Manage Account

What do you think about the supposed references to Jesus in the Talmud?

Please explain how does the process work when a priest earns the title of Monsignor I’d like to understand how that whole process works.

Who is the “destroyer” / angel of death in Exodus? An actual angel?

Do you think the Jewish faith was reinterpreted after Jesus’s death and resurrection 25:10 - Why is the word Holy Ghost said instead of Holy Spirit?

Why are there so many people who say that the Catholic Church is evil? The red shoes are evil. The room that looks like a serpent, at the Vatican. And other claims…?

I was recently challenged on the papal bulls allowing conquest and enslavement, followed by the bull Sublimis Deus forbidding enslavement, which I take as an abrogation of the prior. The interlocutor asked 1) how can one infallible bull overrule anothe...

Can you explain how the Godhead and the Trinity are not conflicting ideas or doctrines. I get SO MANY people who challenge the Trinity and say that Catholics try to replace the Godhead with the “false doctrine” of the Trinity.

Let’s say a person was properly baptized as a child but didn’t remember. They grow up and live a secular life until finding the faith later. They go through RCIA and, not remembering that they had been already baptized, are baptized and con...

Jimmy Akin, what’s your most recent and thorough reflection on Numbers 12?

Do we have one guardian angel for our whole life?

What are your thoughts on the “manna machine”?

Ask Me Anything

<p>What is life like for Christian refugees from Syria and Iraq? We ask Dalal Saied, who left Iraq when she was seven, lived for years as a refugee in Syria, and finally settled in the United States as part of the Middle Eastern Christian diaspora.</p>

Life as a Refugee

<p>Chris Stefanick encourages parents who send their kids to slacking Catholic schools to bring their complaints to the administration and demand better education of the faith for their children.</p>

What Should We Do When Catholic Schools Fail to Pass on Faith?

Get the JOE NOTES, sources for this episode, and more Shameless Popery on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/ShamelessPopery

Listen to Shameless Popery on Catholic.com:
https://www.catholic.com/audio/sp

Are you ACTUALLY worshipping?

The Eucharist is the most Christian act.

<p>Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers has an apparently unpopular answer to the scourge of racism—imitating Jesus. Our society refuses this path, preferring a culture of constant critique and revolution. It is time that the revolutionaries heard the hard truth—their cure is no cure at all. Real healing requires us to take up the Gospel with courage and humility.</p>

Catholicism and Race

Why isn’t there an instance in the bible where a child is adopted into faith?

What is the Catholic view of Matthew 16:28? Is it an unfulfilled prophecy?

Is it sinful to work on Sunday?

Today in class they were talking about schizophrenia and my teacher asked if anyone was religious, to make a comparison between the two. I didn’t raise my hand. Did I do something wrong by not speaking up?

I just found out that one of my friends is a Freemason. Am I still allowed to associate with him?

Would a land value tax be better than an income tax in light of Catholic Social teaching on just taxation?

What does the mark of the beast mean? Are we all born with it? What was Jesus doing after the Resurrection but before the Ascension?

<div>Why did Jesus weep before he raised Lazarus from the dead? </div><div><p>It’s likely that Jesus wept out of love and sympathy for Lazarus and his family. It occurs within the context of Martha and those Jews who came with her weeping (John 11:33). John tells us that in response to their sorrow Jesus was “moved in spirit and troubled” (v. 34). The people present took his weeping to be a sign of friendship: “So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him&#8217;” (v. 36).</p>
<p>Another possible explanation is that Jesus wept because of human death that sin wrought within his creation. According to W. Leonard in <em>A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, </em>when Jesus says, “Take away the stone,” the Greek verb used suggests that Jesus felt angry. The implication is that Jesus was angry with death, an effect of the original sin of Adam and Eve.</p>
<p>Such a detail on the surface seems frivolous. But it reveals a profound theological mystery: “Jesus, who became man in every respect except sin, experienced a full range of human emotions” (<em>Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, </em>184).</p>
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What Moved Jesus to Tears?

<div>Would it be a sin to participate in facilitating a divorce as a family law attorney?</div><div><p>Saint Pope John Paul II had this to say about Catholic legal professionals and divorce:</p>
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<blockquote><p>For grave and proportionate motives [judges] may therefore act in accord with the traditional principles of material cooperation. But they too must seek effective means to encourage marital unions, especially through a wisely handled work of reconciliation.</p>
<p>Lawyers, as independent professionals, should always decline the use of their profession for an end that is contrary to justice, as is divorce. They can only cooperate in this kind of activity when, in the intention of the client, it is not directed to the break-up of the marriage, but to the securing of other legitimate effects that can only be obtained through such a judicial process in the established legal order (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2383). In this way, with their work of assisting and reconciling persons who are going through a marital crises, lawyers truly serve the rights of the person and avoid becoming mere technicians at the service of any interest whatever.</p>
<p>(<strong><a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota.html">Discourse to the Roman Rota on Divorce &#8211; 28 January 2002</a>)</strong></p></blockquote>
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<p>Judges and lawyers may only &#8220;cooperate&#8221; in a divorce proceeding if their cooperation is material and not formal. Formal cooperation would be to encourage divorce as an end in itself or support divorce as good. Material cooperation, on the other hand, is when someone is engaged in a morally good or neutral action that only incidentally enables the bad action of another.</p>
<p>Catholic divorce lawyers must never cooperate in a divorce if the proceedings result in injustice. However if the relationship between the two spouses is in such terrible shape that only civil remedies (including divorce) will protect an individual&#8217;s rights, safety, or mental health then Catholic lawyers may cooperate in order to further justice in such circumstances.</p>
<p>Each divorce must be handled on a case by case basis. Catholic lawyers must ask themselves if the case before them is in the interest of justice and the natural law or if it will result in an injustice to both natural law and the rights of persons. Catholic lawyers do not need to do an indepth analysis of each client and their motives but should examine their own conscience as to whether the legal action is something they would feel comfortable cooperating with and standing before God.</p>
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Catholic Lawyers and Divorce

