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

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.

Life as a Refugee

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.

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.

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.

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>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).
Another possible explanation is that Jesus wept because of human death that sin wrought within his creation. According to W. Leonard in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, 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.
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” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 184).
</div>

What Moved Jesus to Tears?

<div>Would it be a sin to participate in facilitating a divorce as a family law attorney?</div><div>Saint Pope John Paul II had this to say about Catholic legal professionals and divorce:
<blockquote>
<blockquote>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.
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.
(<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>)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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.
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.
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.
</div>

Catholic Lawyers and Divorce

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
This prayer, used in the Ordinariate form (Divine Worship) of the Mass, is remarkable, and quite different from what most Catholics hear today.
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 fourth Sunday of Advent—not to be confused with a different “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.
Today, I want to point out the clarity with which our prayer highlights the meaning of Advent. It does so in two ways.
First, it reminds us that Advent is a time of penitence. 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 not yet here, 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.
Second, the prayer reminds us that the first Advent is intrinsically related to the second. The purpose 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.
How then, should we prepare to avoid being taken suddenly and unawares? I think Scripture and tradition give us two definite ways to prepare.
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.
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 so that 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?
In a way, it is harder to see Jesus in our fellow Christians 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.
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 get 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.

Find Christmas Now

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.
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.
Yes, I know—there are many socio-economic factors 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.
Young people might say, “Well, I’m not afraid of marriage per se. 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.
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).
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!
In the end, though, we still come back to courage. 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.
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?
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 is a vocation.
“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 affects 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.”
That, of course, therefore implies that the choice of a spouse also involves spiritual discernment. Does this person share my values in what counts? 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.”
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 except getting ready for Christ.
If one can trust another “’til death do us part” 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?
But don’t let “prudence” turn into fearful paralysis. You cannot control everything. In fact, you’ll find in life that what you can 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).
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).

Marriage Takes Courage

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 cleansing of the Temple: “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.
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:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
The idea here is this: if this is a heavily messianic psalm, 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.
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!
So how are Catholics to respond?
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. polumeros, ‘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:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
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:
<blockquote>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. episcope, ‘bishopric’] let another take” (Acts 1:20).</blockquote>
Not exactly a one-to-one fulfillment.
Second, if we are going to insist on one-to-one fulfillment 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,
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
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!
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 and their New Testament fulfillments, where they find their fuller meaning.
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.
Yes, the New Covenant is “hidden in the Old,” as St. Augustine famously said, but that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. 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.

The Psalm that Disproves Mary’s Perpetual Virginity?

<div class="page" title="Page 376">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 366
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“This book doesn’t include my objection to the Faith!”
DEFENSE
A single book can only do so much. Therefore, let me recommend some more resources that may help.
<ul>
<li>The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli: This is an excellent survey of the general evidences for the Christian faith, written by a pair of scholars who communicate in a manner easily accessible to all.</li>
<li>Scaling the Secular City by J.P. Moreland: This was one of the first apologetic books I read when I began studying the field. Dr. Moreland is an outstanding scholar who carries the discussion to a level satisfying for those who want to go deeper.</li>
<li>Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: This is another popular-level work that covers the basics of why one should choose to be a Christian, written by one of the greatest Christian authors of the twentieth century.</li>
<li>Miracles by C.S. Lewis: The topic of miracles and how they relate to science is one of the most misunderstood subjects in apologetics. This book contains valuable insights.</li>
<li>Hard Sayings by Trent Horn: There are many books about passages of the Bible that are difficult to accept for one reason or another. Trent’s book is written from a Catholic perspective and takes advantage of the current state of magisterial thinking.</li>
<li>The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin: As we’ve seen in this book, the Church Fathers are an important witness to the teaching of Christ and the apostles. My own book on the subject shows what they taught on numerous subjects and how this corresponds to the teaching of the Church today.</li>
<li>The Drama of Salvation by Jimmy Akin: One of the most sensitive subjects between Protestants and Catholics is how we are saved. This book discusses the subject in what I hope is a calm and constructive manner.
I hope these recommendations help. God loves you; may he reward your further studies and bless you richly!
Your pal,
—Jimmy Akin</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

What This Book Doesn’t Cover

The author of Meeting the Protestant Challenge 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.

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>Those who espouse “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/transgenderism-how-did-we-get-here">transgenderism</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.
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">hermaphrodites </a>who, though they manifest both male and female anatomical aspects at birth, are either biological boys or girls.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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>
Transgenderism? <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/20-answers-homosexuality/?searchid=10502014&amp;search_query=sex">Homosexuality</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">Made This Way </a>by Leila Miller and Trent Horn

</div>

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>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.
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.
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.
</div>

How Do I Answer the ‘Rock Too Heavy to Lift’ Challenge?

Is the unborn child a human being?

Pregnant women need support from a committed man.

Abortion solves problems for men who want to behave badly.

When life begins

The Pope Francis pro-life position

Invitation to Pro-Choicers

<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>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.
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.
The fact is that the effect of the anointing of the sick is precisely the removal of the remains of sin (the fomes, 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.
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.
</div>

Who May Receive the Anointing of the Sick

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.

Horoscopes, Astrology, Catholicism, Oh My!

Everyone Who Goes To Purgatory Ends Up in Heaven

In this episode Trent talks about a problem he sees with the idea of a Christian &#8220;Content Creator.&#8221;
Transcription:
Trent:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CLIP:
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.
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.
Trent:
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.
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.

The Problem with Christian “Content Creators”

If you can think, you can pray. If you can desire, you can pray. Father Hugh Barbour explains why including God in the things you are already doing can turn your life into a life of prayer.

Prayer Tips for Busy People

DIALOGUE: Would Heaven Be Hellish?

<div class="page" title="Page 220">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 210
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“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).”
DEFENSE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
The twin hypothesis thus does not explain how the apostles could have innocently thought they saw Jesus alive after the Crucifixion.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

The Twin Hypothesis

Why being Catholic is the fullness of Christianity  ✝️

How did you arrive at your beliefs pre-conversion?

How did you change your mind about Christianity not working for society?

What came first for you: believing in the teachings of the Bible and the Church, or the sense of a personal relationship with Jesus?

I experienced the same thing as Christine did with dreams coming true. What is that?

Were there any Catholic dogmas that were particularly hard for you to accept?

Not Just Spiritual

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

<div>Is it permissible to venerate a relic of the true cross at our church on Good Friday rather than a crucifix?</div><div>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.
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.
</div>

May a Relic Be Venerated Instead of a Crucifix?

To support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/counseloftrent

[NEW] Counsel of Trent merch: https://shop.catholic.com/apologists-alley/trent-horn-resources/

Be sure to keep up with our socials!
https://www.tiktok.com/@counseloftrent
https://www.twitter.com/counseloftrent
https://www.instagram.com/counseloftrentpodcast

Have you heard of Pascal's wager?

Raised in the Prosperity Gospel, Lisa Cooper ultimately found freedom and healing in the Catholic faith. She shares with us what it&#8217;s like growing up in the Word of Faith movement, and how that movement came to be what it is today.

Word of Broken Faith

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.
Dan Burke is the founder of Avila Institute and co-host of the Divine Intimacy Radio Show. To learn more about Dan, visit: https://spiritualdirection.com/author/dan

From the Occult to Catholic: Love builds a bridge for Truth

Is there an obligation to kneel during the consecration?

Should people go up to receive a blessing or stay in their pew if they are not disposed to receive communion?

I’m in OCIA. Should I be going to Mass?

The sign of peace throws me off in the current place in the Novus Ordo. What should I be doing?

Why is the penitential act missing in these last couple of Sunday masses?

Is it better to think about the sacrifice of the cross or of Jesus as the high priest during the Mass?

Are choir members required to kneel like the rest of the congregation?

Why would 1st century Christians recognize more, the Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo?

&#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.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub?email">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

Do You Have to Kneel During the Consecration?

Episode 114: Year C &#8211; 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
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.
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-3e747287f40b833b body-half">
<div class="jsx-3e747287f40b833b body-half">
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012625.cfm">Click Here</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-baf003ec846595e7 body-half">
<div class="jsx-3e747287f40b833b body-half">
<div class="jsx-3e747287f40b833b body-half">
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>
</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>

Saints, Baptism, and Jesus’ Messiahship | Year C

Protestants sometimes describe the Reformation as a sort of return to the early Church, away from what are claimed to be corrupt Medieval Catholic practices. But is that really true? Let&#8217;s take a closer look at six major controversies in the earliest days of Christianity,/ (including the fights against Docetism, Gnosticism, Novatianism, Donatism, and the persecution of Christians by the Romans). The results might surprise you!

