Manage Account

<div>How should we answer the statement that being pro-choice does not mean being pro-abortion? </div><div>First, ask, “What is the choice you’re defending to be protected by law?” Explain that it can’t be the choice to bear a child, which was protected by U.S. law long before U.S. law made abortion legal.
So they can’t reasonably argue that they’re defending the right of a couple, or even that of an unwed mother, to have a child. Again, that was already enshrined in U.S. law and thus is not a genuine issue in the abortion debate.
(However, as an important aside, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers worldwide, actually advocated “to protect society against the propagation and increase of the unfit” by means of her <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=101807.xml">“Baby Code.”</a>)
Second, point out that the choice &#8220;pro-choicers&#8221; are defending is the choice for a couple—or a woman alone—to abort a child. Acknowledge that pro-choicers do not favor the mandating of abortion in many or most cases, as has been the case in China for many years, despite a recent and minor relaxation in its one-baby-per-couple quota. Still, despite their presumably opposing such a government-enforced mandate, the choice pro-choicers are defending is the legal right for anyone who desires an abortion to have that procedure performed on their unborn child. Consequently, to that extent, they&#8217;re undeniably “pro-abortion,” because they are defending legalized abortion in those cases as a morally good thing that should be available for couples and individuals who seek them.
For more on this subject, please see Trent Horn’s <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/my-debate-with-a-pro-abortion-philosopher-at-stanford">account of his debate with a pro-abortion philosopher</a>.
</div>

The Objection That ‘Pro-Choice’ Doesn’t Mean Pro-Abortion

Easter Morning Mass celebrated by Fr. Paul Check at St. John Fisher Seminary.