<blockquote><p>Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal.</p></blockquote>
<p>This prayer, used in the Ordinariate form (Divine Worship) of the Mass, is remarkable, and quite different from what most Catholics hear today.</p>
<p>In the extraordinary form, this Sunday has a collect which may be familiar to some of us in English: “Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.” It’s a Latin prayer, of course, but in English translation it was used in the prayer book tradition, and in our missal, on the <em>fourth </em>Sunday of Advent—not to be confused with a <em>different </em>“stir up” prayer, which was used on the final Sunday before Advent. That one became associated not just with the necessary stirring up of those ingredients for the Christmas pudding—which, if you live in cold, damp England, are sitting under the bed in the spare room for most of the month.</p>
<p>Today, I want to point out the clarity with which our prayer highlights the meaning of Advent. It does so in two ways.</p>
<p><strong>First, it reminds us that Advent is a time of penitence.</strong> This is a time to “cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light.” This is a particularly good reminder for us Americans who have exited the fleshly excesses of Thanksgiving only to enter the consumer extravaganza that is Black Friday and Christmas shopping. Advent is not, emphatically, a time to be artificially cheerful for the sake of a Christmas season that will not actually arrive for another four weeks. This isn’t to say that we are supposed to be gloomy in Advent, any more than we are supposed to be gloomy in Lent. But whereas much of the world is content to skip over Advent to make an endless season of feasting, Holy Church invites us to the countercultural witness of acknowledging that Jesus is coming but that he is <em>not yet here</em>, both in terms of Christmas and in terms of the end of the world. Like the birth of a baby in a normal family, the final month of preparation is joyful but also serious: things are getting real, and the preparations aren’t just fun and games, but serious work. When the baby comes, we need to be ready for more than a dinner party.</p>
<p>Second, the prayer reminds us that the first Advent is intrinsically related to the second. The <em>purpose </em>of Advent is not merely to commemorate the nativity; it is to prepare ourselves for the final and definitive Advent of Christ in the world—the Advent spoken of in the Gospels, when the Son of Man will come in glory to judge the world. We prepare for this Advent, lest it “come upon [us] suddenly like a snare,” as Luke says.</p>
<p>How then, should we prepare to avoid being taken suddenly and unawares? I think Scripture and tradition give us two definite ways to prepare.</p>
<p>The first is in a way the most direct, for it is a third form of Christ’s Advent. He comes to us daily on all the altars of the Catholic Church under the external form of bread and wine. This is the way that he himself instituted his ongoing presence among and for us. And so the first way to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ in the last day is to learn to meet him in the way that he already comes to us day after day in the Eucharist. We should spend time with him in adoration; we should receive Holy Communion with a right intention and in a state of grace. Christ ordained to be known to us in this form precisely because it is both present to our senses and beyond our senses. Our senses are trained, in other words, both to acknowledge what is present and to recognize a presence beyond what is visible.</p>
<p>The second is less direct, but no less real: Christ is present in his members, the Church. Think about why the lectionary gives us this reading from 1 Thessalonians alongside the others. St. Paul speaks about growing in love for the brethren; he speaks of treating one another with love <em>so that </em>we will be blameless when Christ comes again. In other words, how can we expect to meet Christ with joy when he comes to judge when we cannot be bothered to see him in the brothers and sisters who stand next to us in his Church?</p>
<p><strong>In a way, it is harder to see Jesus in our fellow Christians</strong> than it is to see him in the monstrance. In the Eucharist, he doesn’t speak back: he is passive, silent, waiting to be known and loved. But in our brethren, he is veiled under human personality, physical variety, and social connection.</p>
<p>All of this is to say that the hospitality and interaction of the coming season is not irrelevant to the more sober purposes of Advent. No, Advent is not Christmas. But if we want to <em>get </em>Christmas when it comes, we have to, in a sense, find Christmas here and now—in the Eucharist, and in God’s people. Like at Christmas, our Lord comes to us in great humility. May we learn to see him wherever he is.</p>

