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Patrick Lencioni discusses a Catholic approach to dealing with conflict, emphasizing most of all the need for humility and the desire to learn the truth rather than to win the argument.
Transcript:
Host: John in Wilmington, North Carolina, listening on Wilmington Catholic Radio, you are on with Patrick Lencioni, what&#8217;s your question, please?
Caller: Yes, I wanted Patrick&#8217;s opinion about a strategy for dealing with conflict. And here&#8217;s what I would suggest. It&#8217;s kind of a general thought process, is that through the clash of differing opinions comes the spark of truth. And a way that I&#8217;ve dealt with, in consultation, with others when we have differences, it could be personal issues between two people, it could be, let&#8217;s say social issues in the Catholic Church where people differ in their opinions about things.
And one&#8211;the steps I would say, and I&#8217;d like your feedback on this and your thoughts and then I&#8217;ll hang up once I share these. Number one is: first identify what are the spiritual principles that various people feel are related to whatever this issue might be; number two, agree that those are relevant principles that could be taken from Scripture, they can be taken from the Magisterium, can be taken from a personal experience; and number three, consult about those after you&#8217;ve agreed on them, and then begin to deal with what the real truth is, whatever that matter might be.
And the reason I say this is that if you identify spiritual principles and can agree on them, it&#8217;s kind of taking the ego out of the picture and now you have the essence of what are the issues that relate. Maybe you&#8217;re talking about how to deal with the poor, and happen and how we deal with the poor in our community for example.
Host: Okay John, let&#8217;s let Pat take a shot at that.
Patrick: That was great, John, I mean I there&#8217;s a lot of wisdom in what you said. And so I&#8217;ll just add some things to that. I think that that&#8217;s&#8211;when we talk about building trust before we engage in conflict, it&#8217;s about getting people to be vulnerable enough, and if you&#8217;re a true Christian and a follower of Jesus you can&#8217;t be anything but. This is what humility is, it&#8217;s like &#8220;I am NOT God, and I just want to serve God,&#8221; and we have that in common.
So if you do that, and if you start with prayer, and like, when you&#8211;when a church goes to have a difficult conversation about something going on in their parish, or if two people, priests or otherwise, want to have a good theological conversation because they&#8217;re not on the same page, goodness gracious, if two bishops sat down and said &#8220;I think you might be off on this,&#8221; if they prayed hard and said, &#8220;God send us your spirit and your truth, and take away our egos, and let us do what you want,&#8221; and they&#8217;re both eagerly seeking that, well you&#8217;ve got to figure that most of the unhealthy conflict is gonna go away.
And I think two things that I would say to people is, one, think about St. Francis of Assisi, who said &#8220;Seek to understand more than to be understood,&#8221; and we&#8217;re called to do that. And if we go into these situations seeking to understand where the other person is coming from, rather than trying to win the argument, we&#8217;re much more likely to do that. And then one of my favorite prayers is the Litany of Humility, that was written by a pope years ago, I wish I can remember which one, but which is just asking God to give you the grace to let go of the desire to be considered and understood, and to overcome your fear of being&#8230;it&#8217;s just to be truly humble.
And if you&#8211;if two people can sit down and agree that they&#8217;re here to serve Jesus, they pray together, humility is at the center of this, and they want to understand one another, this is&#8211;conflict is only gonna become the pursuit of the best answer in truth. The problem is when we engage in that without trust, without humility, without prayer, and without seeking to understand.
So I think what I&#8217;m saying to you, John, is your thoughts are great, and I think it&#8217;s completely, completely about our faith, and that&#8217;s why churches should be better at making decisions than anybody because they should be calling on God to intervene for them every single time. So you&#8217;re right John, that&#8217;s my short long answer way of saying you&#8217;re right.

