marriages">said</a> the bishop’s promise to <a href="https://www.newwaysministry.org/2017/06/24/catholics-angered-by-bishops-attempt-to-exclude-lesbian-and-gay-couples">punish</a> those who violate his directive “borders on spiritual abuse.” Fr. James Martin, on the other hand, merely chose to retweet a piece from the National Catholic Reporter with the headline “The scandal may be in not holding funerals for gay spouses, theologians say”—which implies that the real scandal is the bishop’s original directive. 
These cases involve the application of the Church’s teaching on scandal. Let’s use the context of funerals to investigate the teaching.
One reason funerals can involve scandal is because of the temptation to turn them into miniature canonization sessions. Given the grief of the deceased’s loved ones, it’s understandable that they may find comfort in talking about their loved one already being in heaven. But the primary purpose of Catholic funerals is to pray for the deceased because we do not absolutely know if they died in a state of grace. Or, if they did, we do not know how much <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/purgatory-in-jesus-teaching">purification they need</a> before they are able to enter into heaven (CCC 1030-1031). 
That’s why the General Instruction of the Roman Missal says, “At the Funeral Mass there should, as a rule, be a short homily, but <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/dont-say-a-eulogy-at-my-funeral">never a eulogy</a> of any kind” (382). The late Cincinnati archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk once put it <a href="https://catholicexchange.com/never-a-eulogy">this way</a>: “The funeral liturgy is a celebration of salvation and mercy, of grace and eternal life. It is not meant to be a commemoration (much less a canonization) of the person who has died. Extended remembering of the deceased often results in forgetting the Lord.”
Along with serving the deceased through our prayers for them, a Christian funeral can inspire those who have separated themselves from God through mortal sin to reconcile with God as soon as possible. The presence of the deceased tells them, Memento mori: remember that you will die, too! But if people see the hope of salvation being discussed in the context of someone who never repented of a grave sin like sodomy, adultery, robbery, or murder, then they may come to the erroneous conclusion that even if the Church says these behaviors are sinful, they can’t be so sinful as to risk anyone’s salvation. 
But in an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter, Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/funeral-rites-gay-spouses-public-scandal-eye-beholder">take issue</a> with the idea that funerals for couples in same-sex “marriages” would result in scandal:  
<blockquote>Wherein lies the scandal in the case under discussion? Is it in permitting a church funeral to a deceased same-sex partner that would lead others to engage in homosexual behavior, or is it in the behavior of the bishops directing priests to deny a church funeral to a deceased spouse in a same-sex marriage that would lead others to engage in discriminatory attitudes and behaviors toward same-sex couples in specific, or members of the LGBT community in general?</blockquote>
Salzman and Lawler say the greater harm is the possible “scandal” that people will think the Church discriminates against people who identify as LGBT. According to them, a morally wrong behavior like sodomy “is not always morally bad if it is done with a good attitude.”  
The authors reach this startling conclusion by noting that the Catechism defines scandal as “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil” (2284). They claim that attitudes are either always good (promoting justice) or always bad (seeking vainglory). They then say that, depending on the attitude, as well as a well-informed conscience, a wrong behavior may not be morally bad and may even be morally good. If the behavior is not morally bad, it follows that there is no grave sin and, therefore, no legitimate public scandal. 
According to the Code of Canon Law, “deceased members of the Christian faithful must be given ecclesiastical funerals according to the norm of law” (1176.1). This also includes catechumens who die before they receive the sacraments of initiation, like baptism and confirmation (1183.1). If a bishop deems it appropriate, a funeral can also be given to children who died before being baptized or even, in some cases, to a baptized non-Catholic (1183.2-3). The inclusion of catechumens and unbaptized children shows that the Church wants to provide funerals for as many believers as possible, and burying the dead itself is a corporal work of mercy (CCC 2300).  
However, canon 1184 stipulates that “unless [the deceased] gave some signs of repentance before death, the following must be deprived of ecclesiastical funerals:  
<ul>
<li> notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics; </li>
<li> those who chose the cremation of their bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith; and</li>
<li> other manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful.”</li>
</ul>
In his editorial mentioned above, New Ways Ministry member Robert Shine criticized Bishop Paprocki’s decree, saying it is discriminatory to apply canon 1184 to those in same-sex “marriages” because in one sense, we are all “manifest sinners.” He writes, 
<blockquote>It is discrimination to target LGBT people when, in a certain sense, all Catholics could be deemed “manifest sinners.” Who among us, including Bishop Paprocki, does not publicly sin at different moments? Yet, funeral rites are not denied to Catholics who pay employees an unjust wage, publicly advocate for the death penalty, or deny climate change.</blockquote>
The first response here is that the Church binds the faithful to believe only matters related to faith and morals, which excludes purely scientific hypotheses like anthropogenic climate change. But more importantly, Shine’s definition of “manifest sin” as any sin that has been “manifested” or become publicly known is laughable. Public knowledge of a sin doesn’t change its gravity. A person could be widely known for making a rude comment on social media, but he wouldn’t be a “manifest sinner.” In contrast, a person who secretly looks at pornography would be gravely sinning even if his behavior is never made manifest.  
Shine’s interpretation of a “manifest sinner” would either lead to no one being given an ecclesiastical funeral or, more likely, to a moral indifferentism that says we’re all “manifest sinners,” so we shouldn’t call anyone to repentance. The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law provides a <a href="https://archive.org/details/newcommentaryonc0000unse">far better definition</a> when it says a person is in “manifest sin” when he is “publicly known to be living in a state of grave sin” (p. 1,412).
That means that manifest sin doesn’t occur merely because one’s impulsive bad behavior got caught in a viral video. Manifest sin, rather, involves someone both habitually living in a state of grave sin and doing so in a way that publicly announces his situation to the world. Notorious gangsters like John Gotti and Paul Castellano were denied Catholic funerals because of their persistence in manifest sin until death. A socialite who proudly cavorts with his mistress at public events or two men who publicly announce to the world that they are in a sexual relationship by contracting a same-sex “marriage” would also fit this definition.  
Even though critics like Fr. Martin deny this, it is possible to be compassionate toward those who suffer without scandalizing others and leading them into sin.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}"> 
A pastor or parish staff member faced with a request for a church funeral for a same-sex “spouse” should remember that the surviving member of such a couple will certainly be experiencing sorrowful grief. He may also be suffering from loneliness, depression, or financial hardship. Catholics should reach out to such a person, who is created in the image of God and loved by him, and strive to meet his basic human needs through empathy and acts of charity, especially to help alleviate the financial burdens and emotional toll that accompany burying a loved one.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}"> 
This person may be hurt by the denial of a Catholic funeral, but if Catholics offer compassion, this person can have a genuine encounter with Christ, who always calls us to conversion and gives us the grace to follow him in any circumstance.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559731&quot;:720,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}">

The Scandal of a Catholic Funeral

Episode 63: Year B &#8211; 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on two apologetical details found in the second reading and Gospel reading for this upcoming 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The first detail is found in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23. The relevant apologetical topic that we discuss is the idea of our participation in the saving work of Christ, which can be used to illuminate two apologetical topics: a) a proper understanding of the relation between the saints’ intercession and b) the unique mediation of Christ and a proper understanding of Mary as “co-redemptrix.” There are two topics of focus for the detail in the Gospel reading, taken from Mark 1:29-39, both of which are related—a) the historicity of the early church’s portrait of Jesus as an exorcist and b) Jesus’ divinity.
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020424.cfm">Click Here</a>
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>

How is Mary Co-Redemptrix?

On June 13, Israel launched a surprise attack on key military and nuclear installations in Iran. Coming amid the ongoing armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, this raised the dual questions of what role the United States should play, and in which direction Christian sympathies should lie.
Senator Ted Cruz offered controversial answers to both of those questions when he was interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Declaring himself “the leading defender of Israel” in the U.S. Senate, Cruz explained that the “number one” reason for this is that “as a Christian growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will—will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.”
When Carlson asked if this was a reference to “the government of Israel,” Cruz clarified that “it says the nation of Israel. So that’s in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that.” When pressed, Cruz couldn’t remember where in the Bible this was, leading Carlson to pounce:
<blockquote>It’s in Genesis. But—so you’re quoting a Bible phrase. You don’t have context for it. You don’t know where in the Bible it is. But that’s like, like, your theology. I’m confused. What does that even mean?</blockquote>
Carlson is right that the passage is from Genesis. More specifically, it’s from Genesis 12:1-3, in which God says to Abraham (then known as Abram):
<blockquote>Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.</blockquote>
So the passage says neither “the government of Israel” nor “the nation of Israel,” seeing as these words were spoken to Israel (Jacob)’s grandfather, Abraham. It is of Abraham that it is said, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse.”
Nevertheless, it’s perfectly reasonable to see these covenantal promises as intended both for Abraham personally and for his descendants. After all, the prophesied “great nation” isn’t going to have a population of one. So the critical question is, which descendants of Abraham?
Many Evangelicals, particularly those of a more Dispensationalist bent, are emphatic: this is a passage about blessing Israel—both the historic kingdom of Israel created by God and the modern nation-state created by the United Nations.
After the October 7 attacks, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission put together an “<a href="https://erlc.com/policy-content/israel/">Evangelical Statement in Support of Israel</a>” declaring its full support for “Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack.” The only biblical text mentioned in the statement (other than an allusion to Romans 13) is the ERLC applying Genesis 12 to the state of Israel.
This theology has important implications. A <a href="https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/americans-grow-more-divided-us-support-israel">Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos survey</a> from this spring (before the Israeli attacks on Iran) found that most Americans didn’t want the U.S. to side with either Israel or Palestine. That view was held by roughly two thirds of Democrats and independents and 58 percent of Americans generally. On the other hand, 58 percent of Republicans thought the U.S. should back Israel.
Regardless of political leanings and poll responses, is Genesis 12 really saying that we’re to “bless” the modern nation of Israel with military aid in its wars? Not according to St. Paul, who argues that the promises of Genesis 12 don’t automatically apply to whoever happens to share a bloodline with Abraham. Instead, they apply to whoever shares the faith of Abraham, including the faithful Gentiles (Gal. 3:7-9):
<blockquote>So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.</blockquote>
What Scripture does St. Paul point to in order to show that God would justify the Gentiles by faith? Genesis 12:1-3.
Whereas Southern Baptists have identified God’s covenant promises as being passed on to Abraham’s physical descendants, Paul argues that this is not how the covenant ever worked. In his words, “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants” (Rom. 9:8).
Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was elderly when God promised descendants through Abraham. When Abraham grew tired of waiting for God to fulfill his promises, he slept with Sarah’s young handmaid, Hagar, who conceived Ishmael—Abraham’s firstborn son. But God was faithful to his promises, and Sarah miraculously conceived Isaac in her old age.
In Paul’s words, “the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise” (Gal. 4:23). If the covenant passed on “according to the flesh” (Rom. 8:4), then it would have passed to Ishmael. Yet the covenant is instead continued through Abraham’s younger son, Isaac.
Likewise, in the next generation, the covenant continues through Isaac’s younger son, Jacob (later renamed “Israel”), after Esau (the father of the Edomites) forfeits his birthright for a bowl of lentils. So if we try to trace God’s promises to Abraham “according to the flesh,” then the covenant belongs not to Israel at all, but to Israel’s Ishmaelite or Edomite neighbors.
Instead, both the Old Testament and the New Testament present the covenant as passing on according to the promises of God. And if that’s true, then Paul is right when he says that Abraham is “the father of all who believe,” Jewish or Gentile, and says that the covenant applies to “those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:11-12, 16-17).
This is why John the Baptist warns his fellow Jews not to “presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9). And it’s why Jesus taught that “if you were Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did” and says, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:39, 44). So Abraham’s sons are the ones who keep the faith of Abraham, and it’s to us that the promises of Genesis 12 apply, not to whoever happens to be related to Abraham by flesh.
This is what Paul means in referring to the Church as “the Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16. He’s not saying that the Church is “metaphorically” Israel, or that God abandoned Israel and started a new people. He’s saying there were two groups of Israelites in his day: those who accepted the promised Messiah and those who rejected the Messiah. And God’s covenantal promises continued by faith to those who accepted the Messiah, who were then joined by faithful Gentiles, who were “grafted in” to Israel (Rom. 11:17-24). Paul reminds these Gentiles how they were once “separated from Christ” and “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel” but now have been brought near in the blood of Christ, since Christ has created people from the Jews and Gentiles in his body, the Church (Eph. 2:11-15).
Getting this right is essential for Christians. In Jeremiah 31, God promised to “make a new covenant with the house of Israel,” saying, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (vv. 31-34). It’s this new covenant that Christ announces at the Last Supper that he’s creating with his own blood (Luke 22:20)—a covenant with the Church, which is why it’s the Church that celebrates the Eucharist (see 1 Cor. 11:17-26). If the Church isn’t “the house of Israel,” and you treat the promises of God according to bloodline instead of faith, then the Church is without a covenant and without a Messiah.
All of this is to say that the misunderstanding of God’s covenants promoted by Senator Cruz and the Southern Baptist Convention isn’t just a bad basis for foreign policy; it’s disastrous theology, since it undermines the New Covenant itself.