Find Christmas Now

<p>St. Thomas Aquinas lists fortitude—courage—among the four cardinal virtues. For the Angelic Doctor, fortitude is the virtue that enables a person to overcome great difficulties or obstacles to do what is right and good. I want to suggest that marriage, particularly in our day, requires fortitude.</p>
<p>I make that observation in conjunction with modern sociological data, which show that people are putting marriage off. Men and women marry on average later than ever before, if they marry at all. Plenty of ersatz substitutes today replace permanent marriage. And even though the Church still speaks of marital indissolubility, our society puts less enforcement behind the marriage contract than a plumbing contract.</p>
<p><strong>Yes, I know—there are many socio-economic factors</strong> that inhibit marriage. Prolonged education, college debt, finding a job, establishing oneself in one’s profession, inflation, the cost of housing, woke norms for relations between the sexes—all these factors impinge negatively on getting married. Facing and then surmounting them takes courage. Advancing to parenthood—which, as the Church sees it, is a normal next step, not an “optional accessory” to marriage—requires even more courage. The fact that the gap between marriage and having children is also growing attests to this.</p>
<p>Young people might say, “Well, I’m not afraid of marriage <em>per se</em>. I don’t know how to find the right person, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my kids and money if she divorces me.” I’ve met good spouses like this, left on ice.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t downplay those concerns. Dating, too, has not just declined, but also assumed some unhealthy forms. If there’s one thing young adults criticize about the Church, it is how it’s “there” (or, rather, “not there”) for them. In an earlier, more church-going age, parishes might be places to meet. But today’s parish social life more often caters to seniors than spouse-seekers. Male educational and earning declines, coupled with something of a mutated double standard (“I’m independent, but I want a guy who protects and can support me”) make concerns about permanence real (even though the divorce rate has been declining).</p>
<p>These are real worries. Some require social fixes (e.g., how men are “falling behind”). Some can be addressed at the parish (e.g., a parish supper or movie night for young adults). All helping hands welcome!</p>
<p><strong>In the end, though, we still come back to courage.</strong> It takes courage to set out into the deep, whether in the particular circumstances that living in our day requires or those certain constants to marriage that have always required courage.</p>
<p>One of them is faith. Do you believe in love? Do you believe that God gives you the grace to be with this one person, ’til death do you part?</p>
<p>In conjunction with that, do you see marriage as a vocation? The Church’s vocabulary has long cheated marriage by speaking of “vocations” as primarily connected with the priesthood and religious life. But marriage <em>is </em>a vocation.</p>
<p>“Marriage as vocation” probably requires a new catechesis of marriage. Young Catholics know that marriage is a sacrament. But what does that mean? First, as a sacrament of vocation, marriage is not—to borrow a modern phrase—a “moment.” It is not just “the wedding day.” It begins on the wedding day but ends on the day of death. Second, one is assuming spiritual responsibility for another. Marriage <em>affects </em>the spiritual, which means that thinking about marriage—and the things that lead up to it, like courtship and dating—will require Catholics to get a bit “serious.” Juice Newton had it right: “It’s hard to be a lover when you say you’re only in it for fun.”</p>
<p>That, of course, therefore implies that the choice of a spouse also involves spiritual discernment. Does this person share my values in <em>what counts</em>? In God? In the Church? In how we live as married people? In how we bear and raise children? Those things—and not just common interests, hobbies, or preferences—are what matters. They also raise questions about “mixed marriages.”</p>
<p>When people tell me that the religious dimension of their wedding and wedding plans are something subordinate, something “I’ll get to,” that should be a warning bell: it’s the marital equivalent of doing everything for Christmas <em>except </em>getting ready for Christ.</p>
<p><strong>If one can trust another “’til death do us part”</strong> after such a process of discernment, then by all means, do the courageous thing and marry. Of course, that requires prudence (another cardinal virtue). Do I have a job? Some savings? Can we make a go of things?</p>
<p>But don’t let “prudence” turn into fearful paralysis. You cannot control everything. In fact, you’ll find in life that what you <em>can</em> control is relatively modest. Prudence means not being reckless, but prudence also is paired with another vital reality: faith in Providence, that “God who has begun this good work in you will now bring it to completion” . . . even if you might not know just how he’s going to do it. Because it may be in totally unexpected ways. All you should do is recognize that “God makes all things work for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28)—especially when that love is multiplied by two or more “gathered in my name” (Matt. 18:20).</p>
<p>National Marriage Week is February 7-14, World Marriage Sunday February 9. Reading the signs of the times, we know there are challenges out there, and they are real. We know that there are lots of resistance to the Catholic vision of marriage. But when we consider the vision the Church offers us in marriage and, with faith that “God is for us,” let us make Jesus’s words our own: “Take courage; I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).</p>