An Approach to Dealing with Conflict

Catholic Answers apologist Tim Staples addresses concerns about reading books by figures like Machiavelli, previously banned by the Church. While those bans are no longer binding, Tim emphasizes the importance of understanding the Church&#8217;s reasons and assessing your own spiritual maturity. He encourages informed reading for those strong in faith but advises caution for those susceptible to the presented ideas.
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Transcript:
Edward, thank you for the call. Go ahead with your question for Tim. Hi Tim. Yes, hello. Okay, so there was a recent book that I had been turned off of because I discovered that it included some work by Machiavelli and I understand that Machiavelli&#8217;s works were all banned by the church for quite a long time, even though it&#8217;s my understanding that that&#8217;s been discontinued. So I wanted to ask, would it be sinful to read literature by people like Machiavelli? No, it would not be sinful. But I appreciate your question, Edward, because I do think that we need to take seriously those, you know, documents from the church. The church is our mother. She loves us. And there&#8217;s a reason why the church banned those. And remember, we&#8217;re talking about a time when there was a lot of illiteracy. There was a lot of naivete, like we don&#8217;t have it today, right, Cyco? I think it&#8217;s with all the images, you know, from video and all that. I think we&#8217;re becoming less literate, not more literate. Yeah, it is true. And so we have to take those things seriously. But of course, from a canonical perspective, no, they do not have any binding force any longer. But yeah, I want to know what books were banned and what were not, but then I will read them.
And it&#8217;s okay to read them, understanding why did Holy Mother Church say no, because hey, there&#8217;s stuff in here that&#8217;s dangerous. But remember, even those, you know, lists of banned books, it didn&#8217;t mean that theologians and philosophers could not read them. That was a list, generally speaking, for the faithful. Hey, these things are bad. They can lead you astray. Don&#8217;t read them. But of course, the church had theologians and scholars and seminary professors and stuff that read them even back then in order to refute them, right? And so yeah, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with it, but we still have to take seriously. And I would add this, Cy, Kelly. Yes, Tim Staples. That if you&#8217;re weak in your faith, you shouldn&#8217;t. Now, I can&#8217;t tell you that, you know, this is a near occasion of sin for you and you can&#8217;t do it, but you need to be honest with yourself. I mean, it&#8217;s like porn. We all know, right?
You don&#8217;t look at porn because it can lead you and will lead you into sin. Well, in the area of the faith, if you read stuff that&#8217;s shaky, I know my son Luke, who&#8217;s listening probably right now, Luke loves to grab some of&#8211;he reads everything. My son reads every book in the house. My goodness, this kid is, he&#8217;s just a voracious reader, but he&#8217;ll pick up McCarthy&#8217;s book, you know, or some book like that. And I have to warn him, hey, you know, that&#8217;s not&#8211;that&#8217;s actually a guy teaching false teachings and whatnot. And so I warn him and then he can warn it. He can read it properly. And if he has questions, he can ask me. So that&#8217;s what we have to do is if we&#8217;re reading these things, we&#8217;re reading them in order to understand the world better so we can evangelize better.
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Can Catholics Read Banned Books?

Typically, Protestants who believe in the “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/once-saved-always-saved">once saved always saved</a>” doctrine also believe we can “know” we have eternal life. And the knowledge here is taken to be knowledge with absolute certainty, i.e., having no possibility of error—as opposed to knowledge with moral certainty, which involves the possibility of error. They often <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/can-we-know-that-we-have-eternal-life">cite 1 John 5:13</a> for support.
There’s a corollary that goes with the above belief—namely, that if someone falls into grave sin, then he was never really saved in the first place. This often is posed as <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/meeting-the-protestant-response-how-to-answer-common-comebacks-to-catholic-arguments/">a counter</a> to a Catholic who, in trying to defend the idea that it’s possible to lose your salvation, cites a person whom most thought was truly a “born again” Christian and yet committed grave sin—e.g., adultery or apostasy.
It never occurred to me until recently that this corollary is incompatible with the belief that we can “know” we have eternal life.
Think about it: according to the above belief, committing a grave sin is a sign that a person was never saved in the first place. But here’s the question: do we have absolute assurance that, from this day forward, we will never commit a sin like apostasy that signifies we were never saved in the first place? The answer is no.
Now, if we don’t know whether we’re going to eventually commit such a sin, then we don’t really know with absolute assurance whether we’re really saved in the first place or not. We wouldn’t have such assurance until we die.
So, the belief that we can “know” with absolute assurance that we’re saved is logically incompatible with the belief that a grave sin committed by a “Christian” is evidence that he was never really saved in the first place.
Protestants who profess the above two beliefs must choose which belief they will keep. Which will it be? Our Protestants friends will have to decide.

“You Were Never REALLY Saved”

Is Halloween too obsessed with evil for Christians to participate? Is it <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-halloween-a-pagan-festival">descended from a pagan holiday</a>? Is it really contrary to faith or morals to decorate your house with spiders, dress up in a costume, and go trick-or-treating? Jimmy Akin gives the answers.