Are Christians ‘Commanded’ to Support Israel?

Having just written <a href="https://wof.org/way">a book</a> dedicated to “both/and,” I was thrilled to stumble on <a href="https://x.com/i/status/1930415482017890480">a clip of Gavin Ortlund</a>—a sharp and cordial Protestant apologist with a substantial following on YouTube—reflecting on whether the principle <a href="https://youtu.be/vwgHGsODNDw">can appropriately be applied</a> to Jesus and Mary.
Ortlund regularly draws not only on Protestant thinkers, but also on Catholic apologists like Pascal, Chesterton, and Peter Kreeft. It’s likely he knows all the standard apologetic <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/meeting-the-protestant-challenge/?searchid=9328491&amp;search_query=meeting+the+protestant+">responses</a> and <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/meeting-the-protestant-response-how-to-answer-common-comebacks-to-catholic-arguments/?searchid=9328491&amp;search_query=meeting+the+protestant+">counter-responses</a> to Marian <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/bible-mary-the-mother-of-jesus-in-the-word-of-god/?searchid=9328510&amp;search_query=bible+mary">skepticism</a>. My hope is that by circling around his comments from this vantage of the both/and, and finding some common ground, we might gain a fresh perspective and perhaps clarify where the disagreement really lies.
In <a href="https://youtu.be/vwgHGsODNDw">the full video</a>, Ortlund defends the Marian title “Mother of God” (theotokos) but seems not to want to go beyond that:
<blockquote>Think of it just like this, to be simple: Mary is theologically important in relation to Jesus. But when she starts being disconnected and pulled over here, and now we&#8217;ve got this whole new theological enterprise devoted at her, that can have the effect of taking focus away from Jesus.</blockquote>
I appreciate his use of and emphasis on the word “can” here. Can Mariology go too far? This is a different question from whether it just is too far already simply by being Marian.
I think the answer—though Catholics are admittedly sluggish to admit this—is plainly yes: it can go too far. The obvious historical case in point is the Collyridians, a fourth-century sect that offered bread or cakes in sacrifice to Mary, giving her the latria (worship) due only to God. As Patrick Madrid <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/collyridianism">points out</a>, this isn’t just a remote danger of the ancient goddess-worshiping past: “Collyridianism is seen today in various forms. Those ‘hyper-Marian’ groups and writers who overly exalt Mary and focus on her to the exclusion (or near exclusion) of Christ are guilty of something approaching idolatry.” That we should at least take the danger seriously is well attested by the first of the ten commandments, Christ’s “greatest commandment,” and really the whole arc of the scriptures.
Ortlund goes on:
<blockquote>We often hear that it&#8217;s always a both/and. People say, “No, no, no; the more we love Mary, the more we love Jesus. They&#8217;re not competitive.” But some things can be an either/or.</blockquote>
The introduction of the categories of both/and and either/or are striking, especially in light of Ortlund’s use of Karl Barth and Martin Luther to make his case. Both men played <a href="https://matthewbecklo.substack.com/p/a-brief-history-of-the-catholic-bothand">decisive roles</a> in the development of these concepts in theology, and as Hans Urs von Balthasar points out, they represent a strain of theological thought with a particular allergy to—or, in Kierkegaard’s words, “an indescribable horror of”—the both/and instinct: “The ‘Catholic both . . . and,’” Balthasar writes, “has always appeared as a compromise in the eyes of the Augustinians, who think things out to the end, and who include Luther and Karl Barth.”
Some things are indeed either/or. This includes logical contradictions (we can’t coherently claim both x and non-x; only one can be true), moral absolutes (we can’t marry good and evil, heaven and hell; only one can be the direction in which we move); and most importantly, the primacy of God (we can’t serve both God and mammon; there can only be one first place in our hearts, only one aim of our worship, only one God and one Mediator—1 Tim. 2:5). In short, the both/and doesn’t extend into irrationality, immorality, or idolatry. If we fail to erect these boundaries, the principle will go off track.
Ortlund offers John 3:30 as an example of an either/or:
<blockquote>John the Baptist didn&#8217;t say, “He must increase, and I must increase, too, because it&#8217;s a both/and.” He said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”</blockquote>
Here, the increase or decrease zero-sum game is clearly over the identity of the Messiah—that is, the question of who has the primacy. But then Ortlund—begging the question—ties this example to Mariology:
<blockquote>In principle it&#8217;s at least possible for a focus upon Mary or any other person to displace a focus upon Christ. I&#8217;m amazed, frankly, at the naïveté and lack of concern about this. . . .
What about when Christians love Jesus less than they love Mary and pray to Jesus less than they pray to Mary? And is that always a both/and? Can&#8217;t you see that sometimes it&#8217;s not a both/and? . . .
We can commit idolatry and put someone else functionally in our hearts in the role that Jesus alone should have, and Protestants do it all the time. Everybody can do it. It&#8217;s a perennial temptation.</blockquote>
But what is the precise character of Mariology as it unfolds in the Catholic Church? Is it an increase of Mary where she should decrease—that is, with respect to the identity of the Savior? Or is it, as Ortlund defended at the outset, an extended meditation on Mary’s relation to Jesus? Ortlund subtly suggests the first option: Mariology is inherently dysfunctional and dangerous—far more trouble than it’s worth—and we ought to let it pass us by.
But the question behind the question is precisely the definition—and limits—of the “Catholic both/and.” What is the both/and in a healthy biblical sense? It’s what I’ve called “the Way of heaven and earth”—the communion of God and man, God’s “place” and man’s “place,” the spiritual and the physical, and the spirit and the flesh in salvation history. At the center of that history is Christ, who holds all these realities together in his person. The primary “both/and” is the union of God and man in the Incarnation: Christ has two distinct natures, divine and human, united in his person. A whole series of both/ands flow out from this inflection point: both the spiritual and the physical are united in the sacraments. (Ortlund, though a Baptist, <a href="https://youtu.be/JbPxgZ_AfOI">believes in the Real Presence</a>.) Both heaven and earth will be in the new creation. Both spirit and flesh will be resurrected on the last day. And so on.
What about Mary? Gabriel declares to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. . . . You have found favor with God. . . . The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:28, 30, 35). And after her fiat, her perfect yes to God’s will, she sings,
<blockquote>My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name (vv. 46-49).</blockquote>
We might paraphrase these words using the precise formula Ortlund doesn’t see in John: He must increase, and I must increase, too. Mary is transparent to the Lord God and lives only to make him great—and God blesses and exalts her in return. In her glorifying of God, she is glorified. We see this same rhythm between Mary and God the Son. She counsels us to do whatever Christ tells us (John 2:5)—and Christ tells us, from the cross, that she is our mother (John 19:27). From that hour, the beloved disciple takes her into his home—as countless Catholics have done since in prayer and devotion. The Church magnifies Mary because Christ magnifies Mary, and Christ magnifies Mary because Mary magnifies Christ.
This is the heart of Mariology: everything the Church teaches about Mary does, in fact, relate to Jesus, as Ortlund argues it should. At the center of the Hail Mary prayer is the holy name of Jesus; woven through the rosary are the great mysteries of his life. Her perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, assumption—though it might be harder to see at first—emerge, like the title “Mother of God,” out of the same sustained reflection on the Incarnation.
In short, our love for and attention to Mary, as a rule, increases our love for and attention to Jesus. “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much,” St. Maximilian Kolbe counseled. “You can never love her more than Jesus did.” In order to “risk” the first part of that advice, we must bear in our minds and hearts the second: that Mary matters because Jesus matters, and that we call her blessed because God so richly blessed her. We don’t have to fear idolatry in loving her—even in loving her lavishly.
Rather than John the Baptist’s “I must decrease,” we find a more apt analogy for Mariology in Christ’s “Greatest Commandment”: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40). A few chapters later, we hear in the parable of the sheep and the goats: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’” (25:40).
Are our love for God and our love for our neighbor in competition? Is this an either/or? On the contrary: although the love of God comes first, we love God best precisely through our love for our neighbor, especially “the least of these.” God doesn’t want our love for him at the expense of our love for his creatures—being, as Johnny Cash sang, so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good—but rather, our love for both Creator and creature, in and through his Son. So, too, with our love for both the Son of God and the Mother of God.
I would conclude with an invitation to Ortlund, one that flips his challenge on its head: can’t you see that sometimes it is a both/and? That, in principle, it’s possible for Mary not to detract from Christ, but on the contrary, to intensify our love for him and for his people?
Granting both possibilities, how do we determine whether swimming with the current of Mariology increases or decreases Christ on the ground, in actual practice? The only way to know for sure is to experience Mariology “<a href="http://wof.org/gate">from the inside</a>.” There we see that it’s all about Jesus—“to Jesus through Mary,” as the Marian adage has it.
Marian devotion is stubbornly Christocentric, because Mary is never far from her son. She doesn’t get in the way. On the contrary, she shows the Way.

Marian Idolatry?