Marriage Takes Courage

<p>The New Testament quotes Psalm 69 over a dozen times as being fulfilled in the life of Christ and the Church, including such well known texts as verse 9, which St. John quotes as referring to Jesus after his famous <em>cleansing of the Temple</em>: “For zeal for your house has consumed me” (see 2:17). All four Evangelists refer to verse 21 as foretelling the offering of cheap wine, or “vinegar,” to Jesus on the cross (John 19:28-29; see also Matt. 27:45-50, Mark 15:33-37, Luke 23:44-46). There are multiple additional prophetic references we could consider.</p>
<p>Many of our Protestant friends like to point out what they see as a problematic couple of verses for Catholics in Psalm 69:7-8, which prophesies the intense reproach Our Blessed Lord would experience in his life and especially his passion:</p>
<blockquote><p>For it is for thy sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brethren, an alien to my mother’s sons.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>The idea here is this: if this is a heavily messianic psalm</strong>, with multiple allusions to Jesus Christ, here we have a clear prophecy not only that Jesus would have “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/brethren-of-the-lord">brothers</a>,” but that Mary would have other “sons.” That would make belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary untenable.</p>
<p>Our goal here is not a full-fledged defense of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (You can find those <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-explain-the-perpetual-virginity-of-mary">here</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-case-for-marys-perpetual-virginity">here</a>, among many other places.) Rather, we’re going to show how Protestant attacks against Catholic doctrines are bound to fail when they involve taking a literalistic approach to Old Testament types and prophecies. The Protestant will end up denying more than he bargained for—like the whole foundation of New Covenant fulfillment!</p>
<p>So how are Catholics to respond?</p>
<p>First, in considering prophecies or types from Old Testament texts, we never find their fulfillments or antitypes to be perfectly one-to-one. Hebrews 1:1 tells us that “in many (Gr. <em>polumeros, </em>‘partial’ or ‘piecemeal’) and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets.” We see a clear example of this in this same psalm (69:24-25), where the Psalmist prays that God will deal with his enemies in justice:</p>
<blockquote><p>Pour out thy indignation upon them, and let thy burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation, let no one dwell in their tents.</p></blockquote>
<p>St. Peter declares this text to find its ultimate fulfillment in Judas’s apostolic office proceeding to St. Matthias. Even though the Hebrew of Psalm 69 uses the plural, and David is clearly referring to a whole class of people, Peter declares definitively that it refers to Judas in its fullest sense:</p>
<blockquote><p>For it is written in the Book of Psalms, &#8220;Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it”; and “His office [Gr. <em>episcope</em>, ‘bishopric’] let another take” (Acts 1:20).</p></blockquote>
<p>Not exactly a one-to-one fulfillment.</p>
<p><strong>Second, if we are going to insist on one-to-one fulfillment</strong> of Old Testament prophecies and types, then we have a real problem in Psalm 69:5-6. Just three verses before the Psalmist speaks of his “mother’s sons,” he also says,</p>
<blockquote><p>Oh God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me. O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me.</p></blockquote>
<p>In this text, King David is, no doubt, thinking of his famous sins as well as the general “sin which clings so closely” to us in our fallen state (Heb. 12:1). But we don’t want to say Jesus must have had sin in his life because of what’s here in this messianic psalm. By no means!</p>
<p>The truth is that all of the Old Testament types and the overwhelming majority of prophecies we could consider in the Old Testament have multiple fulfillments: immediate ones on the literal level at the time they were published in history <em>and</em> their New Testament fulfillments, where they find their fuller meaning.</p>
<p>A defense of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is beyond the scope of this article. And non-Christians won’t find satisfaction here because they deny the inerrancy of Scripture completely. But for those non-Catholics who claim to follow the Bible, there is one big lesson to be taken from this brief consideration: be very careful before taking Old Testament types or prophecies to a place where your conclusions about them end up denying some of the crucial infrastructure of the New Covenant.</p>
<p>Yes, the New Covenant is “hidden in the Old,” as St. Augustine famously said, but that doesn’t mean they’re <em>exactly the same</em>. Rather, Augustine continued, the Old Covenant is “fully revealed in the New”—which means we can expect some surprises when it comes to how types and their fulfillments shake out.</p>

The Psalm that Disproves Mary’s Perpetual Virginity?

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<p><strong>DAY 366</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHALLENGE</strong></p>
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<p>“This book doesn’t include my objection to the Faith!”</p>
<p><strong>DEFENSE</strong></p>
<p>A single book can only do so much. Therefore, let me recommend some more resources that may help.</p>
<ul>
<li>The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli: This is an excellent survey of the general evidences for the Christian faith, written by a pair of scholars who communicate in a manner easily accessible to all.</li>
<li>Scaling the Secular City by J.P. Moreland: This was one of the first apologetic books I read when I began studying the field. Dr. Moreland is an outstanding scholar who carries the discussion to a level satisfying for those who want to go deeper.</li>
<li>Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: This is another popular-level work that covers the basics of why one should choose to be a Christian, written by one of the greatest Christian authors of the twentieth century.</li>
<li>Miracles by C.S. Lewis: The topic of miracles and how they relate to science is one of the most misunderstood subjects in apologetics. This book contains valuable insights.</li>
<li>Hard Sayings by Trent Horn: There are many books about passages of the Bible that are difficult to accept for one reason or another. Trent’s book is written from a Catholic perspective and takes advantage of the current state of magisterial thinking.</li>
<li>The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin: As we’ve seen in this book, the Church Fathers are an important witness to the teaching of Christ and the apostles. My own book on the subject shows what they taught on numerous subjects and how this corresponds to the teaching of the Church today.</li>
<li>The Drama of Salvation by Jimmy Akin: One of the most sensitive subjects between Protestants and Catholics is how we are saved. This book discusses the subject in what I hope is a calm and constructive manner.
<p>I hope these recommendations help. God loves you; may he reward your further studies and bless you richly!</p>
<p>Your pal,</p>
<p>—Jimmy Akin</p></li>
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What This Book Doesn’t Cover

<p>The author of <em>Meeting the Protestant Challenge</em> explains why Catholics believe that the Church is a visible hierarchical institution when Jesus says that the Church in Matthew 18:20 is an invisible union of believers.</p>

Does Matthew Teach an Invisible Church?