6 Early Church Controversies Protestants Can’t Explain

<div class="page" title="Page 7">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
Introduction
The history of Christianity is one of debate. As the Gospels reveal, Jesus was challenged right from the start. Rival schools like the Pharisees and Sadducees posed pointed questions to him, trying to trap him in his words and even to get him in trouble with the authorities. Some of Jesus’ most famous statements were responses to challenges from his critics:
<ul>
<li>“What God has joined together, let man not put asunder.”</li>
<li>“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”</li>
<li>“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.”
Our world is very different from the one in which Jesus lived. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. If people posed challenges to Jesus, they will do so to us as well.
A disciple is not above his teacher, but every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40).
In our religiously fragmented but highly interconnected world, people from countless perspectives pose challenges to the Faith every day—in conversations, through the mass media, and on the Internet. There is no escaping this daily onslaught.
The solution is to mount a daily defense—to respond to the many challenges that we, as believers, are presented with. Hence this book: It takes up a different challenge every day of the year (plus a bonus challenge for leap year), and shows how you can defend the Faith and give answers to those skeptical of it.
Each page is devoted to a single challenge, which is posed at the top of the page in the challenge section. The defense section that follows contains a brief summary of what you can say in response. Obviously, there is much more that can be said on each subject, but here we will cover the highlights—the key talking points. In some cases there will also be a tip, which will frequently be a recommendation for a book where you can learn more.
Challenges to the Faith are often unexpected, and the ones in this book are arranged in a way that reflects that. Each day presents you with something new, often dealing with a very different subject, so there is constantly something fresh to learn and think about.
The book is designed so that no matter when in the year you first pick it up, you can start on Day 1 and read straight through for a whole year. It’s also designed so that you can quickly find responses to challenges that people put to you. Just check the alphabetical index in the back to find specific responses.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="page" title="Page 8">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
If the Faith is faced with many challenges today, the good news is that there are solid answers, so we should not be surprised or intimi- dated by them. Instead, we should be prepared. As St. Peter said:
Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (1 Pet. 3:14–15).
May God bless you and your efforts as you learn and defend his holy Faith.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

The Need for a Defense

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, talks with Cy about pro-life politics and the feminine power of Mary, mother of Jesus. A convert to both the pro-life movement and the Catholic Church, today Dannenfelser is one of America’s most important leaders in the fight for the right to life.

Pro-Life and Pro-Woman

<div class="page" title="Page 142">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 132
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“The Catholic Church is too uptight about divorce. People ought to be able to freely divorce and remarry if they choose.”
DEFENSE
The Church’s teaching on divorce is humane, just, and rooted in the teaching of Jesus.
The Church’s teaching is humane, for it recognizes that there can be legitimate reasons to obtain a divorce under civil (secular) law: “If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense” (CCC 2383). Thus nobody is required to live in an intolerable or unsafe situation, such as with a physically or emotionally abusive spouse.
The Church’s teaching is just, for it recognizes that the spouses have made a serious commitment to each other in marriage. There must be grave reason to justify civil divorce, because divorce “introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society” (CCC 2385).
The Church’s teaching is rooted in the teaching of Jesus, who took a strong stand against the permissive attitude toward divorce in the ancient world. Stressing that marriage was instituted by God, so that husband and wife are joined together in a divine institution, Jesus famously stated: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6).
He also warned that—because they are united together in this way—they are not free to marry other people if they do divorce: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11–12; cf. Luke 16:18).
This same teaching is reflected in the writings of Paul, who specifically tells his readers that the teaching comes from “the Lord”—i.e., the Lord Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2–3). He writes: “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Cor. 7:10–11).
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Church Teaching on Divorce

I'm Not Catholic Because You Don't Speak In Tongues

year machinist wants to give Jacob words of encouragement and is thrilled about the College of St. Joseph the Worker.

I am a carpenter who just started my own business. How do I appropriately price my work for clients, so it is fair but also takes care of my family?

I find it hard to find and hire capable young men. Boys and young men just don’t seem confident to learn or try.

What are your thoughts on the practice of land surveying as it appears in the bible?

Many employers struggle to find skilled and confident young workers—Jacob Imama, Founder of the College of St. Joseph the Worker explores why this is happening. We explore the challenges in hiring today’s workforce, along with advice for carpenters on pricing their work, words of encouragement for tradesmen, and biblical insights on land surveying.

Catholicism and Trade Work in the Modern Era

It’s open mail-bag time and for this episode, Trent is taking all your questions on atheism and proofs for the existence of God!

Atheism Open Mail-Bag!

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

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

<div>How will God respond to one’s prayer to have a specific person to fall in love with her or him?</div><div>God will always respond positively to a prayer to love our neighbor. However, this does not mean that a romantic or affective love is necessary or even desirable. God will give us the grace to desire the true good of our neighbor, and that is love. If it is his will that our desire for our neighbor&#8217;s true good includes our &#8220;falling in love&#8221; or being romantically connected, then he will give us that as well. In any case, it is always a good thing to ask for God&#8217;s gifts, especially the ones that only he can give.
</div>

Praying for Someone to Fall in Love with You

I Asked 11 Catholic Creators What Book Changed Their Life

Tom Nash explores the controversy surrounding the term &#8220;accompaniment&#8221; and delves into its true meaning, emphasizing the importance of genuine love, humility, and support in helping others grow in their faith and address challenges.

Love in Action: Navigating Controversies with Accompaniment

The Gnostic Strain in Protestantism

<div class="page" title="Page 308">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 298
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“When you look at all the different religions in world history, the odds of yours being the right one are low. We should conclude that religious truth, even if it exists, is unknowable.”
DEFENSE
This overlooks both the way religious views are structured and the role that evidence plays.
Consider a parallel: Throughout history there have been many scientific theories about the way the world works, but they contradict one another and can’t all be true. The odds of a single theory being correct are thus low and we should conclude that, if scientific truth exists, it is unknowable.
There are two major problems with this argument.
First, it ignores how scientific views are structured. Every field has certain basic questions on which there are a limited number of answers. There may be diversity in the details, but the basic options are limited.
In physics, a basic question is whether matter is made of tiny, discrete particles (the atomic theory) or whether it is an infinitely divisible continuum. Similarly, in religion a basic question is whether there is a single Creator God or not. Adherents of the view that matter is made of particles may differ on the details of how particles work, but they are united on the fundamental nature of matter. Similarly, religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam may differ on how they understand the Creator,butt hey are agreed on the fundamental question of monotheism.
Whether selecting among scientific or religious views, one is not faced with infinite diversity. Both fields are structured around certain basic questions that, once settled, lead to more specific questions in- volving detail.
Second, the parallel argument given above ignores the role of evidence. The odds of selecting the correct scientific or religious views would be low if one had no evidence as to which are true, but the fact is that we do have evidence. In science, experiments provide that evidence, and in religion, apologetics does.
Thus the multiplicity of views on science and religion should not lead to despair about finding the truth. What one needs to do is identify the basic questions a field involves, to look at the evidence concerning those questions, and when they are settled to move on to more detailed questions.
The principles are the same, whether one is investigating scientific or religious truth.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Many Religions

The same people who preached “accountability” in 2020 are now getting canceled by their own rules...

Jimmy Akin outlines the Church&#8217;s teaching on why non-baptized people who cooperate with God&#8217;s grace to the fullest degree can still hope for salvation.
Transcript:
Host: Let&#8217;s go to Jorge in North Hollywood, California listening on Immaculate Heart Radio. Jorge, you are on with Jimmy Akin.
Caller: Thank you gentlemen for taking my call, I have a question regarding salvation of souls. People who have faith in Jesus Christ and all his teachings and in the Church but unfortunately never had the opportunity to be baptized into the Church, is there any hope for their, you know, for their soul to be in Heaven? Do they pass on?
Jimmy: Well, the Catholic Church&#8217;s teaching is that, yes, there is hope, because if someone is not able to become a Catholic through no fault of their own, then God will enable&#8211;God&#8217;s not gonna hold that against them. It will enable them to be saved as long as they otherwise <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/grace-what-it-is-and-what-it-does">cooperate with the grace that they&#8217;ve received</a>.
So if someone has a positive response to God&#8217;s grace, and they&#8217;re not able to, you know, fully embrace the faith or fully become part of the Church, for whatever reason, let&#8217;s say they might have a terminal disease while they&#8217;re in RCIA, and they might die before they&#8217;re able to be received into the Church. That would be just one example. It&#8217;d be an obvious example of where someone was&#8211;through no fault of their own&#8211;was unable to be received into the Church.
But it illustrates the principle that it&#8217;s not an absolute necessity for one to enter the Church. It&#8217;s a normative necessity, it&#8217;s what God wants, it&#8217;s what he intends, and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-can-anyone-deserve-eternal-hell">if through your own fault you say, &#8220;Nah, I&#8217;m not going to do that,&#8221; well then you&#8217;re in trouble</a>. But if through no fault of your own you&#8217;re unable to do that, and you otherwise are striving to respond to the grace that God has given you, then God will make it possible for you to go to Heaven. And you can read more about that in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Caller: All right thank you Jimmy, that actually makes me feel real good, thank you.