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Jimmy Akin to discuss the relationship between Jesus and King David. Akin explains the complexities of royal lineage and how Jesus fits into the line of David, addressing common misconceptions and providing historical context.
Transcript:
Cy Kellett: It&#8217;s about Jesus and his relationship to King David. Because we know he&#8217;s from the house of David. We know that&#8217;s important for the Messiah. you know, that&#8217;s an important qualification for the Messiah. But we were thinking in our little meeting that we have, we don&#8217;t actually know how he&#8217;s related to King David. Like, you can be related to King David a thousand years before you and just be a member of the family or the tribe, you know. Or is he the direct royal line descendant of David, or is it something else? Like, how do we think about the relationship between Jesus and David?
Jimmy Akin: Well, it all depends on how the line of succession works in a given country. And different countries have different rules for how this works. For example, in ancient Egypt, and we don&#8217;t have a complete understanding here, but we do have a pretty good one. you needed, in order to become pharaoh, you needed to not be descended from the right person. You needed to marry the right person. and so there was a royal woman that you needed to marry, and she&#8217;s the one that needed to be descended from someone. And then whoever her chief husband was or her only husband was, that person became Pharaoh. but over the, you know, 3,000 years of Egyptian history, they had a bunch of different dynasties where there were interruptions, you know, like more than 20 dynasties, there were interruptions. And so it wasn&#8217;t one continuous thing. And periodically they&#8217;d get into difficult situations where they didn&#8217;t have any appropriate heirs and they had to kind of scramble to find, well, who is going to be a royal woman here. And sometimes they had to pick, people who didn&#8217;t have royal ancestry. And that&#8217;s pretty typical in any given line. Now, you can have lines of descent that get tracked over a thousand years, like the difference between David and Jesus. In fact, that&#8217;s the case, in England today. In England, you, you have, descendants of William the Conqueror, you can trace the line from William the Conqueror down to Charles iii. And in fact, you can trace multiple lines of descent from, William the Conqueror to Charles iii. Because one of the things about people, but it&#8217;s even more true about royalty, is they tend to marry within a certain fairly restricted circle. And sometimes that can get out of hand. Like, that&#8217;s why the House of Hanover in Europe got hemophilia, because they married too closely for too long. They didn&#8217;t have enough gene flow coming into the pool. But because people tend, and especially royals tend to marry in kind of the same circles, you get a modern person who&#8217;s descended from multiple different lines, from a person a thousand years ago. And so you can trace Charles III&#8217;s ancestry back to William the Conqueror through multiple different line lines. And then it becomes, well, so which line governs in terms of inheriting the throne? And they have different rules about that. Now, one of the rules about that is, you can&#8217;t be adopted in England, if you get adopted into the royal family, you do not inherit the throne, at least not the way the law is configured currently. But legal adoption does not count. However, that was not the case in Rome. In fact, in Rome in the first century, multiple Roman emperors were adopted. So, like, Tiberius was adopted, well, Augustus, the first emperor, he was adopted by Julius Caesar. Then Tiberius was adopted by, Augustus. Caligula was adopted by Tiberius. Nero was adopted by Claudius. And so you had lots of adoption going on. And in their culture, adoption would let you, pass on offices and things like that. So what about Israelite culture? Well, we don&#8217;t have a complete knowledge of how their rules worked. We do know that there were sometimes interruptions in the line and disagreements in the line of inheritance. like when one of the kings of Judah dies and his mother, Athaliah takes over and slaughters the entire she thinks royal family so that she&#8217;ll have no. I mean, she&#8217;s killing her own grandsons so she can be queen, except she missed one. And they kept him hidden for six years, and then they overthrew her and restored the line. So that was like an interruption in the line. And, you know, that kind of thing happens in the history of royalty. We do know that it&#8217;s normally primogeniture, of the main line. Whoever the eldest son is of the first wife, that son tends to inherit. But we also know fathers could make other arrangements. Like, for example, and you see this repeatedly in Genesis, where one of the fathers, one of the patriarchs, will pick his younger son to be his primary inheritor rather than the eldest son. So they could overrule the principle of primogenitor, which is the eldest son inherits in a special way. So remember that fathers get to do that. Okay. What about Jesus? Did he have a human father?
Cy Kellett: Not.
Jimmy Akin: Did he have a human father? Yes or no?
Cy Kellett: Yes. Okay.
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: Oh. So who was his human father?
Cy Kellett: Of an adoptive kind.
Jimmy Akin: Oh, of an adoptive kind.
Cy Kellett: Well, I mean, I was going to make a qualification, but then you jumped on me.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, okay. I&#8217;ll give you that. So Jesus does not have a biological father. So he would not inherit, under the ordinary rule. But he does if you require biological descent. But. He is the legal son of Joseph. And what we don&#8217;t know in Israel is if you do the adoption, would that count for inheritance? So that&#8217;s an open question. There&#8217;s also another related issue, which is. Well, even though he couldn&#8217;t have inherited biologically through Joseph, it&#8217;s possible that Mary was a descendant of David. in Romans 1, St. Paul says that Mary was. Was, that Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh. And if you take that to mean biological flesh, well, then the only place he could have gotten it is for Mary. The problem is, according to the flesh may just mean according to human nature, and it may incorporate human institutions like adoption. the other problem is that, Mary we know was some kind of a fairly close relative of Elizabeth, who was a Levite rather than a member of the tribe of Judah. And so there&#8217;s a question about, well, was Mary a Levite or a Judahite? And there are people who advocate both sides of that. But we can say with confidence that Jesus was at least legally descended from, David. And in more than one way. This is why I mentioned the multiple lines of King Charles, the current king of England, because he is descended from William the Conqueror in more than one way. Well, the same thing is true of Jesus. And you see that now it would be true anyway because Davidites would tend to marry other Davidites. But you can see it in Matthew&#8217;s Gospel and Luke&#8217;s Gospel because they both give us genealogies, and they both trace Jesus&#8217;s descent from David, but they trace Jesus descent from David in different ways. In Matthew, Jesus is descended from David through his son Solomon, the next king. But if you look in Luke, Jesus is descended from David through a different son named Nathan. Now, okay, well, that&#8217;s certainly possible, just like King Charles is descended from William the Conqueror in more than one way. But why would the gospels choose to record this descent in more than one way? We don&#8217;t know for sure, but here is a possibility. At the time of the Babylonian exile, there was a king of Judah named Jeconiah, and Jeconiah had displeased God. And God said, write this man down as childless. None of his sons will inherit. And he was a descendant of Solomon. And so, you could take that prophecy in different ways. It could mean none of his immediate sons, are going to be, king. But after that first generation, well, maybe he&#8217;d have a grandson who could be king. It doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean none of his descendants ever will be king, just none of his immediate sons. But other people didn&#8217;t take it that way. Other people took it as Jeconiah is disqualified or all of his sons are disqualified and all of his descendants are disqualified. And so it could be that Matthew preserves the line of descent through Solomon in order to make it clear that if you think Solomon is the right line, Jesus qualifies. And Luke could have preserved the Nathan line to make it clear that if you think the Solomon line is entirely disqualified, don&#8217;t worry. Still qualifies because he&#8217;s descended from David through Nathan. So we have both, lines pointing to Jesus, and whichever one, he would be qualified. No matter how you interpret the prophecy of Jeconiah, there&#8217;s still, though, that matter of we don&#8217;t know about the adoption situation because Jesus was clearly legally adopted into the line of David. He might have biological ancestry from David through Mary or, you know, but even if you assume that it wasn&#8217;t through biological. It wasn&#8217;t through the mother&#8217;s line that people inherited the kingship. It was through, the male line that people inherited the kingship. But remember what I said about fathers getting to choose who inherits?
Cy Kellett: Yes. Oh, yeah.
Jimmy Akin: Did Jesus have a father who determined he was going to inherit? Maybe not a human father.
Cy Kellett: He certainly did. One perfectly capable of making that choice. Yes.
Jimmy Akin: So his father and our Father in heaven made that determination, regardless of what the laws at the time would have said.
Cy Kellett: Jimmy, thank you. Thank you very much. We&#8217;ll, take a break.

Is Jesus Directly in King David’s Royal Line?

Host Cy Kellett welcomes Jimmy Akin to discuss why catholics call priests &#8220;Father&#8221;.
Transcript:
Cy Kellett: Welcome, Christian. Why aren&#8217;t you Catholic?
Caller: My Catholic? Cuz it&#8217;s a lot of rituals. I don&#8217;t find that stuff in the Bible. Jesus said you should pray to the Father. There&#8217;s only one Father, so I don&#8217;t know why.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah, Catholics do that.
Caller: Yeah, yeah. They&#8217;re breaking the law already.
Jimmy Akin: Oh, I see. Oh, calling priests.
Caller: Okay, well, are the priests trying to be the Father, like God is the Father?
Jimmy Akin: Nope. Priests are not the Father the way God is the Father.
Jimmy Akin: Let&#8217;s deal with that subject first and then we&#8217;ll go back and talk about rituals, which was the other subject you mentioned. So, Christian, you&#8217;re a human being, correct?
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah, just wanted to verify. So you have a father, correct?
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: And do you ever call your father Father or dad or Papa or anything like that? Dad. Okay. Is your dad dad in the same way God is Dad or Abba?
Caller: No.
Jimmy Akin: No. Okay. So we see there can be humans who are not God, and we&#8217;re all agreed they&#8217;re not God who can be referred to as Father even though they&#8217;re not Father is the way God is a father. So God&#8217;s the ultimate Father. We agreed on that. Is that correct?
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah. Okay, so then we come to a question now because in Matthew 23, Jesus says, you know, call no man Father and so forth, but we have to ask, what does he mean there? One possibility is that he&#8217;s prohibiting anybody from ever using the term Father for a human being, and he&#8217;s wanting to restrict it to just being used for God. On the other hand, it&#8217;s possible that he means it in a more restrictive way, like don&#8217;t confuse anybody else&#8217;s fatherhood with God&#8217;s fatherhood. So we need to figure out which of those possibilities. And there could be others, but those are the two I&#8217;d like to suggest for your consideration. Which of those do we have evidence that supports. Would you say, Christian, that we have evidence that Jesus was prohibiting anybody from ever using the term Father for a human?
Caller: Yes. Prohibited. Let&#8217;s call Father people.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, let&#8217;s explore that then. Let&#8217;s explore that. So when, when Jesus is 12 years old, this is in Luke chapter 2, and Mary and Joseph find him in the temple. Mary says to him, your father and I have been looking for you. And he&#8217;s referring to Joseph as Jesus father, meaning his adopted father, not his biological father. Would you say that Jesus would say that Mary broke the rule by referring to Joseph as Jesus&#8217;s earthly father about not calling other people father? Was Mary breaking that rule?
Caller: No.
Jimmy Akin: Okay. How about when we look in the Book of Acts and we find Stephen or Paul or other people addressing a gathering of Jews and they say things like, brothers and fathers, I got this message for you. Are they breaking the rule that Jesus established?
Caller: Not sure. Maybe not sure.
Jimmy Akin: Let&#8217;s then look at other New Testament authors like St. Paul. You would agree that when St. Paul writes his epistles, his letters, that they&#8217;re divinely inspired, correct?
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah. Okay. So when St. Paul writes to Timothy, he&#8217;s. He refers to Timothy as his son, implying that he&#8217;s Timothy&#8217;s spiritual father. Did that break Jesus&#8217;s rule, bearing in mind he&#8217;s writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? No. Okay. When St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says, I became your father in the faith. Is St. Paul breaking the rule there?
Caller: No.
Jimmy Akin: Okay. No. When John writes to his readers, he refers to them as my little children, implying he&#8217;s their father spiritually. Is he breaking Jesus&#8217;s rule?
Caller: I don&#8217;t know really what he meant, but.
Jimmy Akin:  Okay, I thought that&#8217;s fine.
Caller: Literally.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah. So I would say when we look at the example that&#8217;s set by the apostles, including when they&#8217;re writing under divine inspiration, they could perfectly well describe themselves as spiritual fathers and their converts as their spiritual children. And that would not seem to break Jesus rule because the Holy Spirit was inspiring them to say this and that would you end up pitting what the Holy Spirit says against what Jesus said? So I would suggest that we have pretty good evidence that what Jesus meant was not don&#8217;t ever use the word father for a human, but something much more restricted and commonsensical, like, don&#8217;t confuse the fatherhood of any human with the fatherhood of God. Does that sound reasonable? Like something maybe you could think about in the future?
Caller: Yeah, it makes more sense.
Jimmy Akin: Okay, awesome. So I hope that helps with that issue. Now, you also mentioned the issue of rituals. Okay, well, we don&#8217;t have a lot of descriptions of what early Christian services were like. We have some indications. One of the things, and I won&#8217;t go through it all, but I would make a few points. The first one is, if you look in the Old Testament, they had the Jerusalem Temple and they had a priesthood that they offered sacrifices, and the Psalms were basically the hymn book priests that they had choirs singing at the temple and so forth. You would agree that in the Old Testament there were quite a lot of rituals that were part of Jewish worship, right?
Caller: Yes.
Jimmy Akin: Yeah. So the question would then be, did God want Christians to overthrow all ritualism or did he expect Christians to have some form of ritualism, just like he had instructed the Jewish people to have? So we need to look for evidence and say, well, do we have any evidence that Jesus told the first Christians to chuck out all the ritual and not do any rituals anymore? I can&#8217;t think of any passages where Jesus says anything like that. Can you?
Caller: No.
Jimmy Akin: No. Yeah. So given that, that we have a precedent in Jewish worship for using rituals and Jesus can all the rituals, guys, I would expect that precedent to inform Christian ritual. And in fact, we have evidence it did. You&#8217;ve probably heard the ending that some people use for prayers. Forever and ever. Amen. That&#8217;s actually a fusion of forever and ever, which is what they would say in the Temple, and Amen, which is what they&#8217;d say in the synagogue. And Christians fused those two as part of our own Christian prayer tradition. Also, Jesus gave us the Lord&#8217;s Prayer as a model prayer to say. He also gave us the Lord&#8217;s Supper, or as Catholics call it, the Eucharist, to be part of Christian worship. And that&#8217;s a ritual. And then when we look in the Book of Revelation that depicts what&#8217;s going on in heaven, we see them using rituals up in heaven all the way through the Book of Revelation. So I would say that there&#8217;s a good bit of evidence in the New Testament that ritual is meant to be part of Christian worship. And this is really cool. A lot of people don&#8217;t know this, but we actually have a description from the mid second century. This is around the year AD150. So this is like 100 years after the time of Jesus. We have a description of how early Christians worshiped by the early church. Father St. Justin Martyr, he&#8217;s writing to explain to non Christians, here&#8217;s what we do in our worship services, because there were a lot of rumors that we were committing crimes and cannibalism and stuff. So he writes to non Christians to explain, no, guys, this is what we do in our service. And he outlines the Christian worship service, and it&#8217;s the same as the Catholic Mass today. So the Catholic Mass actually, we can show it being used, but all the way back to within 100 years of when Christ was crucified for us. So I would say we have good evidence from both the New Testament and from right after the New Testament that indicates ritual is meant to be part of Christian worship. I&#8217;d like to also send you Christian a daily defense so that you can explore more questions. But I hope that what we&#8217;ve covered so far has been helpful.