My Pints Interview Angered the LDS (w/ Isaac Hess) – Cup o’Joe LIVE

<div>When speaking to/about transgender people, should we use their preferred pronouns and name? I've gotten mixed answers, some saying yes for respect, some saying no because it's disrespectful to God. Does the Church have a stance on this?</div><div><p>Those who espouse “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/transgenderism-how-did-we-get-here"><strong><em>transgenderism</em></strong></a>” argue that a human person is assigned their gender at birth, based on their observed anatomy. Consequently, when a biological male identifies as female and then has related surgery, they speak of that medical practice as “gender confirmation” vs. “gender reassignment,” because they believe their anatomy now reflects their true identity as a human person.</p>
<p>The Church has a different take, one that is grounded in genuinely confirmed reality. One is born either or male or female, and this also applies to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-to-explain-hermaphroditism"><strong><em>hermaphrodites</em> </strong></a>who, though they manifest both male and female anatomical aspects at birth, are either biological boys or girls.</p>
<p>In this light, the Church recognizes that every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male or female (Gen. 1:26-27). And so we should help people discover their true identities as children of God, not support them in the disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological identity.</p>
<p>In this light, we should act in love toward those who experience gender identity disorder, and reprove those who engage in name-calling and other uncharitable behavior toward them.</p>
<p>Regarding preferred pronouns, I would advise avoiding that problem and just call the person by their preferred name. Let me give an example. In previous work for the Church, I once received a phone call from a man who had had “sex-change” surgery and now identified and lived as a woman. He referred to himself as “Mary” (not the person’s self-identified name). I saw no point on first introduction over the phone to tell him I wanted to know the name his parents gave him at birth, and that I would only and always refer to him via that birth name during our conversation, lest I transgress and affirm him in his gender identity disorder.</p>
<p>Well, had I followed such pastorally misguided advice, that would’ve been a real short conversation. In addition, this person was calling a faithful Catholic apostolate to receive genuinely Catholic counsel, not persuade me to affirm them re: their self-identified gender. If I wanted to have hope of giving a fruitfully faithful witness, I couldn’t let minor details derail my witness. In other words, I couldn’t let style get in the way of substance.</p>
<p>Rather, while using this person’s preferred name, I lovingly explained how they had to live a chaste life, which in their case meant not simply ending a sexually intimate relationship with a Christian man who wanted to continue the relationship despite having learned about Mary’s surgery, but refraining from dating altogether and living a life of complete continence.</p>
<p>As a result of my witness, which included fundamentally reminding them that Jesus really loved them amidst their struggles, they gratefully recommitted to living a chaste life. (On a related note, given the expense and potential psychological trauma involved, the Church would not require a person who had had “sex-change” Church to have a second surgery to reverse that change.)</p>
<p>If we give faithful witness to the teachings of Christ and his Church, then using a person’s preferred name will become a moot point. In contrast, if we insist at the outset on setting them straight on which name we will use to refer to them, we will likely lose the opportunity to give them a faithful witness through which Christ can soften their heart to receive and embrace the true Gospel.</p>
<p>And if they correct you on calling them “Mr.,” “Miss,” etc., circumvent that issue by asking them their name, which will likely reflect their self-identified gender. And then proceed in Christian love from there.</p>
<p>For more on this issue, see Trent Horn’s articles <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/five-questions-for-supporters-of-gender-transitioning">here</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/exposing-the-hypocrisy-in-the-transgender-movement">here</a>, and Karlo Broussard’s <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/one-way-to-debunk-transgender-philosophy">here</a></p>
<p>Transgenderism? <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/20-answers-homosexuality/?searchid=10502014&amp;search_query=sex"><em><strong>Homosexuality</strong></em></a>? Sex? For more Catholic Answers on this topic, check out <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/made-this-way-how-to-prepare-kids-to-face-todays-tough-moral-issues-digital/?searchid=0&amp;search_query=sex"><em><strong>Made This Way </strong></em></a>by Leila Miller and Trent Horn</p>

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What is the Catholic Church’s Stance on Transgenderism?

<div>An atheist posed the question to me, "If God is all powerful, can he create a rock too heavy to lift?" How do I reply to that?</div><div><p>God’s omnipotence extends to all things that do not involve a logical contradiction. Since the idea of God creating a rock that is too heavy for him to lift involves a logical contradiction, it’s not subject to his omnipotence. This doesn’t count against his omnipotence anymore than the claim that God can’t make a square circle.</p>
<p>The reason this idea involves a logical contradiction is that it claims God is all-powerful (inasmuch as he creates the rock) and not all-powerful (inasmuch as he can’t lift the rock) in the same respect at the same place and time. Since this is a violation of the principle of non-contradiction, it cannot be.</p>
<p>Therefore, it’s not due to a lack of God’s power that he can’t create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift. It’s due to the impossibility of such a state of affairs.</p>
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How Do I Answer the ‘Rock Too Heavy to Lift’ Challenge?

Is the unborn child a human being?

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<div>May a person who is not physically ill (but is mentally or spiritually ill or suffering from addiction, etc.) receive the anointing of the sick?</div><div><p>This is a great question! The fact is that anyone who is baptized and of the age where he can go to confession is able to receive the sacrament of the anointing of the sick validly.</p>
<p>However, the discipline of the Roman rite Church restricts the reception of this sacrament to those who on account of age or infirmity are in some grave danger. They do not have to be dying, but their condition should be supposed serious. In the Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church, everyone is allowed to receive this sacrament once a year on Holy Wednesday of Holy Week. The tendency in the Roman rite nowadays is to be rather permissive in giving this sacrament, as one can see with the various Masses that are celebrated for the sick generally. Everyone is allowed to come forward who wants to, and there is no questioning of whether persons are seriously ill or not.</p>
<p>The fact is that the effect of the anointing of the sick is precisely the removal of the remains of sin (the <em>fomes,</em> or &#8220;kindling&#8221; ) in the soul in view of death and judgment, so it is a kind of &#8220;confirmation&#8221; complementing the sacrament of penance that removes sin itself. This sacrament is a kind of strengthening of the effects of sacramental confession, as confirmation strengthens the effect of baptism.</p>
<p>So, I think the practical solution is to seek this sacrament according to your best judgment when you attend a general Mass for the communal anointing of the sick but to limit requests for an individual appointment for times of obvious serious illness. You can also visit a Byzantine Catholic church on Holy Wednesday each year, which would be an enriching experience.</p>
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Who May Receive the Anointing of the Sick

<p>What if you could get a personal message each day from beyond this world? Millions of people seek such messages in astrology charts and readings. But the Church has a better &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/astrology">astrology</a>,&#8221; in which God really does have a message for you each day of the year.</p>