Can Those Unbaptized Through No Fault of Their Own Be Saved?

Some critics say not only that Catholics can be socialists, but that they should be socialists because that was how the first Christians lived. They cite Acts 2:45, which says, “all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.” But when we examine the biblical and historical evidence a different picture emerges: the first Christians lived in communities that practiced voluntary charity rather than mandatory communism or socialism.
Classic socialism (which in many contexts is interchangeable with the term “communism”) rejects the natural right to own private property. Bhaskar Sunkara, the editor of the popular socialist magazine Jacobin <a href="https://jacobin.com/2016/02/socialism-marxism-private-property-person-lennon-imagine-kenny-loggins">wrote in 2016</a>, “Radically changing things would mean taking away the source of capitalists’ power: the private ownership of property.” This is why <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html">Pope Leo XIII said</a>, “the main tenet of socialism, [the] community of goods, must be utterly rejected.”
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a prohibition against owning private property. We do find the practice of believers placing goods at the apostles’ feet for communal distribution (Acts 4:34-35), but even this generosity is not mandated for all Christians.
Given the persecution of the early Church, it made sense for Christians to share communal property and meet in private homes for worship (1 Cor. 16:19), but those practices are not proof that all Christians are obliged to live this way. If socialism was morally required of Christians we would expect the New Testament to say this or at least mandate a tithe, but as New Testament scholar <a href="https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/download/705/685">Craig Blomberg points out</a>, while tithing was commanded of God’s people in the Old Testament, “no New Testament text ever mandates a tithe but rather commands generous and sacrificial giving instead.”
Further, Acts 2:45 does not unambiguously say first century Christians completely renounced private property. The verse literally says of the faithful and their possessions, “they were selling and were dividing them to all” (Gr. hyparxeis epipraskon kai diemerizon auta) rather than “they had sold and distributed them to all.”  Luke’s use of imperfect verbs in this verse seems to describe a continuing process of selling extra property and goods in order to support the poor. But in order to do that Christians would have had to retain some private property even after becoming believers.
Some critics contend that the story of Ananias and Sapphira shows that renouncing property and giving it to the apostles was mandatory. Acts 5 describes how this couple, “kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” But a careful reading of the passage shows the couple’s sin was not their mere withholding of property from the collection. Peter says the property was theirs before they sold it. Rather, it was their lie to the Apostles, who represented God’s authority that incurred this fatal judgment (Acts 5:3-4).
After the apostolic age, pagan critics like Lucian and Christian apologists like Justin Martyr describe Christians sharing goods in common with one another, a practice which isn’t surprising given that by the second century Jews who worshipped Jesus had been expelled from the synagogues and the Romans persecuted those who openly admitted to being Christian. Deprived of traditional social structures, Christians relied on each other for survival and were so generous that the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_letters_1_trans.htm">noted how they</a> “support not only their own poor but ours as well; all men see that our people lack aid from us.”
However, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart in his article, &#8220;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/christianity-communism.html">Are Christian Supposed to Be Communists?</a>&#8221; claims Christians repudiated wealth even after they were longer persecuted, saying, as an example: “The great John Chrysostom frequently issued pronouncements on wealth and poverty that make Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin sound like timid conservatives.” But believers were required not to renounce their wealth, but to be generous with the poor. Chrysostom said as much <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1915.htm">with words that would outrage Karl Marx:</a>
<blockquote>A rich man is one thing, a rapacious man is another: an affluent man is one thing, a <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04462a.htm">covetous</a> man is another. Make clear distinctions, and do not confuse things which are diverse. Are you a rich man? I forbid you not. Are you a rapacious man? I denounce you. Have you property of your own? Enjoy it. Do you take the property of others? I will not hold my peace.</blockquote>
In short, the early Church challenges us to be generous with whatever blessings God has given us. It does not teach that Christians are required to give up private property in favor of socialism, much less that they endorse socialism. This can be seen in St. Paul’s petition to the Corinthians that they give to a collection for poor believers in Judea. He never commanded them to do this, but instead he hoped, “it may be ready not as an exaction but as a willing gift . . . Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:5,7).

The First Christians Were Not Socialists

In the name of LBGT rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center has begun labeling Catholic and other Christian-leaning institutions as “hate groups.” We talk with Family Research Council Senior Fellow, Chris Gacek, and Communications Director and Legal Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, Kerri Kupec, about the serious consequences of such labeling.

Slander from the South (Part 1)

Catholic apologist Karlo Broussard joins Cy Kellett to tackle a challenging question from caller Ariel about the Catholic doctrine of hell. Is it possible for hell to be empty? Could annihilationism be true? Drawing on Scripture and the nature of the immortal soul, Karlo explains why the Church rejects annihilationism and what this means for our understanding of sin, judgment, and eternal life.
Transcript:
Cy: Which Catholic doctrine troubles you? Let me put it that way.
Caller: Basically, the doctrine that, you know, there&#8217;s an eternal hell, right? And that everyone&#8217;s going to go to this hell and it&#8217;s going to suffer forever. Because historically, there were a lot of early church fathers who disagreed with that idea. I chanced upon a book written by a priest. His position on it was basically that it&#8217;s possible, it&#8217;s not necessarily a heresy to believe in a thing called annihilationism. And so it&#8217;s possible that it is in fact not the case that when this person is sent to hell, they&#8217;re going to be eternally tormented. They may actually just cease to exist. Which I think anybody could agree that that&#8217;d be kind of nice if that was the case. Right? So I guess that&#8217;s what bothers me. I&#8217;ve looked it up and nobody can really point to anything particular that I can see to the real, actual doctrine that would make that impossible.
Karlo: Okay. Okay, Ariel, it&#8217;s a great question. So here&#8217;s my first statement. It is true, according to my knowledge, I cannot. Let me just make the claim and then I&#8217;ll make my comments afterward. The Church does not infallibly teach that hell will be factually populated at the end of time after the final judgment. And notice I emphasize infallibly. Now, that&#8217;s presupposing or assuming distinct levels of Church teaching. The reason why I say that is because I can, at least currently, according to my current knowledge, would not be able to defend the thesis. And I know many theologians who would agree that we would not be able to defend the thesis that the Church has infallibly taught that hell will be factually populated.
Okay? Now, that does not mean that the Church has no teaching on the factual population of hell. And in fact, I just had an episode of my local radio show called the Catholic Reason here in the Diocese of Tulsa, and the episode is on what the Church teaches about factual damnation. You can go to my website, carlaverssart.com, look under the Catholic Reason tab, and it&#8217;ll be the latest episode of my radio show where I document for you, Ariel, where I argue that the Church, in her magisterial teaching, which is official Church teaching, but within the non-infallible category, but nevertheless authoritative, that the Church envisions hell to be a reality and factually populated, which for us, as a Catholic, at least, Ariel, would not permit us to assent to the idea that hell will not be factually populated, or in this case, annihilationism.
So, as a Catholic, we would have to at least give religious submission of intellect and will and defer to this ordinary teaching of the Church in the non-infallible category concerning the factual population of hell. So that&#8217;s what I argue in that episode and I document the magisterial references for you there.
Now, with regard to annihilationism itself, I think we can conclude that it is false based upon certain lines of evidence. So for example, if we look to the biblical evidence, I think our Lord is very clear in Luke 13:23-24, when he&#8217;s given us the teaching about the way that leads to hell is wide and the door through which you pass to get on that path to hell and the way that leads to heaven is narrow. And Jesus says that some will seek to enter the gate that leads to that path, but will not do so. They will not enter the door, which the implication is to salvation.
So I think we can provide a strong argument that Jesus teaches that some in fact will not be saved and thus will not enter heaven. Now, of course, that raises that. That at least eliminates the idea that all will be restored, but it does leave open the possibility of annihilationism. And so we would have to look at evidence from Sacred Scripture that would indicate contrary to that. And I think the Book of Revelation is key there. It talks about the demons along with other human souls that will be in the lake of fire, indicating that there you have some who will be forever punished and not annihilated.
And then also I do think we can also appeal to Luke 13:23-24 where Jesus says some will not enter the door, but the implication is that they will remain outside of not entering the door. The further implication being that they&#8217;re not annihilated. Jesus says nothing there to indicate that they would be annihilated.
But also I think we can employ a line of evidence from reason itself based upon the revealed data that we have. Ariel, we can think about annihilationism and we can think about the nature of the soul and conclude that it would be contrary to God&#8217;s divine wisdom to annihilate a soul. So consider this. God creates the soul as the kind of thing that is immortal by nature. That&#8217;s just its nature, that once the soul exists, it belongs to its nature to always exist.
Now, is it theoretically possible, subject to God&#8217;s all-powerful nature, to annihilate a soul? I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas in saying yes, that&#8217;s at least possible given his omnipotence, but he would not do so because it would be contrary to his wisdom to create a soul that of its nature is immortal only to make it not immortal. That doesn&#8217;t fit divine wisdom. And so I think that&#8217;s a line of evidence from reason that we can construct an argument and say and conclude annihilation would not be true.
And then further, I do think that annihilation would take away from the gravity of a mortal sin, which is a definitive rejection of God. For someone to definitively reject themselves from God but yet be annihilated, it would in some way seem to undermine the gravity of the sin.
And I address this issue of annihilationism in one of the chapters in my book *Prepare the Way*, where I give different lines of reasons why I think annihilationism is false. So you might want to check out that book *Prepare the Way*.
Cy: And I&#8217;m going to leave it there because we&#8217;re going to take a quick break.
Ariel, thank you very much for the call.