I’m Not Catholic Because You Call Priests “Father”

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss the Catholic understanding of tradition and how it relates to Sola Scriptura. Tim clarifies the misconceptions surrounding tradition and explains its significance in the Catholic faith, addressing common Protestant objections.
Transcript:
Caller: I was a Southern Baptist pastor for 10 years and was very much entrenched in a Reformed theology. I&#8217;m going back and I&#8217;m trying to now understand how to respond to those things. And I&#8217;m dealing with the issue of sola scriptura. And as I read Protestants arguing against it, they often talk about the tradition of the church. And one of the arguments, they say is that the church&#8217;s tradition is not clearly defined, that there&#8217;s disagreements as to what constitutes that. And I was wondering if you could help me understand a little bit better what it is that makes up the body of tradition and what they&#8217;re talking about when they say that there&#8217;s disagreements as to what tradition is.
Tim Staples: Right. Well, there&#8217;s really not much disagreement as to what constitutes tradition. What they&#8217;re talking about is like some fine tuning of things. Like what precisely? To be honest with you, I think this is one of the problems we have in the Western or in the Latin Church is we tend to over define things at times because what we&#8217;ve always done. You&#8217;ve probably heard the old saying, and this is certainly exaggerated, but the scholastics arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pen. Right. That sort of that old saying is there. It&#8217;s kind of a poetic way of saying that we&#8217;re just defining too much. And I think that&#8217;s what can be the problem here. But remember, the tradition from a biblical perspective is all encompassing. You know, as you know, Brother Second Thessalonians 2:15, St. Paul says, Stand fast in the tradition. You have been taught either by word, that is the spoken word or written letter. So notice the tradition encompasses both the written tradition and the spoken tradition. So in that sense, the tradition, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, contains the entirety of the revelation of God. So Scripture itself is part of the tradition in that sense. But now, you know, in more recent times, especially since the Council of Trent and the Reformation, you know, there&#8217;s been a lot of fine tuning here. Well, what part of the faith is found in scripture and what part of the faith is found in the oral tradition? Talking about, in one sense, how the tradition is all encompassing, but in another sense now, especially like I said in the last five, 600 years, where we&#8217;re fine tuning things, that&#8217;s the way we do things in the Catholic Church. You know, the kingdom of God is as a grain of mustard seed. It starts small and it grows. That&#8217;s the way it happens. And as the Catechism says in paragraph 78, this living transmission accomplished in the Holy Spirit is called Tradition, since it&#8217;s distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it through Tradition, the Church inter doctrine, life and worship perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is and all that she believes. There in that one line there in paragraph 78, you get that sense of. It&#8217;s almost like a tension, but a healthy, I say tension between. In the Tradition, the Church transmits everything that she is in the Tradition with a big T. And yet it&#8217;s distinct from Sacred Scripture, though very much related to it. Right. So people&#8217;s brains are exploding. Wait a minute. So the Tradition is all encompassing, and yet the Scripture is distinct from it and yet closely related to it. What we have here. And a little bit later, the Church will go on to say that Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium are so closely related to each other that one cannot stand without the others. Right. So they&#8217;re so intimately involved. Now how this then becomes confused in the minds especially of folks who don&#8217;t have the best intentions, let&#8217;s say, when they&#8217;re coming after Catholicism. Right. They&#8217;re saying, see, this is just a bunch of mishmash confusion. Well, it&#8217;s really not, but it&#8217;s describing the way the mysteries of God are communicated through Holy Mother Church. And let&#8217;s take the Trinity for example. You simply do not have fully defined in Sacred Scripture what the Trinity is. It&#8217;s not there. Yes, right, right. The Tradition is absolutely essential in order to. And remember, the Tradition was communicating the truth of the Trinity long before we had a definition of what the Trinity is. That is an infallible definition that would come many, many centuries later at the councils of Florence and Trent. We&#8217;re talking 15th and 16th century. And yet we had, for centuries we had Hilary Poitiers and Augustine writing full treatises, even Tertullian, although he&#8217;s a little bit weak there in the third century when he&#8217;s writing on the Holy Spirit, he gets into a lot of Trinitarian theology. And wait a minute, there was no definition. That&#8217;s how it works in the Church is. Yeah, we have this belief in the Trinity. It&#8217;s rooted in Sacred Scripture, no doubt, but it was being taught before the Scriptures were even written down. And then later it would be defined more and more. The first time we see the word trinitas used anywhere is 181, Saint Theophilus of Antioch. He&#8217;s the first one to use the term, but yet you can see before him Saint Irenaeus, clearly the three persons of Blessed Trinity, I mean, Irenaeus, and again, against heresies as well. In his apostolic preaching, you find the Trinity, not the Word, but the theology of it is all over the place. And so here&#8217;s where the problem comes in. All right? What you don&#8217;t have in Sacred Scripture are clearly defined the four essential eternal relations in the Godhead, three of which constitute the persons, right? Now, that&#8217;s a definition that would come centuries later, reflecting on the Scriptures and reflecting on. We have in the writings of the Fathers that, as I learned in the seminary, the key to understanding the Trinity is one essence, two processions, three persons, four relations, right? That&#8217;s what we learned all those years ago in the seminary. But when you flesh those out, do you have the two processions in Scripture? Sure you do. You know, the two processions, that is, the Father begets the Son, that&#8217;s called a generative procession. And we have the Holy Spirit in aspirative procession, proceeds from the Father. Well, and later, and the Son, as we developed in our Catholic theology. And so here&#8217;s the challenge, Scott, is to help folks to see that you&#8217;re not going to have from the Catholic Church ever. I don&#8217;t care how Latin you are, you are never going to have from the Catholic Church. You know, like a surgeon, we&#8217;re going to cut out, okay? This part here is just tradition. And it&#8217;s not anything scripture. That word is, but this word isn&#8217;t. That&#8217;s just not the way the gospel. The church proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and develops in her understanding of the mysteries that were. That were communicated to us in full in the first century. That will be, you know, laid out and developed and such. But what she does is she draws on the entirety of the tradition, written and oral, in developing our understanding of what all the mysteries of the faith are. So I encourage folks, don&#8217;t get hung up on thinking that you have to delineate somehow between. Okay, well, then what? The fact is, without the Tradition, you don&#8217;t have an understanding of the Trinity. Without Scripture, you don&#8217;t have the understanding of the Trinity. And without the Magisterium, you don&#8217;t have the understanding of the Magisterium. You need all. All three. Scott, thanks so much for that question. I hope that that was helpful to you. Hey, I wanted to ask you before I go to the next call, you&#8217;re familiar with.

Why Do Catholics Use Tradition?

It is not uncommon to hear Protestants (and even some Catholics) make the claim that “the presbyters of the early Church are nothing like the priests of today’s Church.” For example, Wes McAdams writes at the Radically Christian website in an article called “<a href="https://radicallychristian.com/why-i-strongly-believe-ordaining-priests-is-unbiblical">Why I Strongly Believe Ordaining Priests is Unbiblical</a>”:
<blockquote>In the New Testament, we find the word “presbyteros” or “presbyter” over sixty times (see Acts 14:23, 20:17; 1 Tim. 5:17). This word simply means “elder” or an older man. The “elders” or “presbyters” of the first-century church were older and mature Christians who were appointed to oversee and shepherd the congregation (see Titus 1 and 1 Tim. 3). There were a plurality of them in every congregation and they never acted as intermediaries between God and the church.
The Greek New Testament word for priest is “hiereus” and it appears over thirty times in the New Testament (see Matt. 8:4; Acts 4:1; Heb. 7:1). This is the Greek word for a man who acts as an intermediary between God and man. But an elder (presbyter) in the church was never called a priest (hiereus).</blockquote>
In other words, these two words are neither related nor used synonymously in the New Testament.
McAdams acknowledges that the English word “priest” derives from presbyteros but dismisses this commonality as inconclusive. It’s a fair point: we should not take this linguistic relationship as absolute proof that Catholic priests are what New Testament presbyters were. But is there a connection between the two?
To answer this question, we must first answer: what is the essence of priesthood? If, as is claimed, presbyters are not priests, then what is a priest? McAdams defines it as “an intermediary between God and man,” but the word always meant something deeper than that. Strong’s Concordance defines hiereus as “a priest, one who offers sacrifice to a god.” Priesthood is essentially bound up with sacrifice.
To determine whether presbyters were priests, then, we must answer the question: did presbyters offer sacrifice to God? The answer is unequivocally yes.
The earliest of the Church Fathers were unanimous that the Mass is a sacrifice, a re-presentation of Christ’s self-offering on the cross. The Didache invites us to “break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one.” St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote of the Eucharist, “For there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice.” St. Justin Martyr wrote that Christians “in every place offer sacrifices to [God], that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist.” The Catholic Church has always understood the Mass to be a sacrifice, as did all Christians before Luther.
Likewise, the Fathers were clear that it is only priests and bishops who offer the Mass, as when St. Ignatius writes, “Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it” (that is, to a presbyter who has been ordained for that purpose). St. Cyprian of Carthage said, “If Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, is himself the high priest of God the Father; and if he offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father; and if he commanded that this be done in commemoration of himself, then certainly the priest, who imitates that which Christ did, truly functions in place of Christ.” So the early Church understood that to be a presbyter or bishop is to offer sacrifice, to exercise priesthood.
And this is the same essential understanding that the Church holds today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council, states,
<blockquote>It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father.” From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength. (1566)</blockquote>
This debate illuminates a key idea for discussion among Christians: Your theology of clergy is inextricably bound up with your theology of liturgy. If the Mass is not a sacrifice, then those belonging to the Order of Presbyters (and the Order of Bishops, who possess the fullness of orders) are not priests. But if the Mass is a sacrifice, then those offering it clearly are priests. And if the Church from its earliest days has understood the Mass to be sacrificial, then likewise it has understood presbyters and bishops to be exercising priesthood.
Far from it being problematic for the Church to ordain priests, we can now see that this is precisely what it has always done, because of the nature of Christian liturgy. The Mass is a sacrifice; thus, we need priests to offer it. An attack on the priestly nature of the clergy is an attack on the Mass. Keeping this is mind will help us best to be able to defend both.

Yes, the Priesthood Is Biblical

Can Mary Hear Your Prayers?

Debunking The Trans Genocide…

<div>What if you can’t get to church on Sunday?</div><div>The general principle of the Church is that no one can be obligated to do the impossible (Nemo potest ad impossibile obligari). If someone is unable to attend Mass, then his obligation is abrogated.
</div>

Can’t Get to Sunday Mass?

Episode 145: 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
In today’s episode, we look at three details that come from each of the readings for this upcoming 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. The detail from the first reading, which is taken from Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29, relates to the topic of indulgences. The detail from the second reading, which is Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a, relates to the apologetical topic of the invocation of the saints, and in particular the Protestant objection from necromancy. The detail in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 14:7-14, relates to the causal role that our works play for final salvation.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/083125.cfm">Click Here</a>
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Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>
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Can Almsgiving Save You? Jesus, Indulgences, and the Saints