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<p>In this episode Trent talks about a problem he sees with the idea of a Christian &#8220;Content Creator.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Transcription:</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Trent:</p>
<p class="p1">Last month I spoke at the Live Action Young Leader Summit where we gave away a thousand copies of my book Persuasive Pro-Life to equip these advocates to end the scourge of abortion. Also in attendance, were a dozen Christian content creators, and I love seeing so many young people using popular media to evangelize, but something was bothering me after meeting with them. I couldn&#8217;t put my finger on it until now. So what&#8217;s the problem with Christian content creators? Well, it&#8217;s not the creators, at least not these creators. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of their work and I&#8217;m impressed with their heart and skill. That doesn&#8217;t mean I agree with everything they&#8217;ve ever said. It&#8217;s just that I&#8217;m glad to see the overall godly orientation of their craft. Instead, what bothers me is the term content creator and specifically being a Christian content creator. Now, once again, I&#8217;m not criticizing people who use this term, Kyle Whittington, who previously moderated our YouTube channel, hosts an excellent Catholic content creator conference at the St.</p>
<p class="p1">Paul&#8217;s Center. So I understand the utility of the term content creator, and I&#8217;m not attacking anybody for using it. I just don&#8217;t like the term because it sounds like an inhuman job in some science fiction dystopia. A content creator sounds like someone who mindlessly and inhumanly pumps out product to satisfy rampant consumers. Demand ads that promise help to quickly create monetizable content, make the internet feel like a place where barely nutritious digital gruel is dumped on your plate for you to eat. It feels like a lot of modern entertainment that has become this kind of slop or is J from Red Letter Media puts it. Don&#8217;t ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products. This content creation mindset isn&#8217;t just a temptation for Christians who have sizable YouTube channels or Instagram accounts. It&#8217;s a danger for anyone who publicly posts on social media.</p>
<p class="p1">Anytime you or I post on X or Instagram or Facebook, we are creating content for public consumption and social media algorithms use psychological tricks to manipulate users into creating content for companies to monetize to see how this works, think about the difference between products and users. When you buy a book, a movie ticket, a meal or a video game, it&#8217;s easy to tell the difference between the user who buys the product and the product being consumed. But what is the product we buy on social media? The 2020 documentary, the social dilemma says, if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. The product on social media are the users. When we use social media, we become products for other people to consume and we consume other people as products. Even if we use social media for the noble goal of sharing our faith, the faith or at least our commentary on it, becomes a kind of product that these companies manipulate for advertisers.</p>
<p class="p1">Now, that&#8217;s not evil because if it were, I would shut down my channel, but it does call us to vigilance because these platforms spend millions of dollars to research how to manipulate us into working for them without us realizing it. One way they do that is by posting how many people view and like our content, which causes a dopamine surge in our brains. When the surge wears off, the user wants that next hit. So they try to think about what content will get similar engagement, and if they don&#8217;t get as much engagement with the next post, they keep trying like a gambling addict who can&#8217;t let go of the slot machine because they know the next spin will be the big winner if they can just hang on a little bit more. Moreover, the posts that get amplified and shared tend to appeal to the lowest common denominator among human behaviors.</p>
<p class="p1">This includes adult material clickbait that promises adult material and rage bait that gets engagement by just making lots of people outrage at a post or things that just appeal to our most basic emotional responses without a lot of thought put into it. When this kind of content becomes religious, I call it clicks for Christ. Consider this meme. Jesus was born for you, died for you. If you love Jesus and are not ashamed, put amen in the comments below. Now, reminding people that Jesus died for them is a good thing and the person who posted this may have good intentions, but does this really call people to repentance or to grow in the Christian life? The only thing this seems to do is create engagement by encouraging lots of comments to this post, and the poster may not even be as sincere Christian, just someone who works for a click farm in another country that does this for ad money.</p>
<p class="p1">This is especially common with AI slop like this fake picture of a man in a wheelchair using the following artificial intelligence prompt that&#8217;s been translated from Hindi American soldier veteran holding cardboard sign that says, today&#8217;s my birthday. Please like injured in battle, veteran war American flag. In fact, the cover picture on the Wikipedia entry for AI slop is an image of Jesus made out of a school of shrimp because reasons. Now, you might be thinking, Trent, this is bad, but the Christian content creators I know make good content, so why are you worried? Sure, nobody goes from edifying content to seafood Jesus overnight, but many people gradually get sucked into the content creation mindset that values engagement over edification. So here&#8217;s a solution I want to propose. Replace the term content creator with the term artist or digital artist. Be an artist, not a content creator.</p>
<p class="p1">Artificial intelligence can create content, but AI can never create art because art is a way for human beings to communicate truth through beauty, not data through pattern recognition. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve instructed my editors to not use AI to create religious images for thumbnails because I want to feature true religious art in my episodes, and I direct this to everyone, not just people who post online in his letter to artists. Pope St. John Paul II said, not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet as Genesis has it all, men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life in a certain sense. They are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. Our lives are not pieces of content for other people to consume. They are works of art that reflect the beauty of our creator and the art we create doesn&#8217;t have to be complex.</p>
<p class="p1">A simple post on X can be art in the same way a haiku or a short poem is art. A picture on Instagram can be as artistic as an award-winning photograph. When we create something for others to read or view, we should consider it part of our vocation as a Christian artist. For most people, that&#8217;ll just be an occasional artistic venture, but some people see that God gave them an artistic gift. John Paul II writes those who perceive in themselves this kind of divine spark, which is the artistic vocation as poet, writer, sculptor, architect, musician, actor, and so on, feel at the same time the obligation not to waste this talent, but to develop it in order to put it at the service of their neighbor and of humanity as a whole. When Michelangelo sculpted the pieta, Dante wrote The Divine Comedy or Fulton Sheen preached with a chalkboard.</p>