Eternal Hell or Soul Annihilation: What Happens After Death?

Where Is Purgatory In The Bible? — EVERY Objection to Purgatory Answered!

<div class="page" title="Page 175">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 165
</div>
<div class="column">
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“The Catholic Church hid God’s commandment against idolatry by removing it from the Ten Commandments.”
DEFENSE
The Church didn’t try to hide the commandment against idolatry. In fact, it condemns idolatry.
The Ten Commandments are in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. If you look in a Catholic Bible, the prohibition is right there: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:4–5; Deut. 5:8–9).
The Catechism also forcefully condemns idolatry (CCC 2112–2114).
What the Church does—like every Christian community—is pro- vide short summaries of the commandments for memorization. The full text of the Ten Commandments is between 300 and 400 words long (varying by translation), so every group uses a brief, memorizable list instead.
In Catholic and Lutheran lists, the prohibition of idolatry is subsumed under the broader commandment “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7). Some communities treat these as separate commandments, but this is a matter of choice. We are told that there are “Ten Commandments” (Exod. 34:28), but the text contains more than ten requirements and prohibitions. Interpreters must group some of them together to make the total come out to ten, but there is no single way to do this.
“The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities” (CCC 2066).
In the ancient world, having other gods meant worshipping idols, so it makes sense to see the prohibitions on both as bringing out different aspects of the same commandment.
The common way of numbering the Ten Commandments in Jew-ish circles agrees and groups the prohibitions on polytheism and idola- try together in a single commandment.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Hiding the Commandment Against Idolatry?

Are Christians Just Sexual Hypocrites?

<div>Why exactly is sexual intercourse outside of marriage a mortal sin? </div><div>Sexual intercourse outside of marriage is a grave sin because in order to perform the acts that lead to the bringing forth of new life, the couple need to be united in a stable, permanent union that guarantees that the child to be born can be cared for and brought up for the service of God and neighbor in a consistent and reliable way.
The principal end of sexual intercourse is the procreation of children, and so the pleasure of the couple or the satisfaction of desire is only right if it is in the context of a union that can take care of the new life. This means that the man and woman have to love each other in so committed a way that they are willing to bear children to each other. To deal with sexual intercourse in any less careful way is a grave sin.
</div>

Why Extra-Marital Sex Is a Mortal Sin

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

You squirm and roll your eyes. It’s election season, and your pastor has given his opinion on another political issue in his bulletin column. You like your pastor. He is a good priest, and you are so grateful for him. But when it comes to this topic . . . you just don’t see it the way he does.
Does being Catholic mean listening to your pastor on politics? Can he tell you how to vote? How does the “separation of Church and State” apply?
You should note that your pastor’s stance on an issue might be very different from that of the priest at the next parish down the road. This helps us clarify that we should worry less about what a particular priest says or thinks about political matters and more about what the Church teaches. In fact, the Church does not think that priests are the go-to source for political guidance. As the Vatican II document Guadium et Spes puts it,
<blockquote>secular duties and activities belong properly although not exclusively to laymen. . . . Let the layman not imagine that his pastors are always such experts, that to every problem that arises, however complicated, they can readily give him a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission. Rather, enlightened by Christian wisdom and giving close attention to the teaching authority of the Church, let the layman take on his own distinctive role.</blockquote>
So should we wholeheartedly embrace the “separation of Church and State”? Though this phrase does have more intellectually robust and morally sound definitions, what it often means in our modern context is the exclusion of religious language, thought, and even moral reasoning from politics.
With that understanding, the answer is “no”—this is not an option for the Christian. It also would have been completely alien to the Founders of our country and even most secular Americans until quite recently. We have a duty to bring the gospel to the social and political order. As stated in paragraph 43 of Gaudium et Spes,
<blockquote>It is for them (all Christians) to give an example by their sense of responsibility and their service of the common good. In this way they are to demonstrate concretely how authority can be compatible with freedom, personal initiative with the solidarity of the whole social organism, and the advantages of unity with fruitful diversity.</blockquote>
Our politics must be formed by our faith. So is there a Vatican checklist, where we can look up the “Catholic position” on particular policies or candidates that we, the lay faithful, are supposed to endorse?
No, there is not. Just as the Church does not have a program of “Catholic Medicine,” it also does not have a list of policies that make up “Catholic Politics.” Rather, the Church recognizes that there may be valid differences in opinions among Catholics:
<blockquote>Often enough the Christian view of things will itself suggest some specific solution in certain circumstances. Yet it happens rather frequently, and legitimately so, that with equal sincerity some of the faithful will disagree with others on a given matter. . . . They should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good (Gaudium et Spes 43).</blockquote>
These questions call for what is known as “prudential judgments,” or decisions that best solve a problem in the particular time and place. The duty to care for the poor is timeless, but how to go about it may look different in twelfth-century Assisi compared to twenty-first-century New York City. Good people with well thought out reasons may arrive at different or even opposing ideas on the best way to approach a given issue. Even bishops and Church documents give suggestions or opinions on practical matters that may be at odds with one another.
<blockquote>When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question (Donum Veritatis 24).</blockquote>
This does not mean that the Church has nothing authoritative to say on moral issues pertaining to politics, just as it is not silent on moral issues encountered in the medical field. The Church has authority from Christ through the bishops and popes to define faith and morals. We cannot reject this and still be faithful Catholics. We can disagree, however, on the best way to apply such teachings to complex realities. As Trent Horn <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-a-prudential-judgment">puts it</a>,
<blockquote>Unlike principles of doctrine and morality, the Church has not definitively taught which specific answers the faithful should embrace when it comes to implementing moral principles. . . . In some cases, differing geographical, cultural, social, or economic circumstances could change which answer is most appropriate for a given community.</blockquote>
If your priest preaches the moral principles laid out by the Church, then you should prayerfully listen and apply them to your political thought. You are not adopting his opinion; you are trying to live out the Christian life in how you vote.
If, however, he puts forth his opinion on particular ways to meet those moral demands, you should feel free to disagree with him if you have prayerfully researched and thought through the issue and come to an opposing conclusion.
Most priests avoid offering their prudential judgements in parish communications. It could be an unnecessary barrier to the Faith if people confused your pastor’s opinion for the gospel. What he (and you!) must remember is the following caution from Gaudium et Spes:
<blockquote>It is necessary for people to remember that no one is allowed in the aforementioned situations to appropriate the Church&#8217;s authority for his opinion. They should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good.</blockquote>
We may have differences of opinion on how to best apply Church teaching to particular social, economic, or political challenges. Let us make sure that when finding solutions, we neither neglect the moral law nor give an unnecessary stumbling block to others by conflating our judgment calls with Church teaching. Instead, let us communicate the light and truth of the gospel so that they can be saved and contribute their own insights into these prudential discussions for the common good.

Must I Agree with My Priest on Politics?