Mark’s Gospel contains a very strange story about a young man who ran away naked on the night that Jesus was arrested.
It’s a dramatic and embarrassing incident.
Mark mentions this incident, but he doesn’t tell us who the man was.
So who was he? Can we deduce anything about him from the available evidence? And is there a special reason Mark never mentions his name?
In this episode, Jimmy Akin reveals the surprising answers to these questions.
&nbsp;
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
Mark’s Gospel contains a very strange story about a young man who ran away naked on the night that Jesus was arrested.
It’s a dramatic and embarrassing incident.
Mark mentions this incident, but he doesn’t tell us who the man was.
So who was he? Can we deduce anything about him from the available evidence? And is there a special reason Mark never mentions his name?
Let’s get into it!
* * *
Howdy, folks!
If you like this content, you can help me out by liking, commenting, writing a review, sharing the podcast, and subscribing
If you’re watching on YouTube, be sure and hit the bell notification so that you always get notified when I have a new video
And you can also help me keep making this podcast—and you can get early access to new episodes—by going to <a href="https://patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast">Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast</a>
&nbsp;
The Story
The Gospel of Mark contains a brief story not found in the other Gospels. Immediately after Jesus’ arrest, the Eleven scatter, and we read:
And a certain young man was following him, clothed only in a linen cloth on his naked body. And they attempted to seize him, but he left behind the linen cloth and fled naked (14:51-52).
People naturally want to know who this young, anonymous man was.
&nbsp;
Was it Mark?
Today, many say it was Mark himself—that he recorded this incident the way medieval artists sometimes put tiny portraits of themselves in their paintings or the way Alfred Hitchcock has brief cameo appearances in his films.
Some may even suppose this is the traditional answer that has always been believed, but it’s not. The Church Fathers made other proposals, and this theory only became common in the late 19th century.
So it’s only been popular for a little more than a hundred years.
There also are problems with it. One is that the Greek word for “young man” (neaniskos) indicates a man who is past puberty and thus in his late teens or early 20s.
But when we meet Mark in Acts 12:12, it is the year A.D. 43—a decade after the Crucifixion—and it appears that Mark is a young man then, not one pushing or over 30.
We also have testimony from a first century figure named John the Presbyter, who says Mark “had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him” during his ministry (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).
Finally, we don’t have evidence of an ancient literary tradition of authors giving themselves brief, anonymous appearances in their works. That isn’t what Mark’s audience would expect, so this theory is reading a much later artistic and cinematic technique into ancient literature.
&nbsp;
A Curious Stranger?
Another proposal is that this was a random person—not a member of the Christian community—who happened to be following out of curiosity and got nabbed.
This isn’t impossible, but the argument for it is weak. The argument is that people normally wore two garments, an inner one and an outer one. So, perhaps the young man was asleep, heard the noise, quickly put on a single garment, and when to see what the commotion was.
The problem is that people also sometimes wore just one garment, so the man was not clearly underdressed.
Further, if he were not a Christian, why would the authorities grab him? Mark tells us that “a crowd” was present for the arrest (Mark 14:43), and a person walking along with the crowd would not be grabbed unless he previously had been seen among Jesus’ followers.
Also, if this man had no connection with the Christian community, how did this story get preserved? The way Mark tells it, the Eleven had already fled, and the arresting party would have no reason to tell the story to the Christian community later on.
The preservation of the story—and its use by Mark—would be more logical if the person was known to the Evangelist and his audience.
In that case, the question would be: Why isn’t his name mentioned?
&nbsp;
Protective Anonymity
Scholars have noted that, in the Synoptic Gospels, certain people remain curiously anonymous in the Passion narrative.
These include:
<ul>
<li>the woman who anoints Jesus (Mark 14:3),</li>
<li>the owner of the house where Jesus eats the Last Supper (Mark 14:14-15),</li>
<li>and the disciple who strikes off the ear of the high priest’s servant (Mark 14:47).</li>
</ul>
What these figures have in common is that they committed acts that would be considered seditious by the Jerusalem authorities:
<ul>
<li>The woman anointed Jesus, which could be seen as consecrating him for his role as the anointed Messiah, the king of the Jews.</li>
<li>The householder then hosts the new rebel king.</li>
<li>And the last takes up arms in defense of the rebel king.</li>
</ul>
When the story of Jesus’ Passion was first being told in the Jerusalem church, it would not be safe to publicly name these people—not if they still lived in or visited Jerusalem, where the Jewish authorities could get them.
Neither would it do to write their names in a Gospel that would find its way to the Jerusalem church. So, the theory is that the Synoptic Evangelists give these people “protective anonymity.”
But when John was written, the individuals may have moved away, died, or already been taken into custody, so they didn’t need protection.
That’s why some are named in John. The woman who anoints Jesus is revealed to be Mary the sister of Lazarus (John 12:3), and the disciple who wielded the sword is revealed to be St. Peter (John 18:10).
But their identities were known in the Christian community from the beginning. Jesus had said concerning Mary:
Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her (Mark 14:9).
And when Peter was preaching the gospel orally, he would have identified himself as the man with the sword.
Yet in Mark, Mary is simply referred to as “a woman” (Mark 14:3) and Peter is “a certain one of the bystanders” (Mark 14:47).
&nbsp;
Someone we know?
Could Mark be withholding the identity of the “certain young man,” though it was known to the Christian community? Might we have heard of him? If so, who might it be?
St. Ambrose suggested that it might be John son of Zebedee, but it’s hard to see why he would need protective anonymity. People knew he was one of the Twelve, and Mark names him as present at the time of the arrest (Mark 14:33). He already was in danger as a known supporter of Jesus, and merely escaping an arrest was not a seditious act.
Theophylact of Ohrid suggested the man might be James the “brother” of the Lord. However, Jesus’ brethren didn’t believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5), so he was unlikely to be following Jesus that night.
Some have proposed that the “beloved disciple” was actually John the Presbyter, who was from an aristocratic Jerusalem family and personally knew the high priest. He may have been the host of the Last Supper, which is why he was seated next to Jesus (John 13:23).
If so, there could be reason to shield his identity, and he never names himself in the Gospel of John!
However, he doesn’t identify himself as the man who ran away.
And, after Jesus is arrested, he follows Jesus to the high priest’s house and even gets Peter access to the courtyard (John 18:15-16). This makes it unlikely he had just escaped arrest.
&nbsp;
The ideal candidate?
The ideal candidate for the young man would be someone who (a) was not one of the Twelve, (b) lived in the Jerusalem area, (c) was a follower of Jesus, and (d) was already wanted by the authorities, since he doesn’t do anything criminal in Mark.
Is there such a person? Yes! And it’s Lazarus. Immediately after John records Mary anointing Jesus, he says:
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus (John 12:9-11).
The authorities thus were already looking to kill Lazarus. But he may not have known this, which could explain why he thought it would be safe to follow along behind Jesus when he was arrested, only to be himself seized and forced to flee naked.
Lazarus—like his sister Mary—was known to the early Christian community, and when the Passion was retold in the Jerusalem church, people would have known the parts they played. Yet, it wouldn’t have been safe to name them publicly, such as in a Gospel, as long as they remained alive and in the Jerusalem area.
This doesn’t prove Lazarus was the man who ran away naked, but it fits the evidence, and it’s an intriguing possibility!
* * *
If you like this content, you can help me out by liking, commenting, writing a review, sharing the podcast, and subscribing
If you’re watching on YouTube, be sure and hit the bell notification so that you always get notified when I have a new video
And you can also help me keep making this podcast—and you can get early access to new episodes—by going to <a href="https://patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast">Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast</a>
Thank you, and I’ll see you next time
God bless you always!

Who Was the Young Man Who Ran Away Naked?

Late last year, the <a href="https://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk/mission/ambassadors-for-christ/">Archdiocese of Southwark</a> (pronounced SUTH-irk) in southern London announced the <a href="https://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk/mission/ambassadors-for-christ/">Ambassadors for Christ</a> apologetics program for 2026. Delighted to find a fellow laborer in the apologetics vineyard, Catholic Answers reached out with some questions, which the archbishop graciously agreed to answer.
Apologetics—explaining and defending the Catholic faith—succeeds best when clergy and laity bring their respective strengths to the endeavor. With gratitude to His Excellency for his time and his thoughtful answers, we provide our interview with Archbishop John Wilson below.

This Diocese Cracked the Code on Conversions

Once, I was driving to a Catholic summer camp for a speaking engagement in an area without cell phone service. I relied on the car’s GPS unit, though my doubts multiplied as it took me down a featureless dirt road. I then stopped the car and saw the unit display the following: “No Satellite Connection—Indoor Mode.”
I estimated I had gone at least fifty miles in the wrong direction, and a wave of panic swept over me as I looked at the “no service” bar on my cell phone. I reset the GPS unit and saw my estimated arrival time: 6:57 P.M., or three minutes before I was scheduled to give my talk. Thankfully, the hosts understood, and everything worked out. But it worked out only because I realized I had made a huge mistake, stopped what I was doing, turned around, and went the other way.
I share this story because this is the first thing a sinner must do in order to be saved. And there is a word for it: repent.
The Greek word we translate as “repentance” is metanoia (the verb “to repent” is metanoeo), and it means “to change your mind.” Metanoia’s Hebrew counterpart is tshuva, which means “to return.” For example, God told the people of Israel, “Repent and turn away from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (Ezek. 14:6). So when Jesus says, “Repent [metanoeite] and believe in the gospel,” he is basically saying: change your mind about sin, and return to God by believing the good news!
So, in order to be saved, we must repent. Repentance means not just running back to God, but running away from anything that would keep us from God. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul laid out a list of sins that would keep people from inheriting the kingdom of God. He said “neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
Let that sink in. Paul is saying that these Christians repented from sins like robbery, adultery and engaging in homosexual conduct. Even if the desires still remained in their hearts, they no longer committed these sins. Why? Paul gives us the answer: “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” He makes this even clearer in his second letter to the community, saying “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”
Before I was baptized, the priest asked me “Do you reject Satan? And all his works? And all his empty promises?”—to which I solemnly responded, “I do.” These are the traditional baptismal vows, and they show that a person has repented and now wants God’s salvation. But what makes it hard to preach the gospel today is that people don’t think they need to be “saved” from anything.
The first step is repentance: to recognize that we are lost without God, and we are doomed to an eternal death apart from him because we lack his grace, which makes us alive in him. We must turn away from anything that would lead us away from God and then turn to God in faith.
We won’t make progress as evangelists if we share the Christian faith only as a kind of “self-help” program that takes you from “okay” to “A-okay!” Indeed, one thing that makes it hard to preach the gospel today is that people don’t think they need to be “saved” from anything. As far back as 1946, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/speeches/1946/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19461026_congresso-catechistico-naz.html">Pope Pius XII said</a>, “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Christianity doesn’t seem like good news unless you think the ugliness of your sins constitutes bad news.
But it’s also tempting for Catholics to fall into a kind of Protestant legalism and treat repentance and the gospel as a transaction: I repent and give God faith, and he gives me salvation. And although it is true that salvation comes from repenting from sin, believing in Jesus, and receiving Jesus through sacraments like baptism and the Eucharist, the Catholic view is more familial than forensic. It’s not a legal transaction; rather, it is about being joined to God’s family through baptism and—when we have turned away from God through consciously chosen grave sins—being reconciled through the sacrament of penance.
My favorite image of this form of repentance and salvation comes from the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). Remember, the son was able to waste a bunch of money in a foreign land because he demanded his inheritance before his father’s death (v. 12). He basically told his dad, “I wish you would drop dead so I could get what’s mine and live the life I’ve always wanted.” When we sin, we say the same thing to God: I wish you didn’t exist so I could do whatever I want with my life. And then he almost starves to death in a foreign country, far away from his family.
Because of what he’s done, the son thinks his father will never welcome him home. At best, maybe he could return as a slave and not starve. But the father, who is our Father in heaven, was always waiting for his son to return. Jesus says, “While he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
That’s my favorite detail in the story: that the father saw the son “while he was yet at a distance.” As a father of three little boys, I know that if they ever ran away, I would never stop looking for them. The father of the prodigal son probably went to the edge of his land every day to stare at the horizon and see if his son was on his way. When his son did appear on the road, he was probably downcast, slowly shuffling to the house, preparing his “apology speech.” But his father would have been smiling ear to ear and running as fast as he could to embrace him.
That is how God feels when we repent, or return home. That’s why Jesus said, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). And it is that attitude we should always recall so we can have hope rather than fear when we “turn around” and head to confession . . . even when it is a sin we’ve confessed “a thousand times.” Because God, our heavenly Father, is waiting on the road to meet us.

The First Step to Being Saved

In this episode Trent explores the different philosophies behind Bible translations and how faulty translations can lead believers astray.

What is the Best Bible Translation?

The Holy Mass celebrated by Fr. Paul Check at St. John Fisher Seminary.
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<h4>Reading 1   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/3:1">ACTS 3:1-10</a></h4>
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Peter and John were going up to the temple area
for the three o’clock hour of prayer. 
And a man crippled from birth was carried 
and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day 
to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple. 
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, 
he asked for alms. 
But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, 
and said, “Look at us.” 
He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. 
Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, 
but what I do have I give you: 
in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” 
Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, 
and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. 
He leaped up, stood, and walked around, 
and went into the temple with them, 
walking and jumping and praising God. 
When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 
they recognized him as the one 
who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, 
and they were filled with amazement and astonishment 
at what had happened to him.
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/105:1">105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9</a></h4>
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R.    (3b) Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name; 
make known among the nations his deeds. 
Sing to him, sing his praise, 
proclaim all his wondrous deeds. 
R.    Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
Glory in his holy name; 
rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD! 
Look to the LORD in his strength; 
seek to serve him constantly. 
R.    Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
You descendants of Abraham, his servants, 
sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! 
He, the LORD, is our God; 
throughout the earth his judgments prevail. 
R.    Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
He remembers forever his covenant 
which he made binding for a thousand generationsB 
Which he entered into with Abraham 
and by his oath to Isaac. 
R.    Rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
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<h4>Alleluia   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/118:24">PS 118:24</a></h4>
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R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
This is the day the LORD has made; 
let us be glad and rejoice in it. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel   <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/luke/24:13">LK 24:13-35</a></h4>
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That very day, the first day of the week, 
two of Jesus’ disciples were going 
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, 
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. 
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, 
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, 
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. 
He asked them, 
“What are you discussing as you walk along?” 
They stopped, looking downcast. 
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, 
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem 
who does not know of the things 
that have taken place there in these days?” 
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” 
They said to him, 
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, 
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word 
before God and all the people, 
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over 
to a sentence of death and crucified him. 
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; 
and besides all this, 
it is now the third day since this took place. 
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: 
they were at the tomb early in the morning 
and did not find his Body; 
they came back and reported 
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels 
who announced that he was alive. 
Then some of those with us went to the tomb 
and found things just as the women had described, 
but him they did not see.” 
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! 
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! 
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things 
and enter into his glory?” 
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, 
he interpreted to them what referred to him 
in all the Scriptures. 
As they approached the village to which they were going, 
he gave the impression that he was going on farther. 
But they urged him, “Stay with us, 
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” 
So he went in to stay with them. 
And it happened that, while he was with them at table, 
he took bread, said the blessing, 
broke it, and gave it to them. 
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, 
but he vanished from their sight. 
Then they said to each other, 
“Were not our hearts burning within us 
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” 
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem 
where they found gathered together 
the Eleven and those with them who were saying, 
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” 
Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way 
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: April 15, 2020