Can Catholics Celebrate Halloween?

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Does Christmas fall apart without Santa?

FEMALE PASTOR calls Catholic show

Back in my Episcopalian days in the Deep South, I remember hearing a fascinating conversation between a mother and son on their arrival at church. The son was asking his mother about why they came. She began to tell him about how they come to learn about God, but he stopped her and says, “But mom, I already like God!”
There’s no special wisdom in this statement, just honesty. If you don’t believe in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, if you don’t believe in the Sunday obligation, if you think Christianity is just having a friendly attitude toward God and other people, it makes sense that, in the long list of priorities, it should fall somewhere below cleaning the house, helping the kids do homework, playing golf, and spending time with family. When all those other things are in order, and we happen to be well rested and not too busy, maybe we can make it to church. And what’s wrong with that? I mean, we already like God.
Is it our job to make people like God? That is, I suppose, one model of ministry, represented well by Amaziah in our reading from Amos. He is a court priest. His job is to fill the king’s ears with happy religious support. His job is to keep the peace in the name of God, or the gods, or whatever convenient powers happen to be at hand. And in today’s passage, that means rebuking the true prophet, Amos. Go back to Judah where you belong, he says. Maybe they’ll appreciate your prophecy there.
But for Amos, unlike Amaziah, this isn’t about personal gain; it’s about the truth. He is, by his own testimony, not a professional: he doesn’t come from one of the prophetic dynasties or the formal groups of prophets devoted to Scripture and prayer. He is not so different, maybe, from the disciples in today’s passage from Mark, where the Lord sends them out two by two. How are they prepared for this mission? By years of training and discipline, by mastering the latest evangelistic techniques and rhetorical styles? None of the above. Their preparation consists of simply watching and listening to Jesus. Their instructions do not include a complicated playbook or set of quotas—just a reminder to keep moving and not worry too much about it if they’re not welcome. Their goal, too, isn’t just to make people like God, but to lead people from shadows into truth, from knowledge to worship.
Let’s bring this back to the present. You already like God. Good. But our job, yours and mine, is not to like God, or even just to know God, but to worship God. Worship literally means to ascribe worth to something or someone. In our beautiful marriage rite, a man says to his wife, when putting on the ring, “With this ring, I thee wed; with my body, I thee worship.” To worship God is to live in such a way as to make it clear, to ourselves, and to others, that God is the source of all worth, all value, all goodness. Worship is a whole way of life. It flows from the altar, through the church, and out into the world. Worship is putting our loves in order; it is arranging our priorities and our lives—from our heads to our wallets to our loins to our feet—in a way that shows that God is the most important thing.
For Amos and the other prophets, worship is the end game. Modern people love quoting the prophets about justice, but injustice, for the prophets, is a problem precisely because it disrupts worship, because it suggests the finality of a world without God, a world without meaning or relationship. Justice is having everything in order—which is to say it is much more than punishment or prevention. The just world is a world ordered and oriented to worship. Worship is what we are for. It is why we were made. In the philosophical way of putting it, it is our final cause: our “meaning of life.”
There is probably no better way in this world to be prophetic than to act as if worship is the most important thing in the world. Prophecy involves both action and word—the ability to name, at times, behaviors that disrupt the Church’s worship. Amaziah shows that priests are sometimes incapable of doing this themselves. Amos the prophet, however, is “a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees.” He’s no cleric, that is. He’s a layman. But he is able to ask the right questions, the sorts of questions that laypeople today can and do still ask. What is the most important thing? Is it God, or is it not stepping on anyone’s toes? Is it God, or is it preserving capital? Is it God, or is it making life easier for ourselves? Is it God, or is it being safe?
You don’t need an advanced degree in theology to answer those questions. In fact, sometimes theologians (and I speak as one) can make things so complicated by nuance and distinction as to lose the point. God is the most important thing. Our lives find their ultimate meaning when they are shaped and ordered around the worship of God. So, despite the Amaziahs of this world telling us to stay in our own lane and not “force our religion” on people, we have to insist, like Amos, that actually all questions about justice and morality and human politics and economics come down to worship—in other words, to what we were created for. Those demanding that we keep “religion” out of the public square are declaring that, in order to talk about the journey, we have to forbid any discussion of the destination or why we are making the journey in the first place.
Whether we are called to the modern-day royal court, or to some other more ordinary place, Jesus sends us out on his business. The question isn’t whether we have all the right skills or the perfect techniques to win the day. The question is whether we are willing to go, or to be, where we are sent, trusting in our Lord—to reveal that the purpose of all things is only found in Christ.