<div class="page" title="Page 268">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 258
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“Why do you claim that the biblical authors used a different level of precision than we do?”
DEFENSE
Approximations were more common because of the inability in the ancient world to accurately measure and record things (see Day 248).
We can show Scripture uses many forms of approximation, including:
<ol>
<li>Numerical approximations: For example, a basin in Solomon’s temple is said to have a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits (1 Kings 7:23; 2 Chron. 4:2), indicating the approximate value of π (pi) as 3 (see Day 197). Numerical approximations are also involved when we encounter stock numbers in Scripture (40, 120, 1,000, etc).</li>
<li>Verbal approximations: Because the ancient world had no recording devices and few stenographers, ancient audiences didn’t expect written dialogue to be a verbatim transcript but an approximation of what was said. Reconstruction and paraphrase were normal. We see examples when Scripture presents parallel accounts of the same events and the biblical authors give dialogue in somewhat different forms (e.g., in the Gospels).</li>
<li>Descriptive approximations: Every time we describe an event, we must decide which details to include and omit. There is an inescapable element of approximation in every event description, and this applied to the biblical authors too. Consequently, one evangelist may mention that Jesus healed two men on an occasion, while another may streamline the account by mentioning only one (see Day 37). Similarly, one author may give a more detailed account by mentioning both the principals in an encounter and the agents they employed, while another may mention only the principals (see Day 124).</li>
<li>Chronological approximations: Usually, the ancients did not keep detailed chronological records, and they had the liberty to record events either chronologically or non-chronologically, within the same general time frame (e.g., within the ministry of Christ; see Day 89).</li>
<li>Literary approximations: We often convey truth using literary devices not meant to be taken literally (“We should roll out the red carpet for this visitor”), and so did the ancients (see Day 31). Symbolism and figures of speech like hyperbole are common in Scripture.
Approximations are intrinsic to human speech; we can’t avoid using them, and we use the same kinds as the ancients. We just use them differently.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Approximation in the Bible

How can bodily resurrection exist if the universe itself will end?

Why does invoking Jesus’ name stop abductions?

Do psychotropic drugs affect our free will?

Why did early Church Fathers appeal to Scripture instead of papal authority?

If God is perfect and needs nothing, why create humans and angels who could fall?

Why must children be raised by biological parents, but adoption is allowed?

&#8220;How can bodily resurrection exist if the universe itself will end?&#8221; This question opens a fascinating exploration of faith and theology, alongside discussions on why invoking Jesus’ name is believed to stop abductions, and whether psychotropic drugs impact our free will.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

How Can Bodily Resurrection Exist If the Universe Will End?

How can Catholics still hold councils without the Orthodox bishops?

Do you have to be Catholic in order to be saved?

What’s the Orthodox view of Immaculate Conception? Is the Orthodox canon different from ours?

Leo III wouldn’t add the Filioque to the Creed and gave his reasons?. Did the pope who added it ever give an explanation as to why?

Is it ok for Catholics to accept the Ethiopian canon description of Jesus?

I’ve heard some Orthodox say they don’t adore Jesus in the Eucharist because they view it as food. Is this uniform thought?

How can a non-Christian evaluate the competing claim of the Eastern Orthodox who also claims apostolic authority?

Why does the Eastern Orthodox allow contraception and Catholics don’t?

Can a person who became Eastern Orthodox from Catholicism just jump back and forth? How can Eastern Orthodox justify 3 sacramental marriages?

Do you think the Catholics and all other churches will ever fully reunite?

&#8220;How can Catholics hold councils without Orthodox bishops?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the complexities of ecclesiastical authority and governance. Additionally, the episode addresses whether one must be Catholic to be saved, the Orthodox perspective on the Immaculate Conception, and the differing views on the Filioque in the Creed.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub?email">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

How Can Catholics Hold Councils Without Orthodox Bishops?

<a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQ_BqMXFA&amp;t=35s">00:35</a> &#8211; The state of Christianity in Europe &#8211; Fr. Clemens Galban 
<a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQ_BqMXFA&amp;t=270s">04:30</a> &#8211; What are the differences between the Church in Europe and the Church in the U.S.? &#8211; Fr. Clemens Galban 
<a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQ_BqMXFA&amp;t=400s">06:40</a> &#8211; Is there a conflict between God and evolution? &#8211; Karlo Broussard 
<a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQ_BqMXFA&amp;t=1022s">17:02</a> &#8211; Can homosexual behavior be ordered toward God in any &#8220;proper&#8221; way? &#8211; Tim Staples 
<a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" spellcheck="false" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQ_BqMXFA&amp;t=1449s">24:09</a> &#8211; Is it ever impossible for someone to be saved? &#8211; Jimmy Akin

Catholic Answers | Season 5 | Episode 8

A caller asks the meaning behind St. Paul&#8217;s declaration that Christ became a curse for us in his Galatians 3:13. Joe Heschmeyer lays out biblical context and theological interpretations of this pivotal event in Christian history. Joe walks us through divine love, sacrifice, and the ultimate redemption.
Transcript:
In St. Paul&#8217;s epistle to the Galatians in chapter 3:13, he says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it&#8217;s written curse is everyone who hangs on a tree. This corresponds to a part in Deuteronomy 21:23 to be specific that says that those who were hanged on a tree were cursed by God. How is it that we can understand Christ becoming a curse without necessarily overcorrecting and saying, oh yeah, and God was completely cursing God and leading to this kind of Trinitarian view of the atonement, and how can we get this without overcorrecting? So I just want to know how.
Yeah, that&#8217;s a very good question and I&#8217;m very glad you asked that. So the first thing is when we talk about blessings and cursing, there&#8217;s a sense in which I think we use these terms without fully understanding what we mean by them. And a blessing is, I mean, in short, good things and a curse is bad things. And so quite clearly Jesus undergoes bad things. I mean, that&#8217;s obviously too mild of a way of putting it, but he clearly is cursed in that sense because he is going through a terrible suffering. We often don&#8217;t want to speak in that sense. I think we&#8217;re uneasy. But we could talk about job as seemingly being cursed by God. That doesn&#8217;t mean he wasn&#8217;t loved by God, but it does mean that God willed that he went through some hard times and that&#8217;s something that we should take very seriously.
So I think there&#8217;s a way people read the language of blessing and cursing, and they think that the people God blesses are the ones he loves, and the ones that He curses are the ones that he hates. And so you read something like, Jacob, have I loved Esau? Have I hated even there? Love and hate don&#8217;t work the same way that they do when we use that term in English. So likewise, when Jesus says you have to hate your father and mother to follow him, don&#8217;t literally hate your father and mother. That&#8217;s actually sinful too, that rather this is talking about blessing and cursing. This is talking about prioritization. This is talking about, we could say divine predilection, but it&#8217;s not talking about literal like dislike in cursing in that sense. That&#8217;s the first thing. Second, there&#8217;s a beautiful homily that then Cardinal Ratzinger gave on this theme in 2005, and he&#8217;s looking at two lines.
One is the one you mentioned from Galatians three 13, and the other is a parallel text in one Peter chapter two, verse 24, in which Peter says, in his own body, he brought your sins to the cross. And that gives us a hermeneutic to understand that Galatians three 13 seems to be saying the same sort of thing, that Christ is bearing the weight of our sins. And Raser says this, he says Christ Mercy is not a grace that comes cheap, nor does it imply that trivialization of evil Christ carries the full weight of evil and all its destructive force in his body and in his soul, he burns and transforms evil and suffering and the fire of his suffering in love. The day of Vindication and the year of favor converged in the Paschal mystery in the dead and risen Christ. This is the vengeance of God.
He himself suffers for us and the person of his son. So notice there the Father isn&#8217;t pitted against the Son. The vengeance of God is that Christ who is God takes on the full weight of sin and transforms it by his love and by his total gift to the Father. So this is when I talk about a good and evil way of viewing the cross. You don&#8217;t want to view where the Father a abandons and hates Jesus on the cross, that he turns his back on him because Jesus&#8217; words on the cross, even after crying out, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? What does he say after that, father, into your hands, I commit my spirit that we know the Father is actually looking in love at Jesus on the cross, and Jesus tells us that he will do so. In John 10, he says, for this reason, the Father loves me. No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down freely. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s happening, that this is something pleasing and good to God, that God the son, is carrying the full weight and burden of sin and transforming it in some way by offering this on our behalf to the Father.
Hey, thanks for watching. If you like this Catholic answer, be sure to like, subscribe and check out our live streams Monday through Friday, 3t o 5 PM Pacific, or find the episode after on YouTube, your favorite podcast platform or our Catholic Answers app.

Jesus Was Cursed By God in Galatians 3:13?