<p class="p1">These men were not creating content to boost engagement. They were making great art, which ironically leads to the highest forms of engagement because people desire beauty even more than they desire pleasure. That&#8217;s because God is beauty itself, and so the truly beautiful art always reflects God in some way. Christian art shouldn&#8217;t exist in a Christian ghetto where it gets a pat on the head for trying. It should reflect ancient traditional principles of beauty so that anyone, even a jaded modern person can appreciate it for more on that, see my previous episode on why liberals love ugly art and how good art lifts the human spirit to contemplate the divine. Moreover, having the mentality of an artist instead of as a content creator also leads to embracing another virtue of the artist not selling out. True artists don&#8217;t care if their work makes money, or even if lots of people like it, hence the trope of the starving artist.</p>
<p class="p1">They just want their art to be authentic and objectively good. It&#8217;s better to be an unknown good artist than a widely popular sellout. Being a Christian artist on social media platforms means we should choose quality over quantity. Now, that&#8217;s hard to do because algorithms like YouTube punish accounts that don&#8217;t post on a regular basis by not recommending their content, but it&#8217;s better to do that than to always scrape the bottom of the creative barrel in order to meet some arbitrary deadline. Social media imposes on us. We should also choose resting over rushing, for example. It&#8217;s really tempting to maximize engagement by being the first person to post a hot take on a widely discussed issue, but it&#8217;s better to have a prudent holy take that less people see than a viral hot take that could be wrong or even emus. The content creation mindset also makes people think that to be successful, they shouldn&#8217;t take any risks.</p>
<p class="p1">They should just copy successful Christian content creators, but that&#8217;s what Hollywood content creation is right now, and it&#8217;s awful, endless reboots, prequels, sequels and spinoffs of existing ips because companies know what leads to box office success, apologetics, evangelization, and catechesis don&#8217;t have to live within a prison of feisty ex posts. Long form interviews, reaction vids and video essays with a host sitting in front of a warm, inviting background talking about a subject while cool stock footage plays over him. Okay, that one feels a little bit close to home, but to be clear, those things aren&#8217;t bad. It&#8217;s just bad. If Catholics who want to publish on platforms like YouTube think they have to follow a certain mold, but if you embrace an artist&#8217;s mindset over a content creation mindset, you&#8217;re more willing to take risks to break the mold, to try something new, even if it doesn&#8217;t lead to much engagement.</p>
<p class="p2">I&#8217;d love to see more Catholic and Christian documentaries, oral histories, short films, animation, stop motion poetry. I mean the sky&#8217;s the limit. For example, Catholic lo-fi music is a great example of Christian art and John Kramer of the church. Lego Project shows that you can glorify God through any medium by just taking a picture or video of it and uploading it online. So how do we get this kind of inspiration? Well, the very word inspire is rooted in the word breathe like inspiration. Being inspired means God breathes into you and I divine truth, similar to what the ancient Greeks thought a muse could do in inspiring someone and whisper inspiration to them. John Paul ii put it this way, the divine artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power. I also think it&#8217;s a good sign if you have a little bit of reluctance towards being a digital artist that shows you aren&#8217;t trying to just become famous or chase a dopamine rush. You sense the great responsibility that comes with representing the faith even in social media posts, but we shouldn&#8217;t let prudent caution paralyze us inaction because we worry that we&#8217;re not skilled enough to share our faith. Here&#8217;s a two minute clip from Brian Holdsworth describing how he got started creating his YouTube channel in a way that embodies a humble, almost reluctant attitude that guards against being an annoying content creator.</p>
<p class="p1">CLIP:</p>
<p class="p1">After seeing the success of Apostle, that&#8217;s like word on fire. I wanted to encourage other preachers and teachers to do the same, and I had a clergy friend here who I thought would be great in that role. He was one of the more prominent evangelists and preachers in this archdiocese, so I kept on encouraging him. I bought all the video gear. I learned how to use it, and I tried to convince him or anyone to sit down in front of the camera so that we could take advantage of the opportunities that new media was presenting to the church&#8217;s mission as had been proven as a proof of concept by people like Bishop Barron, but I, busyness and reluctance got in the way and I couldn&#8217;t convince anyone to do it. I had this studio all set up and no talent in front of the camera, so out of restlessness and a desire to practice what I was learning and to provide a proof of concept for potential evangelists that I could work with.</p>
<p class="p2">I sat down in front one day and I just ranted about a topic that was being debated here in Canada, but was only getting one side of the argument, and then after turning the camera off and watching it back, I watched it and I thought, huh, that&#8217;s actually serviceable. So I somewhat reluctantly and Bashfully started posting these little sessions that I would have in front of the camera to my own YouTube channel, fully expecting that nobody was going to watch them, but that they might serve as at least a portfolio piece to show my production skills to prospective clients. And honestly, to my complete surprise, people started watching and interacting with those videos in fairly large numbers. At least it felt large to me. At one point, someone ripped one of my videos from my channel and then posted it to their Facebook page, and it ended up getting half a million views. It was at that point I realized that what I said had the potential to reach a lot of people. So as you&#8217;d expect, I decided to take it more seriously and to focus more on what I thought people needed to hear about, which was the Catholic faith.</p>
<p class="p1">Trent:</p>
<p class="p1">Finally, we should make everything we do as artists beautiful. This means surpassing objective standards for aesthetics and making the words and images that we create, even if they&#8217;re a humble posts on social media, make them of the highest quality. But that doesn&#8217;t mean everything we make has to be sunshine and rainbows. Flannery O&#8217;Connor is one of the great modern Catholic authors, and she specialized in grim sometimes violent stories that we&#8217;re still rooted in the faith without beating you over the head with the message. John Paul II says, even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, artists give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption. That means it&#8217;s okay in moderation to post about bad things in the church. Michelangelo even took artistic revenge on a papal master of ceremonies who complained about nudity in the Sistine Chapel by painting that priest in hell.</p>
<p class="p1">But just as the Sistine Chapel has far more glory to balance out this slight, we should not disproportionately focus on the church&#8217;s warts. When a person consistently posts about the bad things in the church, it&#8217;s a sign that they&#8217;ve become a content creator, mining an addictable product, even if they don&#8217;t realize it. In this case, anger, and they&#8217;ve lost sight of the artist&#8217;s duty to save the world through beauty. I&#8217;ll leave you with these words from John Paul ii. Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden for God, which is a lover of beauty like St. Augustine could express in incomparable terms late Have I loved you? Beauty so old and so new late. Have I loved you? Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day. I.</p>