In this video, Alex Jurado from @VoiceOfReason_ recounts his interview with top Protestant podcaster George Janko.
Transcript:
Now, Alex, you made a splash in the online world recently by speaking to a pretty famous Protestant YouTuber named George Janko.
So, for those of you who are either listening on the radio or are not familiar with the whole situation, they recently had a video where they gathered together a lot of Protestant apologists and evangelists, and they were the Christian Avengers. There was no Catholic or Orthodox representation for that matter, and eventually I think George realized that he needed to have a Catholic to respond and defend the Catholic faith, so then you were invited on.
Incredible. Yeah, I talked to George Janko last week, and our podcast already has like half a million views on YouTube. George Janko is a really, really big deal. We talked about the Eucharist, and what&#8217;s so fascinating about that conversation is that in the beginning of the talk, George Janko talked about his belief that the Eucharist was just a symbol. By the end of it, he affirms true presence. Some kind of true presence said, &#8220;Yeah, there is a true presence there. When you go and you receive the Eucharist.&#8221;
So, I&#8217;m actually going to be talking to him again, God willing, pretty soon, and we will continue the conversation. We keep working out the Eucharist&#8217;s theology and talk about, you know, we kind of ended on a cliffhanger in the first conversation because the question he had was, &#8220;Who&#8217;s able to administer the Eucharist?&#8221; We kind of ended on that cliffhanger, so we&#8217;re going to do it again.
George Janko is a wonderful person, a great guy. He treated me like a brother and treated me so well, and I look forward to talking more with him. The idea of our conversation has made a huge blast. Honestly, I would call it life-changing. You know, for me, my man, Johnathan, my producer, so many things have changed just talking to him.
Yeah, well, that&#8217;s great. I remember watching that video and you evangelizing to him and giving him a little gift, which I noticed something about that gift that you gave him.
I had to do it. The big conversation, the big theme of that conversation was the Eucharist, so you graciously gave him one of our books,
Had to do it man
<a href="https://bit.ly/4iZaonR">The Eucharist Is Really Jesus </a>That&#8217;s awesome. So, bringing in all the apologetics that&#8217;s possible.
Joe Heschmeyer, thank you for what you do. I&#8217;m who I am because of Joe Heschmeyer, so I had to give him the best. I would love for George to come and hang out with us. He could talk to Joe, he could talk to Jimmy, all of the great apologists here because, again, George is a great guy, and he&#8217;s open to the fullness of the truth.
Praise God.
We go over to Charles, who&#8217;s in San Antonio. Charles, go right ahead.
Thanks for taking my call. Alex, I&#8217;m a big fan. Thank you. I am too new to the church, but last year, the year before that, going to RCIA, that&#8217;s where I found you on YouTube.
Welcome home, brother.
Clearly, you&#8217;re a genius.
Oh no, you&#8217;re not talking to Jimmy; you&#8217;re talking to Alex.
Well, I hate to play the devil&#8217;s advocate, if you will, regarding your time with Mr. Janko. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of other videos, but I haven&#8217;t heard anyone asking about, you know, you&#8217;re usually very spirited, let&#8217;s say mildly aggressive, and some of the reaction videos from Patreon.
Should have seen him last show, he got aggressive on me.
Oh yeah, man, I&#8217;m sorry hah.
I think you kind of took it easy on George.
You think I took it easy on him? Well, let me tell you this. George himself said at the beginning of the conversation that he&#8217;s a baby Christian. He said, &#8220;I&#8217;m a baby Christian. I just want to learn.&#8221;
So if I had come at him with the same energy that I would come at someone else, maybe like Dr. James White, who&#8217;s a good friend of mine, that wouldn&#8217;t be right. I would be a jerk if I did that. He said, &#8220;I just want to learn. I have questions. Please answer my questions.&#8221; So I said, &#8220;Yeah, man, I&#8217;m happy,&#8221; because he is sincere.
Because he&#8217;s a baby Christian, like, you know, like the scripture says, you know, babies need milk, not solid food. If someone says, &#8220;Hey man, I&#8217;m a baby Christian,&#8221; feed them milk.
But let me tell you, George knows his stuff, man. He might be a baby in the faith, but for a baby, he&#8217;s like a big baby. He knows his stuff, man. He knows his stuff. He&#8217;s like a baby that&#8217;s like, &#8220;Where the curve is going to be.&#8221; He&#8217;s going to be one of those like six, six, you know, linebackers in the NFL that really knows his stuff for being so new to this.
So, yeah, man, you know.
He&#8217;s going to be a linebacker when he becomes Catholic.
George Janko, man, when he becomes Catholic, he&#8217;s going to bring so many people to the faith. He&#8217;s going to be a giant, man. He&#8217;s already a giant, but when he becomes Catholic, man, it&#8217;s over for everybody. I&#8217;m telling you!

Convincing George Janko That the Eucharist Is Jesus | Voice of Reason

Tim Staples answers a caller who wonders whether a baptized Catholic who falls away and gets baptized in another church thereby blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.
Transcript:
Host: Danny in Boston listening on the Station of the Cross, your question for Tim staples.
Caller: Oh hi, thanks for taking my call. Let&#8217;s say someone was baptized in the Catholic Church, was confirmed, and received all the Sacraments, and later on in life decided to go to another denomination&#8211;Protestant denomination&#8211;and decide to baptize again. My question is this: is this considered a sin or a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit according to Matthew 12:31? It says that &#8220;Therefore I say unto you, everything of blasphemy shall be forgiven to man, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.&#8221; So that&#8217;s my question. Would that be a sin or&#8211;
Tim: Yeah, the answer&#8211;yeah, the answer is no. In our tradition, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit&#8211;in fact, the Catechism of Catholic Church teaches that the core of what it means is final impenitence. So as long as someone is breathing they have, as a rule of thumb, not committed the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that cannot be forgiven, because you can always be forgiven if you turn to God.
Now there is in our tradition those who who have taught and posited the possibility that you can have someone&#8211;in fact they&#8217;ll use the book of Jude, for example, that talks about those who are twice dead plucked up by the roots, right, they have rejected God and become, you know, the Adolf Hitlers of the world and that sort of thing. I argue that, as the Catechism says, as long as they&#8217;re breathing they have the possibility of repentance. Now, could it be that you have people that have just so rejected God that they&#8217;re in that state where you know there&#8217;s just nothing you can say or do? I&#8211;alright, that&#8217;s possible. But from our&#8211;God alone knows that. God alone knows the the state of anybody&#8217;s soul. We always hold out hope for anybody who&#8217;s breathing of the possibility of salvation.
So I love the way the Catechism says that, that Matthew 12:31 and 32 represent those who, you know, the&#8211;they say the only sin that can&#8217;t be forgiven is final impenitence. So someone who leaves the Church, goes out and gets baptized into another community, all they&#8217;re getting is wet, as you know. That&#8217;s not a valid baptism, they are already baptized, we need to evangelize them and bring them back to the fullness of faith that we alone possess as Catholics. Objectively speaking, what they&#8217;re doing is grave sin, objectively. Now we can&#8217;t judge their souls because, you know, I always say to folks that, you you don&#8217;t know, I mean, they may have been presented with the Catholic faith in a distorted way, to where the the Catholic faith that they&#8217;re rejecting isn&#8217;t Catholicism at all, and let me tell you, brother, I have met hundreds if not thousands of people over the years that have left the Catholic faith and when you talk to them and you come to discover what they thought the Catholic Church thought, I would have left it too! You know? I mean, oh my goodness, you say, &#8220;Who in the world taught you that?&#8221; right?
I mean&#8211;oh anyway, I could go on and on about that, but the bottom line is, my friend, we don&#8217;t judge the soul of anyone. Every person that&#8217;s walking is a candidate for repentance, and that&#8217;s the way we need to treat it. So don&#8217;t fall into that trap, my brother, of saying, &#8220;Hey, that person left the Catholic Church and they got baptized in a Baptist Church so they&#8217;re going to Hell!&#8221; No. That would be a grave sin on our part because we do not&#8211;1 Corinthians chapter 4:3 through 6, St. Paul says &#8220;Judge not until such time when the Lord comes, then the hidden motives of the hearts will be manifest and then each man shall have his reward from God.&#8221; Paul says, &#8220;I can&#8217;t even judge my own self.&#8221; You know, much less can we judge anyone else.
Host: Daniel, okay?
Caller: Thank you.

What Constitutes Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit?

Different Protestants have different definitions of sola scriptura, but at its core, every definition makes Scripture a Christian’s highest authority. In doing so, it leaves no room for a divinely appointed Magisterium or Church that can authoritatively declare what Christians are obliged or forbidden to believe. This is evident in things like the 1978 Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, a popular statement among conservative Evangelicals, which says, “We deny that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than scripture or equal to the authority of the Bible.”
But in practice, it is the authority of a person’s interpretation of the Bible that becomes the highest authority. This leads to what Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid called “<a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/sola-scriptura-a-blueprint-for-anarchy-12451">a blueprint for anarchy</a>.”
You get people like <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/god-and-the-gay-christian-a-critical-review">Matthew Vines</a>, who earnestly contends that the Bible is divinely inspired and, when properly interpreted, does not condemn modern same-sex relationships. Or you get people like <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@revbrandanrobertson/video/6936268413010464005?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=0&amp;is_from_webapp=v2&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;sender_web_id=6938067280673768965">Brandan Robertson</a>, who reject fundamental tenets of Christianity by saying Jesus committed the sin of racism when speaking to the Syrophoenician woman (<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-jesus-used-a-racial-slur">a Scripture verse Fr. Hugh Barbour helpfully illuminated</a>). And this isn’t just Robertson, either, as there are denominations like Christadelphians who believe that Jesus had a “sin nature.”
At this point, a Protestant could say: no matter how clearly you state things, you’re always going to have unsaved people twisting Scripture and misinterpreting it. When it comes to the claim that Jesus sinned, only a degenerate person trapped in the darkness of sin could fail to apply Hebrews 4:15’s clear teaching to the question: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.”
Sola scriptura is defensible, these apologists claim, because incorrect interpretations of Scripture can always be refuted by the correct interpretation true Christians can always locate within the pages of holy writ. But this pushes the problem back and assumes that everyone will nicely go along with a uniform understanding of what Scripture even is.
For example, how could you respond to someone defending Jesus’ sinfulness who says he doesn’t believe that Hebrews is Scripture? After all, the letter is anonymous, and although it has been traditionally attributed to Paul, several Church fathers questioned its canonicity. The early Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea said, “Some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul.”
Even if Paul did write it, why believe that Paul’s words were divinely inspired? Pastor Robertson says there’s reason to doubt that, given that Paul was never one of Jesus’ disciples during Jesus’ earthly ministry. Some Christians follow only the words of Jesus (similar to Bill Johnson’s Just Jesus movement). Others, like hyper-dispensationalists, take the opposite extreme and think Christians are bound to accept only some of Acts and the letters Paul wrote while he was in prison.
Without a Magisterium to appeal to, saying these views contradict Scripture assumes what the Protestant apologist is trying to prove—namely, which writings constitute Sacred Scripture. But because the Church has an authoritative teaching office, there is a way to set objective “ground rules” when it comes to understanding the meaning of Scripture.
A Protestant might offer three objections to this critique of sola scriptura. First, if the meaning of Scripture has been entrusted to the Church, then why hasn’t the pope or an ecumenical council infallibly defined every passage of Scripture and put all controversies to rest? For the same reason Protestants don’t have a divinely inspired biblical commentary: God chose not give this kind of revelation to the Church.
The Church hands on the Deposit of Faith, and, although a handful of biblical passages have been infallibly defined (such as John 3:5’s reference to water baptism), the Church allows biblical scholars a fair amount of latitude more generally when it comes to interpreting the Bible. The Church’s authority primarily presents itself in biblical interpretation by setting “guardrails” that make certain interpretations off-limits. For example, scholars might find new insights into the cultural interaction that took place between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, but they are prohibited from saying the interaction proves that Jesus is not fully divine or not free from sin.
Second, a Protestant might say the Catholic is kicking the can down the road: if there is “anarchy” when it comes to interpreting what the Bible says, then won’t a similar anarchy occur when people try to figure out what Church documents mean? In response, I would say this is a good reply to someone who says private interpretation can never be a part of the life of a Christian. That’s too narrow of a view, and the Catechism even says Christians must obey the dictates of a properly formed conscience (1790).
However, a more defensible position would be that interpretive clarity is at least far more feasible (or may even only be possible) through a living Magisterium. That’s because a Church that persists through history can teach doctrine through deliberate, repetitive acts that account for misunderstandings that arise in each generation. The static words of Scripture cannot articulate themselves anew for every generation.
Finally, a Protestant might point to the dissenters within the Catholic Church as evidence that having a Magisterium does not eliminate the problem of heresy. What about all the priests and lay people who argue for expanding the definition of marriage and the ordination of women? What good is a magisterium if it doesn’t prevent these voices from rising up in the Church?
Well, even when God directly spoke to his chosen people or his faithful angels, people rebelled. That’s the cost of giving creatures free will. But at least Catholic dissenters usually admit that what they’re peddling directly contradicts what the Church teaches. They may hope Catholic teaching will change in their favor, but they begrudgingly allow that their heresy is not Catholic teaching. A Protestant, on the other hand, who dissents from “traditional Christianity” can always say what he believes is what the highest authority in Protestantism has always taught, which others have simply failed to recognize.
So while dissenters and heretics will always afflict the body of Christ, Christ chose to protect his Church not by confining divine revelation to Scripture alone, but by instituting a Church. Jesus told his apostles, “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). The same principle animates the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church.