<div>what does “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" mean?</div><div>Recall that God established the sabbath as day of rest and spiritual worship (Ex. 20:8-11). However, the Pharisees had made keeping the sabbath according to their own stringent standards a test of Jewish faithfulness. Jesus makes clear that God made the sabbath to help people, to benefit them, not serve as a burden. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) provides further insight:
<blockquote>God&#8217;s action is the model for human action. If God &#8220;rested and was refreshed&#8221; on the seventh day, man too ought to &#8220;rest&#8221; and should let others, especially the poor, &#8220;be refreshed.&#8221;6 The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money (CCC 2172, footnotes omitted).
The Gospel reports many incidents when Jesus was accused of violating the sabbath law. But Jesus never fails to respect the holiness of this day. He gives this law its authentic and authoritative interpretation: &#8220;The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.&#8221; With compassion, Christ declares the sabbath for doing good rather than harm, for saving life rather than killing. The sabbath is the day of the Lord of mercies and a day to honor God. &#8220;The Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath&#8221; (CCC 2173, footnotes omitted).</blockquote>
For information on how the Lord’s Day fulfills and replaces the sabbath in the New Covenant, see CCC 2174.
</div>

“The Sabbath Was Made for Man, Not Man for the Sabbath”?

Do Catholics worship bread?

Why did they start letting the lay people partake in communion through the chalice? And why was it originally prohibited?

Why do some churches, during the penitential rite, omit the ‘I confess’ prayer?

Why can’t we see what is happening in heaven during the Mass?

What is my moral obligation to someone who I know is receiving communion outside of the state of grace?

John 6 compared 1 Cor. 11, why are there conflicting consequences?

What steps do we need to do to be able to return to the Catholic Church and receive communion?

We didn’t hear the Gloria yesterday at Mass. Why is that?

How do we get the most out of adoration? How can I better explain adoration to people?

&#8220;Do Catholics worship bread?&#8221; This episode delves into the nuances of Communion and Adoration, addressing common misconceptions. We also explore why laypeople were allowed to partake from the chalice, the omission of the &#8216;I confess&#8217; prayer during the penitential rite, and the significance of understanding our moral obligations regarding Communion.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub?email">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

Do Catholics Worship Bread, Communion and Adoration Explained

Featured Guests: Rose Sweet, Christopher Check, Tim Staples, Karlo Broussard
DONATE: give.catholic.com/castudios 
SUBSCRIBE: www.youtube.com/user/catholiccom 
WEBSITE: www.catholic.com 
Follow us on SOCIAL MEDIA 
Facebook: www.facebook.com/catholicanswers 
Twitter: twitter.com/catholiccom 
Instagram: www.instagram.com/catholicanswers
<ul>
<li>00:30 &#8211; Is the Church’s teaching on marriage hard to understand? – Rose Sweet</li>
<li>08:30 &#8211; The life and work of Sigrid Undset – Christopher Check</li>
<li>15:13 &#8211; Should we be “radicalized” as Christians? – Tim Staples</li>
<li>22:08 &#8211; Is our Faith completely separate from reason? – Karlo Broussard</li>
</ul>

Catholic Answers | Season 4 | Episode 6

In this rebuttal Trent critiques the claim that religious education of children is really abusive “indoctrination”.

“Religious Education is Abusive Indoctrination”

The essential elements of the Faith are immutable. The prophet Isaiah summarizes: “[My word] shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (55:11). The glorious Resurrection proves that God&#8217;s word, delayed by the obstacles of our sins, fulfills God&#8217;s will.
The Creed reveals the overall chronology of human existence. The Ten Commandments direct our lives to happiness. We encounter Jesus in the sacraments. Our study of Scripture and Church teaching is like playing a game of Scrabble. We delight in the interlocking reality of the pieces of the Faith and expand the narrative with our insights. We recognize and dismiss misspellings and deliberate distortions.
The Evangelists piece together the Gospels like a photo album. Just as we see pictures of family members from childhood to maturity, we read snippets of the life of Jesus, from his birth to his passion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. The Gospels, like a photo album, need faithful Christians pondering the word of God to fill in the details of the narrative with their life experiences.
The liturgy harmonizes the snapshot accounts of the Gospels into a living narrative. In the Sacred Triduum, the pinnacle of human history, we emerge from the three-day sacred drama with a deeper understanding of God’s eternal plan.
On Holy Thursday, Jesus presides at the Last Supper, ordains the first priests, institutes the new and everlasting covenant of the Eucharist, and proceeds to the Garden of Gethsemane where his enemies arrest him. On Good Friday, the chief priests place Jesus on trial and send him to Pilate for condemnation, and Pilate directs his soldiers to crucify him. Mary, his mother, tenderly holds the crucified body of her divine son in her arms. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea prepare and bury his body.
On Easter Sunday, Jesus rises from the dead, conquering sin, suffering, and death. Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Triduum encapsulates the entire liturgical year.
Advent prepares us for the first coming of Jesus. We rejoice in the word made flesh during the Christmas season. We continue with Ordinary Time—the public life of Jesus. We fortify our ongoing growth of faith with the saving truths revealed during Lent, Holy Week, the Sacred Triduum, and the Easter season. We resume our regular growth in the life of faith during summer. We prepare for death as the leaves fall. The concluding feast of Christ the King reminds us of his second coming. Jesus rules forever in heaven and on earth.
We see and feel the Jewish roots of the Sacred Triduum and every subsequent Mass. The tabernacle, altar, hymnody, the assembly, the “Temple,” and the elements of the Mass echo Jewish worship. The Liturgy of the Word fulfills and replaces the liturgy of the synagogue. The single sacrifice of Jesus in the Liturgy of the Eucharist fulfills and replaces the Temple sacrifices.
When Jesus died on Good Friday, the Temple curtain separating the people from the holy of holies was torn asunder. The torn curtain prefigures the removal of the chalice veil at Mass, preparing us to enter into the holy of holies of the Mass, the one sacrifice of Jesus.
The liturgy re-presents—makes present—those sacred three days. On Holy Thursday, Jesus instructs his priests, “Do this in memory of me.” On Good Friday, we may find ourselves among the chief priests, the big-talking but cowardly first priests, Mary, St. John, the holy women at the foot of the cross, and the brutal soldiers delighting in the mayhem or taking sides with the thieves flanking Jesus.
These ancient scenes, which the Scriptures and the sacred liturgy assemble into a coherent narrative, also have modern implications. We may prefer to find ourselves with Mary and the holy women at the foot of the cross. But we more likely would find ourselves in the crowd, shouting, “Crucify him!” We crucify our adversaries utilizing the same arguments we hear in the Gospel.
We feel the practical tug of Caiaphas: “You do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish” (John 11:50). We also convince ourselves that we can do evil to achieve a greater good, with the ends justifying the means. The “Caiaphas principle” presumes to justify every evil choice in war, politics, employment, and family. But what is greater than the life of a single innocent human being?
For most of us, Pilate is a sympathetic figure. The poor man is assigned to the hellhole of the Middle East as he looks for his next—more comfortable—assignment. He nobly tries to prevent a riot. He respects Jesus and is attracted to his words. But a cynical question in dialogue with Jesus was a conversation-stopper: “What is truth?” Jesus can’t expect him to know the difference between right and wrong! So Pilate surrenders Truth Incarnate for crucifixion.
Pilate flamboyantly washes his hands to plead innocence and heal his wounded conscience. He affixes “King of the Jews” on the cross to taunt the chief priests for provoking his murder of an innocent man. But Pilate needed a savior to forgive his sins. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (Ps. 51:2).
After the Resurrection, Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene in the garden. We are all familiar with Mary Magdalene’s story. She is heartbroken and is looking for her savior. She mistakes Jesus for a gardener. The dialogue is sweet and tender, with one word expressing Jesus’ perfect love: “Mary!”
A <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-creed-and-the-name-of-christ">name pronounced with love</a> puts an exclamation point on the mission of Jesus. Jesus knows and loves us by name . . . including Caiphas and Pilate. He desires to return to the Father, with us as his friends.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