The Problem with Christian “Content Creators”

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DIALOGUE: Would Heaven Be Hellish?

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<p><strong>DAY 210</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHALLENGE</strong></p>
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<p>“Why can’t we explain the Resurrection appearances by saying Jesus had a twin who was crucified, making the disciples innocently think Jesus was raised? An early Christian text called the Acts of Thomas says Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother (Acts of Thomas 11).”</p>
<p><strong>DEFENSE</strong></p>
<p>The Acts of Thomas is a Gnostic document from the third century. It has no historical value for learning about Jesus’ life. It also does not claim Thomas was crucified in Jesus’ place.</p>
<p>The Acts of Thomas claimed Thomas was Jesus’ twin because certain Gnostics venerated Thomas. They thus seized on the fact that, in Ara- maic, Thomas means “twin” and claimed he was Jesus’ own twin.</p>
<p>Thomas probably did have a twin, leading him to be called “the Twin” (John 11:16, 20:24, 21:2), but it was someone other than Jesus.</p>
<p>Only about 3 in 1,000 births involves identical twins, so it is antecedent- ently very unlikely that Jesus had a twin. When we look at the biblical evidence, this is confirmed. Scripture records Jesus’ birth (Matt. 2:1; Luke 2:7), but makes no mention of a twin, as it does on occasions when twins were born (Gen. 25:24–26, 38:27–30). Having a twin—especially an identical twin—is highly unusual and noteworthy, and we would expect it to be mentioned in the accounts of Jesus’ birth and infancy.</p>
<p>Further, Thomas was one of the apostles during Jesus’ ministry, but if he were Jesus’ twin, he would have been his brother, and John makes it clear that “even his brethren did not believe in him” during his ministry (John 7:5).</p>
<p>Also, if Jesus and Thomas were twins, the other apostles would have known it, and the question of who was crucified would have immediately arisen.</p>
<p>While the idea that Thomas was crucified could explain how Jesus appeared alive after the Crucifixion, it would not explain how the two could appear alive together (John 20:24–29), or why the Jerusalem authorities didn’t go to the tomb and produce Thomas’s corpse.</p>
<p>Finally, the twin hypothesis would not explain how the apostles saw Jesus ascend to heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9–11). Having a twin does not enable you to fly.</p>
<p>The twin hypothesis thus does not explain how the apostles could have innocently thought they saw Jesus alive after the Crucifixion.</p>
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The Twin Hypothesis

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<div>Is it permissible to venerate a relic of the true cross at our church on Good Friday rather than a crucifix?</div><div><p>Well, yes, as long as the relic is enshrined in a cross. But, frankly, it would be better just to have the crucifix for the liturgy and have the relic exposed during the day for veneration. I do know one parish that had a cross especially made to house the relic for use on Good Friday. This seems to me legitimate.</p>
<p>In the basilica of the Holy Cross in Rome, I myself have witnessed that on Good Friday they use the relic of the Holy Cross brought to Rome by St. Helena in the fourth century. So there is some precedent for using a relic for the adoration of the cross.</p>
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May a Relic Be Venerated Instead of a Crucifix?

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Word of Broken Faith

<p>Dan Burke gives his testimony from Occult to Catholic, how Jesus saved his life, and shares stories of those who influenced him in his journey.</p>
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From the Occult to Catholic: Love builds a bridge for Truth

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<p>&#8220;Is there an obligation to kneel during the consecration?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on liturgical practices, alongside inquiries about whether individuals should approach for a blessing if not receiving communion, and the role of the sign of peace in the Novus Ordo. The episode addresses various aspects of Mass participation and the significance of different rituals.</p>
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Do You Have to Kneel During the Consecration?

<p><strong>Episode 114: Year C &#8211; 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time</strong></p>
<p>In today’s episode, we focus on six details in the readings for this upcoming 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. The first detail is the whole of the first reading, taken from Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, and 8-10. It’s not necessarily a detail that comes up in apologetical discussions. But it does serve an apologetical purpose insofar as it gives biblical justification for the Catholic Liturgy of the Word. The next three details come from the second reading, taken from 1 Corinthians 12:12-30. The relevant apologetical topics are the intercession of the saints, the salvific efficacy of baptism, and the Holy Spirit’s distribution of spiritual charisms. The last two details are found in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21, and the apologetical topics there are Luke’s credibility as an historian and Jesus’ Messiahship.</p>
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<p>Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012625.cfm">Click Here</a></p>
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