How to Unravel the Bible

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Trent Horn to discuss the implications of John 3:13 and the concept of heaven. Trent continues with details on how the souls of the righteous are believed to be in heaven, awaiting the resurrection of their bodies at the final judgment. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of these critical theological questions!
Transcript:
Caller: Anonymous, why are you not Catholic?
Caller: Yeah, I had a question about John 3:13. No one has ascended into heaven. He was descended to heaven, the Son of Man, when. When Christ was the only person who was sent to heaven. People can&#8217;t be in heaven already when, if he&#8217;s going to, Christ is going to come the second time. Even in Acts, it talks about David. His body will be at the last day only. And even Daniel has spoken. Isaiah also spoken.
Trent Horn: Okay, Anonymous, we&#8217;re covering a lot of ground here, so let me try to address it the best. I First, the descriptions in the Book of Acts about David&#8217;s body seeing corruption and not seeing incorruption until the final judgment. Well, Christians believe that. We believe that people&#8217;s souls, that when someone dies in God&#8217;s friendship, he is united with God immediately in heaven, unless he needs to be purified in purgatory first. But those who are saved and die and are free from sin will be in heaven with God. Their souls will be there, but they won&#8217;t be reunited with their bodies. You&#8217;re correct. Until the last judgment, then you will. People will be reunited with their bodies at the resurrection of the dead. So that doesn&#8217;t preclude, however, a person&#8217;s soul from being in heaven, being aware of God worshiping him, and being able to pray for people here on Earth. Number two, you cited John 3:13, but I don&#8217;t see how this shows that those who die in Christ are not in heaven. Jesus says he&#8217;s first. He&#8217;s talking about the need to be born of water and spirit. In John 3, he&#8217;s talking to Nicodemus and others about baptism, how that saves us, how that brings us into the kingdom of God. So he says in John 3:12, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. So what, what could this, what could this mean? Well, Jesus is talking about his divine authority, that he&#8217;s come down from heaven to be able to tell people what life is like in heaven and what God&#8217;s kingdom is like. He&#8217;s come down from heaven and he is going to ascend of his own power back to heaven. That seems to be a reference to his future ascension. Because don&#8217;t you believe that in the Old Testament Elijah ascended into heaven? Correct?
Caller: No, Eli, but Elijah didn&#8217;t. Elijah didn&#8217;t understand. He was transferred into the heavenlies because there were three different levels of heavenly. The Word is for it&#8217;s transfer. It&#8217;s not. It&#8217;s not. He did not ascend to heaven. He was transferred into the heavenly. There were different.
Trent Horn: He was. He was brought up into heaven some way to some part of heaven.
Caller: Yeah. In fact, you know why? Because if you look at the same thing which you quoted in Hebrews to the other gentleman earlier.
Caller: Yeah.
Caller: Elijah is part of the saints which have not yet received the eternal promise. The eternal promise is with eternal life in Christ Jesus. So only at the final judgment, then with the Old Testament, pains are all we rise. Well.
Caller: Well, let me.
Caller: Let&#8217;s.
Trent Horn: Okay, all right. Let&#8217;s. Let&#8217;s go back a little bit there. Because we would say that those who die and the saints who. People who die in God&#8217;s friendship and go to heaven, they don&#8217;t ascend there under their own power. They&#8217;re. They&#8217;re brought there through by the power of God. So Jesus here is talking about. You can say from this verse, he&#8217;s talking about his own ascension. But your claim that there are no souls in heaven at this moment, that doesn&#8217;t seem to make sense of the rest of God&#8217;s word. Such as when the apostle John has a vision or. Sorry, when John has the vision of heaven recorded in the Book of Revelation. He says this in Revelation chapter 6. He says, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, o sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth? So here John has a vision of heaven, and there are souls in heaven that were martyred on earth crying out for vengeance. How is this anything but souls being in heaven? Isn&#8217;t that. That&#8217;s what it says.
Caller: These are the souls who are. Await the. Who are waiting. They are not yet. They are not in heaven.
Caller: It&#8217;s the thing is, it says they&#8217;re under the altar.
Caller: Yeah. They said it&#8217;s a vision of him, but they&#8217;re not. They&#8217;re not. They&#8217;re not there. They are not there because it was talking about even the Old Testament, everybody&#8217;s in shoel. Everybody is actually in the good part of show, and there&#8217;s bad people on the bad part of show. So when. When. When Price comes, he&#8217;ll go. I mean. I mean, people who are in the good part of Sheol will get to heaven, and I mean, he&#8217;ll take those people.
Caller: But where is that part of Revelation 6 talking about Shaol and not heaven. It&#8217;s talking about John&#8217;s vision of heaven.
Caller: John? Yeah, John&#8217;s vision is talking about the future. Right. About when. When.
Caller: No, it&#8217;s.
Caller: It&#8217;s.
Caller: It&#8217;s. It&#8217;s what he&#8217;s. It&#8217;s what he&#8217;s seeing right now in heaven is being shown to him.
Caller: Yeah. So. But there&#8217;s no. There&#8217;s no, like, general judgment because there&#8217;s only a final judgment when Christ comes. But how can Christ come down in between and take people up into heaven and then. Then come on the final judgment? So it&#8217;s only a final judgment.
Trent Horn: So are you saying that everyone who dies, they all go to the same place and wait for the final judgment?
Caller: Yeah, I mean, the. Whoever is in, like, the good part of Sheol, and then whoever believes in Christ and who follows the laws and commandments, whatever Christ is told. I mean, because he said, whoever believes in me, who does whatever I do. I mean, so we have to not only just believe.
Caller: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You said. So they go to different parts of Sheol. The underworld.
Caller: Yeah.
Caller: I mean, so they. So they are judged.
Caller: If you, if you read the talk about Lazarus and the Richmond and that the two people. He was in the good part of Sheol and bad part because they were in two separate command. They were two separate command compartments. Because the good part of Sheol, the. Then only those people will rise at the end of time because they&#8217;re still waiting for the final judgment. Because that&#8217;s the final judgment.
Trent Horn: All right, I&#8217;m going to put forward one more verse for you to consider, but I think that we&#8217;ve reached a bit of an impasse here. I think that the Word of God is very clear, that after death, people, there is a judgment, a particular judgment. That&#8217;s what the Catholic Church teaches, and that&#8217;s what I think Christians in general believe that there&#8217;s a particular judgment of the soul and that people either go to heaven or hell or to purgatory and that there will be a final judgment when Christ comes again and when there&#8217;s the resurrection of the dead. You yourself seem to believe that there is. That the dead will go to. They go to the underworld, but they go to. To different parts of it. Now, that, of course, doesn&#8217;t conform to what we believe in. First, Peter talks about how Christ went to preach to the spirits in prison and that he liberated those who had died before him. In Hebrews 9:27, it says it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment. So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. So I think when we when we look at the whole of Scripture, we see that when people die, after that comes a judgment for them, and then there&#8217;s going to be a final judgment at the end of time that we see in Scripture. There&#8217;s always there&#8217;s there&#8217;s two judgments that are present, because even under the view that people go to different parts of sheol that would involve God judging whether they go to the good part of the bad part, which, of course, we don&#8217;t agree with, but I hope that&#8217;s helpful for you. And we have other articles on the afterlife and judgment and the underworld at our website@catholic.com.

Protestant Caller Claims That No One is in Heaven

Popular Mechanics recently re-shared an article on social media with the audacious title, <a href="https://twitter.com/PopMech/status/1725186913986810021">“A Groundbreaking Scientific Discovery Shows that We Can Reverse Death.”</a> Is that true?
It depends on how you understand death. In the old days, it was relatively easy to determine whether someone was dead: he stopped breathing and his pulse disappeared.
That was a useful way of determining death because breathing is necessary to get oxygen to the blood, and a beating heart is necessary to push oxygen-laded blood to the cells of the body. Without that happening, every cell in the body would die.
Of course, mistakes could be made. Someone might be breathing really shallowly, and he might have only a faint pulse, but if he really stopped breathing and his heart really stopped, he was dead. End of story.
Things got more complex in the twentieth century. Techniques became available to keep someone breathing and to restart his heart.
In the 1950s, ventilators were introduced. These are machines that act like bellows to move air in and out of the lungs.
Also in the 1950s, the first (external) mechanical hearts became available, and by 1960, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) could help keep blood moving during a cardiac arrest, adrenaline could encourage the heart to resume beating, and defibrillators could hopefully shock it back into a normal rhythm.
All this raised the question of whether people who met the previous definition of death (no breathing and no heartbeat) should be considered dead.
By the late 1960s, a new criterion was proposed: absence of brain activity. This could make sense because a functioning brain was needed to keep things like breathing and hearts going without mechanical aid.
So perhaps—some reasoned—if the brain was no longer working, if the patient was “brain dead,” you could forego artificial respiration and heart stimulation and treat the patient as dead.
This meant you could harvest his organs, if he was an organ donor—including his precious heart. The first successful heart transplant took place in 1967, so maybe someone else could use the organ if the donor was brain dead.
There has been a lively debate about whether lack of brain activity should be used to define death, and advocates of brain death as the key criterion have won a lot of converts to their view.
At the same time, there have been concerns that doctors have been defining brain death in a loosey-goosey way, such as merely being in a persistent vegetative state rather than truly and permanently lacking brain function. This would let them take more people off life-support—freeing up medical resources—and harvest organs from more people.
Personally, I am not at all convinced that the brain death criterion is adequately defined—or applied—today, and so a person who is actually still alive may be killed by the removal of their heart for a transplant. Consequently, I have not agreed to donate my organs on my driver’s license.
While the brain death debate has been going on, the concept of death has begun to be questioned on a new front: the cellular level. Hypothetically, one could argue that a person’s body isn’t fully dead unless all of the cells in it have died, and things like brain function, respiration, and heart action are just things needed to keep the cells alive.
We thus might be able to help save more people if we could intervene to keep their cells alive long enough to fix whatever is wrong with their brain, lungs, heart, or other organs.
The Popular Mechanics article <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a42216404/is-death-revesible/">discusses</a> a team of researchers who have been working on how to support the cells of the body when critical organs are not functioning. They call this system OrganEx, and preliminary trials on pigs have been successful, though human trials are still years off.
Other advances are also being made. It turns out that, if a person’s body and brain are cooled down in the right way, they can be brought back to normal functioning as much as six hours after cardiac arrest has occurred (see Sam Parnia, Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death).
We also now have implantable artificial hearts, and—though they aren’t yet as convenient and reliable as the one the biological version of Captain Picard had on Star Trek—we’re approaching the point where not having a functioning human heart may no longer be useful as a criterion for irreversible death.
What all of these advances have done is make death—which used to look like a simple either-or state—to look more like a process, and a process that in many cases can be reversed.
As medicine continues to advance, we may expect it to become more and more reversible, which will make it more challenging to define precisely when “final” death occurs.

Can Science Reverse Death?

It’s clear that there is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/whos-on-first-matthew-mark-or-luke">a literary relationship</a> between the three Synoptic Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have many passages in common—down to the level of individual words in Greek.
Most scholars have concluded that the majority of these passages are due to Matthew and Luke copying from Mark. In the process of doing so, they both abbreviate Mark’s accounts and polish his Greek style to make it better.
But setting aside the passages that all three Synoptic Gospels have in common, there are still 235 verses shared only by Matthew and Luke.
To explain these, many scholars have proposed that both Matthew and Luke are drawing on a hypothetical common source, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/some-thoughts-on-q">which has been named “Q”</a> (from the German word Quelle, which means source).
<a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyAkin3000/status/1692169841665360360?s=20">Recently, I encountered the suggestion</a> that it was the Virgin Mary herself who was behind the Q source, and I was asked what I thought of this possibility.
A careful reading of Luke’s Gospel reveals that the Virgin Mary was one of his sources of information. Luke signals this twice in his “Infancy Narrative,” or account of the events leading up to Christ’s birth and what happened in his childhood.
The Gospels contain subtle cues about who the Evangelists were using as their sources, and these would have been more obvious to ancient readers than they are today.
One such cue is found in Luke 2:19. After recounting the events up to Jesus’ birth, Luke states: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” That’s a signal that Mary was the source of Luke’s information for the material we have just read.
He may have interviewed her personally or he may have gotten the information by a chain of transmission leading back to Mary, but one way or another, she’s the source.
Luke then describes several incidents taking us down to the discovery of Jesus in the temple when he was twelve years old, and he says, “and his mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:21). That’s another signal that Mary was the source of the information we have just read—i.e., the reason Luke has this information is because Mary kept it in her heart, and that’s how Luke knows it.
The difficulty for the “Mary is Q” theory is that these passages occur in Luke’s Infancy Narrative, and that is not part of the 235 verses that Matthew and Luke have in common. In other words, it’s not part of the “Q material” that the two Gospels share.
Further, Luke only mentions Mary remembering things in these two passages, suggesting that she was not the source of later material in his Gospel.
So it appears that Mary was (directly or indirectly) one of Luke’s sources, but that she was not responsible for the 235 verses reckoned as part of Q.
What would explain those verses? Many scholars have proposed that there was a “Q document” that Matthew and Luke drew on, but we have no direct evidence that such a document existed, and I think there’s a simpler explanation: Matthew just copied from Luke.
Matthew clearly organizes material that is scattered in different places in Luke, and with the idea of Q being entirely speculative—rather than supported by evidence—it’s easier to explain the relationship by saying that Matthew was an organizer who sequenced material from Luke than it would be to explain why Luke smashed Matthew’s careful organization for no clear reason. As one scholar put it, Luke would have needed to unscramble the egg “with a vengeance.”
I thus conclude that—if there ever was a “Q document”—it was likely just a collection of notes Matthew took while reading Luke, and Luke was itself drawn from a variety of sources.
One of Luke’s sources was the Virgin Mary, though she was not behind the so-called “Q material.”