The Catholic Photo Album

Scripture is full of little enigmas that add a bit of spice to Bible study—chasing down clues, unraveling conundrums, understanding the culture of the time and original languages, and connecting the dots. One of these enigmas is St. Paul’s mention of a messenger of Satan (2 Cor. 12:1-10) to keep him humble. What could that be?
Paul was given a “thorn in the flesh,” which he said was a messenger from Satan to harass him, to keep him from being elated due to the revelations he had received from God. Having such special and unique revelations could cause Paul to be puffed up and arrogant. Paul said God was keeping him humble with the affliction.
The Greek word for “thorn” is skolops, which means exactly that: “a small spike or thorn; typically found on bush or vine plants; especially that causes irritation and annoyance when touched” (Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament).
Speculations have swirled around the nature of the actual thorn, suggesting everything from psychological suffering such as sexual temptations or depression to temptations toward disbelief or even the constant resistance of his opponents. Others have argued for an actual physical malady, possibly one visible to the public.
As for me, I have always concluded that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was his eyes—something to do with his vision, or even an unsightly appearance. How do I get there? Let’s follow the clues and see.
At the moment of Paul’s revelation of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, the light is so bright that it blinds his eyes. We read,
<blockquote>Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. . . . Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. . . . And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight (Acts 9:3, 8, 18).</blockquote>
Now let’s look at a key passage, where Paul talks about his revelations and the affliction he was given to keep him from being “puffed up.” Though Paul is speaking in the third person, the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture and the Ignatius Press Study Bible deduce that he is referring to his own experience. This is the passage where he specifically mentions his eyes, and the context is quite telling.
<blockquote>I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. . . . And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter (2 Cor. 12:2, 4).</blockquote>
Notice that Paul heard things in heaven but does not mention that he saw anything. It is not unthinkable that his eyes, affected by the first revelation, may also be the bodily organ affected in this vision of heaven.
Paul then relates the result of the heavenly experience, now speaking again in the first person:
<blockquote>So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited (v. 7).</blockquote>
Though he prayed that this messenger of Satan, the thorn in the flesh, would be taken away from him, God let it remain, telling Paul that in his weakness, he was strong.
Now let’s see what Paul said to the Galatians. Here he alludes to a physical ailment, readily seen by others, and not some interior or mental condition.
<blockquote>You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (4:13-14).</blockquote>
The Galatians were the ones specifically affected by Paul’s ailment, but though it was a trial to them, it did not repulse them. Instead, Paul mentions their reaction: “For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me” (v. 15).
Why, if his eyes were not the obvious physical element that everyone could see, would Paul mention his physical ailment and then suggest that his hosts would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him? Out of sympathy for him, they would have eliminated his ailment by giving him their own eyes.
Now let’s look at a few hints that might confirm this conclusion.
We know that Paul dictated his letters to a scribe (an amanuensis), which is confirmed in Romans 16:22: “I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.”
It seems evident from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2 (“a letter seeming to be from us”) that imposters were writing in Paul’s name. So even though he had his letters written by various scribes, Paul signed his letters personally, with a unique style that, it seems, included large letters. Here are three examples,
<ul>
<li>“I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you” (Col. 4:18).</li>
<li>“I Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write” (2 Thess. 3:17).</li>
<li>“See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (Gal. 6:11).</li>
</ul>
If the issue was his eyes, it would make perfect sense that he could not write the small letters on the papyrus or parchment, and he therefore had his scribe write for him. But to ensure that the letter was actually from him and authentic, he signed his unique large letters. This style would fit perfectly with poor eyesight or diseased eyes.
Here’s another clue: in a Jewish trial setting in Jerusalem, Paul is confronted by the high priest along with the Pharisees and Sadducees. The high priest would be readily known by sight, with his unique priestly garb and appearance. The two Jewish sects would be, too. Anyone who was Jewish, was from Jerusalem, or had visited the Temple often would not mistake the high priest.
However, in this case the high priest Ananias, a well-known personage in Jerusalem, orders the men near Paul to strike him on the mouth. And Paul responds,  “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?”
<blockquote>Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people’” (Acts 23:3-5).</blockquote>
We could ask, why would Paul, who was “looking intently at the Council” (v. 1), not recognize the high priest unless he was not able to see him clearly—perhaps due to an eye condition?
Subsequently, Acts reports, Paul “perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees,” so he throws out a statement that causes dissension between the two sects. But had he not seen from the beginning that both groups were both there, and perceived it only later?
When we connect all the dots and consider all the clues, it seems likely or even certain that the “thorn in the flesh” that Paul suffered was visible, off-putting, and painful, and a condition that affected the bodily organs associated with both of the major visions he had received. Visibly diseased or oozing eyes would certainly fit all the puzzle pieces, and it seems to me to adequately explain the thorn in the flesh.
Is this just a bit of Bible trivia, or is there something deeper we can take away from it? Well, it is often the blind who see more clearly than the sighted. Or perhaps sometimes a man is made blind before he can see.
Paul is an example of this. He approached Damascus with eyes blazing with hatred, only to be blinded by light, to humble him before God and to show him the truth (Acts 9:8).
Another is a blind man near Jericho, who calls out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on us.” Why is this significant? Those following Jesus did not realize that he was the “Son of David”—a title for the Messiah. But the blind man could see what the sighted could not. He saw the spiritual reality—he recognized Jesus as the Messiah. His blindness was healed (Luke 18:35-43).
God works in our lives in many and often mysterious ways. His actions are not always what we expect or wish. But as with Paul, we can trust God in that whatever he brings our way. It is for our good and the good of the kingdom of God.

Tracking Down Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh

<div>Is there a chance God isn’t all knowing and all powerful? For example, if he was wouldn’t he have the power to allow us to love without the need to hate, while still keeping our free will? </div><div>No, God couldn’t be God without being all-knowing (omniscient) and all-powerful (omnipotent). If he had such limitations, he would be vulnerable to negative impact by someone or something greater than himself. In other words, he wouldn’t be eternal God, but someone created and limited, no matter how lofty his nature otherwise.
So as the eternal Son of God who became man, Jesus Christ not only didn’t sin, he couldn’t have sinned. Again, if he were vulnerable to sin, he would not have been God. Consequently, we see that the perfection of freedom is being impervious to—including being free from committing—sin, something the saints in heaven enjoy.
Mere human persons on earth, on the other hand, do not yet have such perfections, especially given our fallen nature. So while we are created without the need to hate, we can freely choose to hate. And if God prevented us from hating, he would not be truly loving us. For love coerced is not love at all.
And so it was with our first parents (CCC 374ff; 390.) God respected the free will of Adam and Eve. Yet, God also doesn’t let sin and death have the last word either, sending his only begotten Son to become man and redeem us all through his one Sacrifice of Calvary. So he gives us plenty of opportunities to repent and walk with him throughout our lives and accept his gift of salvation and persevere in it unto heaven.
</div>

Distinguishing between God’s Freedom and Our Free Will

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

<div class="page" title="Page 306">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
DAY 296
CHALLENGE
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
“Catholics violate the prohibition against adding to Scripture (Rev. 22:18–19) by including the Apocrypha (what Catholics call the deuterocanonicals) in their Bibles.”
DEFENSE
The passage in question does not mean what is supposed, and if it did, it would create a problem for Protestants.
The passage in Revelation states: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”
The term “book” (Greek, biblion) refers to an individual scroll, which was a work much shorter than the Bible. In the ancient world, it was impossible to fit the entire Bible into a single scroll. Physical constraints limited the size of a scroll to not much longer than an individual Gos- pel. Therefore, the passage in question refers to deliberately adding or removing words from the book of Revelation, not the Bible as a whole.
Of course, one should not add or subtract books from the Bible, but this is not what the passage is discussing. Even if it was, the Protestant community would have a problem.
The challenge supposes that at an early stage in Christian history the Bible consisted of only the books included in the Protestant canon and that the Apocrypha (i.e., the deuterocanonicals) were added at a later date.
This is false. The early Christians treated the Bible—including the deuterocanonicals—as Scripture, and it was at the time of the Protestant Reformation that a movement began denying their canonicity. Prior to this point, only some individuals did so, but the majority recognized the deuterocanonicals’ place in Scripture.
Thus Protestant church historian J.N.D. Kelly writes that, although some early Christian writers had different views regarding the status of these books, “For the great majority, however, the deuterocanoni- cal writings ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense” (Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed., 55).
It would therefore have been Protestants who removed these books from Scripture, violating the prohibition on taking away from God’s word.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