The Meaning of Life

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Do Catholics believe they must earn salvation?

Jeff Cavins and Father Mike Schmitz are now doing for the catechism what they did for the Bible. Cavins joins us to explain the value of the catechism in sharing the Faith.

Making Sense of the Catechism

Archbishop Alexander Sample discusses the role of listening in the mass and the various parts of the liturgy to which we can attentively listen.
Transcript:
Host: So we go to James in Dallas, Texas, listening online. James, your question for Archbishop Alexander Sample.
Caller: Hi there, Archbishop Sample. Anyhow, basically I was just wondering if listening is the most important role of a congregant in the pews; especially what I mean by that, listening to the homily or sermon and hopefully the priest will touch on a current topic and then what I call grounded in in solid Gospel teaching instead of so many people in the pews &#8220;praying, paying, and exiting,&#8221; as I like to call it. What is your overall view on that?
Abp. Sample: Well thank you James, that&#8217;s a very good and important question, I&#8217;m glad you asked it because listening, being receptive at at the mass is very much a part of that full, active, conscious participation in the Sacred Liturgy. And I think that&#8217;s, you know, listening and being what some might call passive during the Sacred Liturgy is like&#8230;in the minds of many liturgical people it&#8217;s sort of like the mortal sin of Mass is that you ever be in a passive mode. And by &#8220;passive&#8221; I don&#8217;t mean&#8230;that&#8217;s probably very much the wrong word to use. To be in a receptive mode, a receptive mode, to be listening, as James said, to be listening to the Word of God. To be listening to the prayers of the Mass.
I mean, how many of us, five seconds after the opening prayer of the Mass, the Collect of the Mass, can remember what the priest just prayed? Are we even listening to what that prayer says? The other texts of the liturgy are very important, and many of them deeply rooted in a long tradition. But to be in that listening mode, to be listening to the Word of God, to be listening to the prayers of the Mass, to be listening to, hopefully, what is a meaningful and spiritually uplifting homily. Sometimes also to be listening to the sacred music that is being sung. Sometimes the choir, or the schola, will be singing something that isn&#8217;t meant for congregational singing but is meant for choir.
But listening, being in a receptive listening mode to the sacred song, also is a form of active participation. This is what I was trying to get at earlier too, is this idea that we&#8217;re participating interiorly, we&#8217;re participating with our mind and our heart, but that means having open ears, open mind, open heart to be receptive to the Grace that that Christ wishes to give us through our participation in the Sacred Liturgy, so I think that&#8217;s a very important question.

What Role Does Listening Play at the Mass?

Catholicism seems to be rules obsessed.

How do I explain to protestants that they have tradition also?

It seems like Catholics are inconsistent with their interpretation of the use of the word “until” in Scripture.

How do Catholics reconcile the idea of a Catholic view of Jesus and Protestant view of Jesus?

What exactly is tradition?

Dr. Karlo Broussard answers common objections and questions about Catholicism, including whether the Church is too focused on rules, how to explain to Protestants that they also rely on tradition, and whether Catholics interpret “until” inconsistently in Scripture. He also discusses reconciling Catholic and Protestant views of Jesus and clarifies what tradition means in the Catholic faith.