Mary: Secret Gospel Source?

In a recent <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/fight-the-anti-advent">article</a>, I discussed the penitential character of Advent and noted the difficulty of maintaining this while the world seems determined to make the season an anticipatory celebration of Christmas. A similar problem arises in the context of the beginning of Lent—and goes back much farther, historically.
<h2>Fat Tuesday Versus Lent</h2>
Lent is the Church’s major penitential season. The degree of rigor has varied over the centuries, but in the 1917 Code of Canon Law (CIC), every day of Lent (except Sundays) was a fast day, when we could eat only one full meal and two light meals. (On most of these days, eating meat was permitted.) Earlier in the history of the Church, the Faithful would abstain from not only meat during Lent, but also even eggs and butter.
In both the 1917 Code and the current 1982 Code, abstinence from meat is required on Fridays throughout the year (except for holy days of obligation in 1917, and solemnities in 1982). The possibility of waiving this was given to bishops’ conferences in 1966. Since then, many have indeed waived it, including the conference of the USA. (Interestingly, perpetual Friday abstinence was brought back in England and Wales in 2011.) In the current Code there, are only two fast days in the year: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Keeping in mind the older rules, Lent was historically a very serious period of penance, and the custom arose of having a celebration immediately before it started on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-ash-wednesday-unbiblical">Ash Wednesday</a>. This day, Tuesday, has variously been called Shrove Tuesday, from the old English word for Confession (shrift, with the verb shrive), or Fat Tuesday (in French, Mardi Gras). The celebration could extend to a period of time before the Tuesday, with a whole period of Carnival—literally, a “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/sanctify-your-drinking-in-pre-lent">farewell to meat</a>.” In the context of the Medieval discipline, these were the last days, until Easter, during which meat and oil could be consumed.
In some places, the fond farewell to meat could become a fond farewell to debauchery, satirized by the Dutch artist Bruegel’s 1559 painting “The Battle of Carnival and Lent.” The misbehavior of the Carnival in Venice was also notorious, giving us the tradition of carnival masks, which hid the identities of revelers and protected them, they hoped, from repercussions.

<h2>Fat Tuesday as a Catholic Tradition</h2>
These are venerable traditions of Catholic culture, certainly, but not ones we should be maintaining or reviving. In any case, things have moved on. Carnivals no longer conclude with a period of penance: The world wants to party, but not to clean up the mess afterward.
At the same time, it is not quite correct to say that the modern world has given up on penitential practices. On the contrary, as Fulton Sheen noted, often the world picks up what the Church discards. He gave the example of the decline of devotion to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/do-catholics-pray-vain-repetitions">the rosary</a> just when hippies and New Agers adopted the prayer beads of other religious traditions. Equally, at the very time when the Church’s penitential practices were being whittled down to nothing, on the basis that they were incompatible with modern life, the developed world was swept by dieting fads, and the ideal body, exposed to public view by new fashions, demanded iron self-discipline to maintain. A different kind of self-discipline is required to avoid feeling a bit of failure for not living up to these spartan standards.
Fasting and abstaining, in the past, were practices that pretty well everyone could maintain—the sick and certain others were always exempted. These practices united Catholics: something that everyone could complain about equally. The new standards of health and beauty, by contrast, are elitist by design: they are ways that the elite can remind us of their status.
There is nothing wrong with reminding ourselves of the imminent start of Lent with a bit of fun and special foods. As noted, the day before Ash Wednesday is called “Shrove Tuesday,” connecting it with the commendable practice of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/god-chooses-to-uses-human-intermediaries">going to confession</a> before the start of Lent. Preparation for Lent, itself a period of preparation for Easter, may sound unnecessary, but preparation for a period of penance is indeed a good idea. In the calendar of the pre-Vatican II 1962 Missal, and in the Calendar of the Ordinariates for Anglican converts, Lent is preceded by three Sundays of the season of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-septuagesima">Septuagesima</a>, “pre-Lent,” when fasting is not required but the violet of penance is adopted as the liturgical color. This puts Fat Tuesday into context as the culmination of a period of preparation for Lent, when in past centuries stocks of fats would be used up.
In the English-speaking world, Shrove Tuesday has long been marked in a culinary way by pancakes, which must be the most modest kind of party food imaginable. In my childhood in the U.K., we used to eat thin English pancakes rolled up with lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar; these would appear even in non-Catholic schools on “Pancake Day.” Sliced bananas, ice cream, and hot chocolate sauce have, as they say on social media, now “entered the chat,” but if you are making them at home, a huge amount of the fun is tossing them, to cook them properly on both sides. You have to not worry too much about the ones that get away—they are very cheap to make—and devote yourself seriously to practicing this noble art, remembering that in this, as in so much of what makes Catholic culture fun, you are entering into the spirit of the liturgical year.
<h2>Why We Party . . . and Why We Fast</h2>
A party that goes on all year round ceases to be a party and ceases to be fun. A celebration is by definition something that rises up above the level of the ordinary. The lower the troughs, the higher the peaks can rise in comparison. The penances of Lent are essential to the joy of Easter, and the mortifications of Lent can themselves be consoled by the way one marks Fat Tuesday. Human beings are not machines, working best at an even temperature with a perfectly steady intake of calories. We are organisms designed for feast and famine, for joy and woe. As William Blake <a href="https://www.poetryverse.com/william-blake-poems/auguries-innocence">expressed</a> it,
Joy &amp; Woe are woven fine, 
A Clothing for the Soul divine: 
Under every grief &amp; pine, 
Runs a joy with silken twine.

Where Fat Tuesday Fits In

Aurora Griffin, author of How I Stayed Catholic at Harvard, visits with Cy Kellett to discuss her own strategies for staying Catholic while she was in college, the power of the sacraments, and what parents can do to help their college-aged kids keep the Faith.

Staying Catholic in College

Recently, Bradley Onishi wrote <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/21/life-conception-christian-theology-00147804">a piece</a> for Politico entitled “Why Christians—and Republicans—Should Reconsider the Premise that ‘Life Begins at Conception.’”
The beginning of the piece correctly notes how some Protestant denominations were hesitant to say abortion is sinful. In 1971, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention allowed for abortion in the case of rape. He then says,
<blockquote>It’s not Protestants, but Catholics in the United States who, as a religious community, have opposed abortion forcefully going back to the nineteenth century, and it is in Catholicism that we find the view that life begins at conception. Starting with an 1869 document called Apostolicae Sedis, Pope Pius IX declared the penalty of excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.</blockquote>
Now, the Church has not defined when life begins, because that is a scientific question. But it has consistently taught that abortion is immoral. The Catechism says, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable” (2271).
However, Onishi’s argument goes downhill when he tries to undercut the consistent tradition in Catholicism of opposition to abortion. He writes, “There were also forceful and influential voices that argued fetuses did not become persons until they were ‘ensouled.’”
Onishi is correct that some theologians of the past considered abortion of an “unformed” fetus to be less serious than of a “formed” fetus, but they still considered it sinful to kill the fetus through abortion. Tertullian said in the third century, “Whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth, that is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed” (Apology). Tertullian believed that “the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does” (Treatise on the Soul).
Some theologians like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas believed that an unborn child receives a rational soul several weeks after he is conceived. But they probably believed that because they relied on the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s mistaken view of human development. Aristotle thought that unborn children progressed through vegetable and animal stages of life before their bodies were “animated” with a rational soul and became human beings later in pregnancy. Moral theologian William May says,
<blockquote>Aquinas relied on the inadequate biological knowledge of his day, that in human generation the male seed was alone the active element; he concluded that the body first formed by maternal blood by this seed was only vegetative in nature. . . . But note that for St. Thomas the bodies generated were not human in nature. . . . St. Thomas, were he alive today and cognizant of the biological evidence known today, would not hesitate in concluding that the body that comes to be when fertilization is completed is indubitably a human body and hence that its organizing and vivifying principle can only be a human soul, an intellectual or spiritual soul (Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life Huntington, 164–165).</blockquote>
Onishi also claims, “There are Irish ‘saints’ who performed abortions in circumstances of rape and fornication.” A common example offered in this vein is Ireland’s Brigid of Kildare, who allegedly performed “miraculous abortions” that dissolved pregnancies caused by rape. But we know that the Church condemned abortion during this time period, and historians have shown that these accounts come from <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/38293/did-irish-saints-perform-abortions-dont-believe-it-scholars-say">unreliable folklore</a> written centuries after the saints lived. Even Maeve Callan, an example of a historian who downplays the medieval Church’s attitude toward abortion, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22606751/">admits</a>, “The sixth-century Penitential of Finnian, the seventh-century Irish Canons, and the eighth-century Old Irish Penitential include abortion among the sins to be repented.”
Throughout Church history, punishments were sometimes lighter for abortions earlier in pregnancy, but punishments for many sins have changed throughout history. That doesn’t mean that the Church’s teaching on those acts being evil changed. In the early Church, penances for sins like adultery could last for years, but now penances are reduced to encourage people to confess their sins in the first place. For example, in 1591, Pope Gregory XIV rescinded his predecessor’s rule that only the pope could lift excommunications for abortion and allowed bishops the authority to do this. In 1869, Pope Pius IX erased all distinctions between “formed” and “unformed” unborn children in canon law and made the punishments for abortion the same regardless of when during pregnancy the abortion occurs.
The question of whether abortion is wrong has nothing to do with the question of whether the unborn have souls. There is no way to empirically prove that a newborn infant—or anyone, for that matter—has an immortal soul. As a result, this argument proves too much and would justify killing humans at any stage of life. It would be more responsible to believe that biological human beings have a right to life, and that is why abortion, infanticide, and other forms of homicide are wrong.
That’s why <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html">in 1974 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith</a> said that a human life is still present in the womb, and this fact justifies prohibiting abortion. It also says that if we are unsure about the status of an embryo, then we should not risk killing a person whose existence in the womb is at least “probable” (just as we would not shoot a figure in the woods that was “probably” a hiker and not a bear).
Finally, contra Onishi, Christians shouldn’t give up on the belief that life begins at conception because the question of when the life of an individual biological human being begins has been settled.
The standard medical text Human Embryology and Teratology states, “Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed” (8). Leading pro-choice philosophers agree that human fetuses are human beings.
In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds (2008), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that requiring abortionists to say that the fetus is a “living, separate, whole human being” does not force an abortionist to espouse an unconstitutional religious viewpoint. The Court ruled that this statement is a biological fact that even physicians affiliated with Planned Parenthood accept.
David Boonin, author of A Defense of Abortion, writes, “Perhaps the most straightforward relation between you and me on the one hand and every human fetus on the other is this: All are living members of the same species, Homo sapiens. A human fetus after all is simply a human being at a very early stage in his or her development” (20).
After reviewing several medical and embryology textbooks, I have yet to find a single one that denies that a human embryo or fetus is a human organism. Since, by definition, a human fetus is a stage of development in the life of a human organism, I doubt I ever will find such a claim in a serious textbook.
Therefore, when it comes to scientific questions about when life begins, we should listen to the scientific consensus, and when it comes to moral questions, we should listen to the teaching of the Church. Any advice an editorial in Politico might give on these matters should be judged in accord with what the real authorities say on these issues.

Time to Give Up on Abortion?

How does someone with addiction come back to Church?

I have a sponsor who thinks I’m going to Church too much and not enough to attend meetings. What is your advice?

I have a brother in recovery. Is the 12-step program a substitute for Catholicism?

How common are compulsions in alcoholism? Can they eventually become an OCD problem?

Why do AA meetings refer to God as high power?

How do you stay sober?

I’ve been to CIR meetings, I love the fact that it is Catholic!

&#8220;How can I return to the Church?&#8221; This question is central for many facing addiction and recovery. In this episode, we also address concerns about balancing church attendance with recovery meetings, the role of the 12-step program in relation to Catholicism, and the nature of compulsions in alcoholism.
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