“Adding” the Deuterocanonicals

Cy Kellett is joined by Trent Horn to discuss a heartfelt question from a listener grappling with his faith after sexual abuse scandals in the Church.
Transcript:
Cy: The scandal of learning about priests who were involved in sexual misconduct and others who were involved with hiding or covering that up. You&#8217;re just like, no, I don&#8217;t need any more of this. And you stop going to Mass.
Caller: Yes. When I look at the priests that I was around as an altar boy growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, I just have a fear and a little bit of anger at the leadership.
Cy: Covered it up.
Cy: I think a lot of people are feeling that way, Trent. A lot of people are feeling that way.
Trent: Yeah. A few nights ago, I had some coarse words. I was angry.
Trent: When people disappoint you. But, you know, sometimes. So, I mean, it&#8217;s funny. We have these standards and we get mad when other people disappoint us, but we always make excuses when we disappoint ourselves. No, it&#8217;s always somebody else&#8217;s fault when we disappoint ourselves. Well, it&#8217;s because he did this or my parents raised me this way or so.
And William, I guess here&#8217;s how I would start with my reply to you. I think it&#8217;s acceptable for you to be angry. Paul&#8217;s letter to the Ephesians says, &#8220;Be angry, but don&#8217;t let the sun set on your anger.&#8221; That&#8217;s a perfectly normal feeling to have a sense of anger and betrayal at some bishops and shepherds, priests who betrayed the flock, who were shepherds, wolves masquerading in shepherd&#8217;s clothing.
So I think it&#8217;s unhealthy when we just suppress anger or resentment or, you know, this feeling about a righteous anger, thinking that something&#8217;s wrong and should be made right. It&#8217;s an error. It&#8217;s unhealthy for us to just suppress it and pretend like it&#8217;s not there because it&#8217;s okay to feel that way.
But the other extreme is to let that anger consume us. Because here&#8217;s the thing. The devil loves using righteous anger because righteous anger, being mad at injustice, is a good thing. I mean, Jesus got really mad when the temple was being defiled, so he drove out the money changers.
That&#8217;s what&#8217;s hard about anger, is that it can serve good, but the devil loves to twist it also to serve his purposes, to turn it into an unrighteous, vengeful, malicious anger that eats up our hearts inside. And we just kind of turn inwards and get angrier and angrier and angrier and fall into pride and other things like that.
So I would caution you, your feelings towards bishops and priests who have done this, it&#8217;s okay to feel a sense of righteous anger, but what are we going to do with it? Are we going to turn it inwards and just stew in anger, or are we going to turn it outwards and say, &#8220;God help the church, now please give us reform?&#8221;
Two analogies I think might be helpful for you that have helped me.
Number one, the priest, no matter how sinful he is, if he says the Mass validly, that is Jesus in the Eucharist. That is Jesus&#8217;s body, blood, soul, and divinity, ready to dwell within our very being. That Jesus is there waiting for us in the Eucharist, no matter what the priest has done.
So let me ask you a question. If you were walking along the road and you saw a diamond ring that was covered in dog feces, what would you do? Let&#8217;s say it&#8217;s a one-carat diamond ring, but it&#8217;s covered in dog feces, what would you do?
Caller: I would probably retrieve it some way without the feces.
Trent: Amen to that. Yeah. One-carat diamond ring. As someone who went in six years ago to get married and I&#8217;m shopping for rings, I&#8217;m thinking, show me a one-carat diamond ring. Show me a cubic zirconium instead. Wait a second, I&#8217;m like, whoa, never mind. No, my wonderful wife does not have a cubic zirconium. She has a wonderful, wonderful jewel that is representative of the jewel that she is as well.
But right, but you think about there, we wouldn&#8217;t just say, &#8220;Hey, look at this, this is terrible. This is gross, disgusting, whatever.&#8221; And we wouldn&#8217;t walk on. We realize, wow, look at this treasure here. I mean, what a shame, this treasure is covered in dog feces. But I&#8217;m going to find a way to get past the dog feces to get this beautiful treasure.
And so I would say, is not the Eucharist worth more than any diamond or gem or pearl we would find? And getting to it involves just going to Mass and sitting there. We don&#8217;t have to wade through feces. We have a priest who I would say in all probability is a good holy man who is struggling with sin just like the rest of us and faithfully serving God.
So we should not pass by the diamond ring because of the waste it&#8217;s in. We should pray to God, we should retrieve it and then work to clean up the church that we have, but not forsake the jewel that God gave us.
Number two, William. I would say that the feeling you have towards priests, that they are, you know, an uneasiness around them. I would just ask. Imagine, imagine you knew a woman, a friend, a female friend who had been a victim of rape and she knows that there is a not small number, not insignificant number of men who rape. I mean, there are stories all the time about men who commit rape, rapists in jail.
And imagine she said to you, &#8220;William, I don&#8217;t feel comfortable being around you because you&#8217;re a man. You know, what if you are just like those other men who are rapists?&#8221; I don&#8217;t know, I think that you would feel like, well, I&#8217;m not that way and I&#8217;m sorry you feel that way, but I mean, don&#8217;t paint all men this picture and have this fear around me when I care for you just because a few men have done these terrible things.
Do you see how that prejudice she would have towards you would be unfounded and that would harm a good relationship that could be there? How it&#8217;s similar if we have kind of an irrational fear of priests or uneasiness because of what a few priests have done. Do you see the analogy, the connection I&#8217;m making?
Caller: I do. And I&#8217;ve often thought, you know, don&#8217;t label all priests brothers, etc. I was Jesuit educated. And it&#8217;s not exclusive to the Catholic.
Trent: It&#8217;s a human problem that we have to remember that sexual abuse, sin is a human problem. One thing that&#8217;s helped me, you know, sometimes we get disenchanted and we think, you know, well, these guys are really priests. If they&#8217;re really in persona Christi, they wouldn&#8217;t do this kind of stuff. And this shows. It&#8217;s all, it&#8217;s all bunk and people will think that.
But if you think about it, the faith is true. If God wants to save us from sin and the devil wants to ensnare us in sin, and it&#8217;s through priests we receive sacraments to save us from sin—confession, Eucharist in normal cases, average cases, baptism—then if the devil is real, his number one target is going to be priests. That will be his number one target to go after.
So we should not be surprised in the slightest that priests will be tempted and burdened by temptation and sin, that the devil&#8217;s gonna. He&#8217;s the number one enemy for them.
So the answer, I guess, is what are we going to do? Are we going to, when the devil, when he beats a priest or a priest gives into sin, are we gonna cheer alongside the devil and be like, &#8220;Look at how bad he was. Oh, I knew it. Look how bad he was.&#8221; Or are we gonna be mourning with God and always praying for their repentance and conversion and praying that other people don&#8217;t follow this ruse that the devil has given us?
I think if we look at it that way, we can see that sin, even holy people, even clergy engage in, is not a sign the faith is false. It is a sign the faith is under attack and we have to batten down the hatches and pray and stay close to the sacraments to weather the storm of this life that we are in and not jump ship.
Because if we do that, leaving the church is like we&#8217;re at a storm at sea. &#8220;Ah, the boat&#8217;s not going the way I&#8217;d like it to.&#8221; We&#8217;re not going to fare. We&#8217;ll fare far worse in the open ocean than we would on the ship, on the bark of Peter, as the church used to be called so much in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
So keep that in mind. And then a good book, I forget the name of the author, but it&#8217;s a book called *Praying for Priests* is one that I would recommend as well for you to look at.
But here, if you&#8217;re discouraged, take your anger, take your frustration, turn it back to God and say, &#8220;God, I give this all back to you,&#8221; and I pray for these priests as hard as I can for them to be holy.
And then just go to confession and say, &#8220;You know, Father, I don&#8217;t know you. You know, but I know that if you say this confession, Christ is speaking through you to forgive sins.&#8221; Seek God&#8217;s forgiveness first, then continue to go to Mass and pray for the church.
Because we need people like you, who care, who will pray to continue to reform and lead the church to holiness. Don&#8217;t leave the church because of what a few bad people have done. Stay with her. So I hope you&#8217;ll do that.
Cy: William, Christ wants to meet you again in the Eucharist.
Are you ready to go back?
Caller: Oh, oh, I know that, yes.
Very good. Good stuff, you guys.
Cy: Thank you so much. And listen, call anytime. We&#8217;re here five days a week. God bless you, brother.
And I&#8217;ll ask our listeners to pray for you as well. William, thanks for calling!

I Left Catholicism Because of Church Scandals…

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>Who wrote the book of Revelation? </div><div>The Church does not have an official stance on who the author is.
The author of the book of Revelation calls himself John (Rev. 1:1; 1:4). The only other clue to the author&#8217;s identity is that he states he received his visions while on the island of Patmos (Rev. 1:9).
Tradition has considered this person to be John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee. This tradition is attested to by Irenaeus (Against Heresies, V, 30) and Eusebius (Church History, IV). This tradition, however, is not universal. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, accepted the book of Revelation as inspired but did not accept that the author John was the same as John the Apostle (Church History, VII, 25). Also arguing against the Apostle John as the author is that several ancient lists of canonical books do not include it.
Complicating the matter is that while most accept the tradition that John the Apostle lived until 95, another strand of early Church tradition held that John the Apostle was martyred around the age of 70. Which tradition someone accepts will determine if he thinks John the Apostle would have been alive to write Revelation at the end of the first century.
While the book of Revelation and the Gospel of John share many similar themes, they differ dramatically in other literary categories.
While most modern scholars think the book of Revelation was written by a Christian prophet named John and not the apostle, the view that it was written by the apostle still exists.
</div>