Is Catholicism Too Focused on Rules? A Catholic Response

If there’s one thing Catholics and Protestants can agree on, it&#8217;s that whatever we believe can’t contradict Scripture. But some Protestants think the Catholic belief in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption">Mary’s bodily assumption</a> into heaven contradicts John 3:13.
There, Jesus says, “No one has ascended up to heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.” If “no man” has ascended into heaven, so the argument goes, wouldn’t that include the Blessed Virgin Mary?
The answer is no; and the reason depends on how we interpret “ascend into heaven.” There are three possible meanings, as far as I can tell.
<ul>
<li>One meaning is simply entrance into heaven.</li>
<li>Another is the unique way in which Christ entered into heaven—by his own power.</li>
<li>Still another is Jesus’ possession of the Beatific Vision.</li>
</ul>
My claim is that none of these meanings excludes Mary’s bodily assumption.
Let’s take the entrance meaning first.
We know Christ can’t be excluding absolutely everyone else from entering heaven, since that would go against other things he’s revealed to us (cf. Rev. 5:8, 6:9, 7:4-10). Therefore, he must be referring to the timing of people entering heaven compared to himself.
Now, remember, Jesus is saying this long before Mary’s bodily assumption. So, at the time this statement was uttered, it was true that no one had “ascended” into heaven in the sense of entering heaven, including Mary, because her earthly life hadn’t come to an end yet and she hadn’t been bodily assumed.
So, on the view that “ascend” means entrance into heaven, Mary’s bodily assumption doesn’t conflict with John 3:13.
Well, what about the other meaning for “ascend”—namely, the unique way in which Christ enters heaven? Wouldn’t Mary’s bodily assumption rob Jesus of that privilege?
It would if we believed Mary went into heaven in the same way as Christ. But that’s not what the Catholic Church teaches. We don’t believe Mary “ascended” into heaven. Rather, she was assumed, which is essentially different.
The difference is that Jesus ascended into heaven by his own power. He was the active cause of his bodily entrance into heaven. Mary, on the other hand, was entirely passive, being brought bodily to heaven by God, just as all Christians will be bodily assumed into heaven by God at the end of time.
Given this difference between ascension and assumption, we can conclude that the Church’s teaching on Mary’s bodily assumption doesn’t conflict with the second possible meaning of John 3:13.
There’s one more possible meaning for “ascend”—namely, the beatific vision. One might interpret “ascend” in this way because Jesus’ statement seems to imply that he already “ascended” into heaven, for he says, “No one has ascended up to heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.” How can Jesus have already “ascended” into heaven before his ascension in Acts 1?
The answer is the beatific vision. It is part of Church teaching that Jesus had the beatific vision while here on earth. So, he was “in heaven,” or “ascended into heaven,” even before visibly ascending into heaven with his resurrected body.
Now, on this reading, Jesus’ statement is not falsified by the belief that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven. When Jesus said this statement, which was long before Mary would enter “heaven,” it was true that no one had the beatific vision. This statement was even true given that no righteous soul from the Old Testament had yet entered the beatific vision.
So, no matter how we read the phrase “ascend into heaven,” Mary’s bodily assumption doesn’t conflict with John 3:13. Thus, John 3:13 fails to disprove Mary’s bodily assumption.

Did Mary Break the Rules of Heaven?

<blockquote>Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly (Matt. 1:18-19).</blockquote>
So writes the Holy Spirit through the Evangelist, St. Matthew, in describing the virginal conception in the womb of the Holy Mother of God, Mary, and the ensuing, though temporary, decision of St. Joseph, her husband, to “send her away” quietly.
“Why was Joseph going to separate himself from Mary?” The immediate response may well be that he suspected her of adultery, but did not want to make this publicly known lest she be shamed and, indeed, stoned to death. Surely, as St. Thomas Aquinas references in his famous Catena Aurea, this was the response of some of the great Fathers of the Church to this question—e.g., John Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine (see Catena Aurea, Volume I, The Saint Austin Press, 1997). Given the scriptural data, as well as these corresponding interpretations from such great authorities, we might consider this question settled.
However, not so fast . . . for there are some other considerations to be made in order to more conscientiously answer this question. This theory—the “Suspicion Theory”—is not the only “game” in town!
Aquinas, in his masterful commentary on the Holy Gospel according to Matthew and the aforementioned Catena Aurea, points out that in addition to the Suspicion Theory, there are two other interpretations of Matthew 1:19’s reference to Joseph’s decision to dismiss Mary.
The first, which we will call the “Confusion Theory,” holds that Joseph was not suspicious of Our Lady, but rather was simply confused as to how she was with child.
The other of these alternative interpretations, the one upon which we will focus here and which we shall call the “Reverence Theory,” holds that Joseph knew exactly what was going on—i.e., that this child was the promised Messiah and that Mary, the Holy Virgin Mary, his betrothed, was none other than the promised Virgin of Isaiah 7:14: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear as son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Proponents of this theory include such great ones as Jerome and Origen, as Aquinas references both in the Catena Aurea and in his commentary on this Gospel:
<blockquote>According to Jerome and Origen, he had no suspicion of adultery. For Joseph knew Mary’s chastity; he had read in the Scriptures that a virgin will conceive (Isa. 7:14) and, and there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root (11:1); he also knew that Mary was descended from David. Hence he more easily believed that this had been fulfilled in her than that she had fornicated. And therefore, considering himself unworthy to live with such great sanctity, he wished to hide her away, just as Peter said, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Luke 5:8). Hence he did not wish to hand her over, i.e., to take her to himself, and receive her in marriage, considering himself unworthy (see chs. 1-12).</blockquote>
Some may be inclined to think that this interpretation is an “overly pious” stretching of the true meaning of the Scriptures on this matter, ignoring the obvious meaning of divine revelation on this question. But is this so?
Before we answer that directly, we must remember that in order to interpret the Scripture properly, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches (see 112-114), we must be attentive to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture, read the Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church, and be attentive to the “analogy of faith”—i.e., the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of revelation. It is only by employing these three principles that we can interpret the Scriptures properly, especially difficult passages.
We can now say that the Reverence Theory given by Jerome and Origen (and seemingly gaining popularity in the Church as time goes on) is hardly “far-fetched.” For if we utilize the aforementioned three principles of scriptural interpretation given in the Catechism, with the aid of the development of dogma, we today can realize just how holy the Mother of God is—i.e., that she is the Immaculate Conception (as she herself told St. Bernadette at Lourdes and as the Church has infallibly defined).
Furthermore, as the centuries progress, the Church seems to be very much growing in her appreciation of the holiness of St. Joseph. “The opinion that St. Joseph is <a href="https://www.ecatholic2000.com/lagrange/saviour/mother.shtml">the greatest of the saints</a> after Our Lady is one which is becoming daily more commonly held in the Church” (p. 277). In recent centuries, numerous papal documents have been written about him, greater importance has been given by the Church to his feasts, he has been given greater titles (e.g., “Patron of the Universal Church”), his litany has been expanded, and his name was added both to the Roman Canon and to the other Eucharistic Prayers. Consider, too, this strong statement made by Pope Leo XIII concerning Joseph: “As Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures” (Quamquam Pluries 3).
Thus, as the centuries roll along, Holy Mother Church’s eyes are penetrating more keenly into the holiness of these two key figures, Mary and Joseph, so closely connected to the incarnation of Our Lord. With that penetration, the Church is gradually coming to see that their holiness surpasses—far surpasses— the holiness of other saints.
This is an important point to make for our question. For, as Aquinas teaches (see Summa Theologia IIa-IIae, q. 60), the nature of suspicion is such that the more pure one is, the less inclined he will be to be suspicious of others.
Given all of this—the employing of the previous principles of scriptural interpretation given by the Catechism, the development of doctrine that the Church has undergone over the centuries on the high level of holiness of both Mary and Joseph, and the nature of suspicion—we can now simply ask an alternative question: “Would Joseph, being as holy as he is, ever suspect Mary, being as holy as she is, of adultery?”
Even if one still holds to the Suspicion Theory, such a one should, at the very least, be able to see that it is hardly unreasonable to hold to the Reverence Theory.
But if we in fact do hold to the Reverence Theory (as, in fact, the author of this article does!), we get a very different “picture”—one much “warmer”—of the great St. Joseph. We see a man who, contrary to being suspicious of the Immaculate One, is much more inclined to believe that she was, indeed, the promised Virgin of Isaiah 7:14 (a prophecy that Joseph himself helped fulfill—see Matt. 1:22-23). Further, it is his humility—not suspicion, but humility—that moves him to regard himself as unworthy of Mary (whom he would know to be the bride of the Holy Spirit) and her divine son! Further, if we hold to this theory, we can only imagine the joy that Joseph must have felt when he was told by the angel that he indeed was worthy to be the husband to the Mother of God and the virgin-father of her divine son: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife” (Matt. 1:20).
St. Joseph, worthy husband of the Holy Virgin Mary, pray for us!

Why Did Joseph Want to Put Mary Away?

<div>Did the Church change its teaching on whether non-Catholics can go to heaven?</div><div>No, the Church hasn&#8217;t. Problem is, that teaching has been misunderstood and sometimes misrepresented by various people over the centuries. For a good primer on the subject, see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/salvation-outside-the-church">our tract “Salvation Outside the Church.”</a>
</div>