Easter Morning Mass: April 12, 2020

John 3:5—Jesus’ words about being “born of water and Spirit”—is one of the strongest biblical proofs for baptismal regeneration. But not everyone agrees that he’s talking about baptism here. Some Christians push back with a familiar objection: if salvation is a free gift of God, not based on anything we do, and baptism is something we do, then it can’t possibly be the way God gives salvation.
Protestant author Todd Baker makes this argument in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Rome-Biblical-Historical-Catholicism/dp/1491724706/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EWWVDZK84W0Z&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.K8a96IlUbwcWMMBfq4LaPDdKVN7aKBMa6_hO0U9CbkR7kF-BGBKPUw62OuzuThvPlvutR6RYt57YHWusbAI4mRxfO_Qw23NyV4Ccwi2ryW2Ssmy3_5kYSdlXmQUkcavtBF9qT1qRHTaMe4iJBCVBYA2zJtjJ4zTGIDNH9ll6ATHzPGsqnGjEbdyzUi9bEyGpSYRlZ4LZZY1uv7NdksJxpuNn6Bi1qmqPgolVW4HrpZQ.rOKdNNS8-K1nXDtMn-xcpaJupvwgbtvGnJFH-Xw5dJA&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=exodus+from+rome&amp;qid=1755207926&amp;sprefix=exodus+from+rom%2Caps%2C135&amp;sr=8-1">Exodus from Rome</a> (Vol. I). For Baker, the idea that baptism saves “contradicts every passage in the Bible where the reader is plainly informed that salvation is a gift of God’s unmerited grace, not of works, or anything the sinner does to earn it (e.g., John 3:16; Rom. 10:9-10; Eph. 2:8-9).”
Baker makes his argument based on the assumption that Catholics (and all believers in baptismal regeneration) believe that baptism is a work that merits the gift of initial salvation—which, of course, does contradict Ephesians 2:8-9: “You have been saved by grace and not of works.”
But this assumption is false. Catholics don’t believe that baptism merits the gift of salvation. Rather, we believe that baptism is the means stipulated by Christ by which he intends to give us the gift of salvation, not a work that merits the gift. The stipulation of a means doesn’t entail an act that merits.
For example, Cy Kellett, the host of Catholic Answers Live, often tells those who call in to the show, “We want to give you a book as a gift. Just hang on the line, give us your mailing address, and we’ll send it to you.” Does the caller’s act of giving the call screener his mailing address, receiving the gift in the mail, and opening the package merit the gift? No. The gift is a gift, even if there is a specific way that the recipient must receive it.
Protestants even teach that a person is saved, or justified, on account of a profession of faith—a profession that is often verbalized at an altar call. Yet they don’t think such a profession of faith “merits” the gift of salvation, or justification. Rather, they teach that faith is the instrument of justification.
Thus, the Catholic view of baptism being the instrument of salvation is no more a meritorious work than a Protestant’s view of faith being the instrument of salvation.
Moreover, the interior regeneration that we believe takes place in baptism—the transference from a state of unrighteousness to a state of righteousness—is nothing of our own doing. It is entirely an act of God. Only he can bring about such a change within us. Therefore, according to a Catholic understanding, baptism is a not a work in the way that Baker thinks it is. And given that Baker’s argument here is based on a flawed assumption, it has no force against the baptismal interpretation of the second birth.
Baker, however, has another counterargument that latches on to what was said above—namely, that spiritual rebirth is something that only God can bring about. He <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Rome-Biblical-Historical-Catholicism/dp/1491724706/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EWWVDZK84W0Z&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.K8a96IlUbwcWMMBfq4LaPDdKVN7aKBMa6_hO0U9CbkR7kF-BGBKPUw62OuzuThvPlvutR6RYt57YHWusbAI4mRxfO_Qw23NyV4Ccwi2ryW2Ssmy3_5kYSdlXmQUkcavtBF9qT1qRHTaMe4iJBCVBYA2zJtjJ4zTGIDNH9ll6ATHzPGsqnGjEbdyzUi9bEyGpSYRlZ4LZZY1uv7NdksJxpuNn6Bi1qmqPgolVW4HrpZQ.rOKdNNS8-K1nXDtMn-xcpaJupvwgbtvGnJFH-Xw5dJA&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=exodus+from+rome&amp;qid=1755207926&amp;sprefix=exodus+from+rom%2Caps%2C135&amp;sr=8-1">writes</a>,
<blockquote>Nothing in this world can generate the power of spiritual rebirth; flesh can produce only flesh. Although things in nature, like water, wind, and physical birth, are symbols to picture and describe how spiritual rebirth from God occurs, and the particular effects it has on the person who believes in Jesus Christ for salvation.
Even in the beginning of John’s Gospel, the reader is told that the power of spiritual rebirth, whereby the believer in Christ becomes a child of God, is not an act that can be exercised by human act of will, or physical generation, or performance of any kind—the act of sacramental baptism included—but is a supernatural, sovereign act of God alone, bestowed upon those who believe in Jesus Christ. Those who are baptized do so by an act of their own will. The new birth is altogether different from this; it is an act of God! . . .
So then, “born of water” in John 3:5 cannot mean the physical rite of baptism as the agent for spiritual rebirth; it must mean something else.</blockquote>
So, for Baker, since the spiritual rebirth is an act of God, it cannot involve any human act. And since the ritual of water baptism involves a human act, it follows that the spiritual rebirth can’t be a reference to ritual water baptism.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it would preclude humans being involved in several things that the Bible affirms humans are involved in when God exercises his sovereignty.
Consider, for example, the healing of the lame beggar that Peter performs in Acts 3:1-10. The effect of the miracle can be brought about only by God. Yet that doesn’t mean Peter’s action isn’t involved. God used Peter as an instrumental cause to bring about the miraculous effect.
Consider also Paul’s teaching that we are justified by “faith.” Faith is a gift that God alone can give. Yet the act of faith itself, which God moves us to engage in, involves the act of our intellect, moved by the will, to assent to what God reveals and the act of directing our hearts and minds to God as our ultimate supernatural end. That’s human action, actualized within us by God.
More examples abound. In John 16:8, we’re told that the Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness. However, we know that the Spirit uses preachers to establish that conviction. Life itself is from God, yet God uses the actions of a human mother and father to be participants in giving that life to us.
One more example, which perhaps relates best to our topic at hand: Jesus in John 9:1-7 heals a blind man. And he intentionally involves the blind man’s action—namely, Jesus commands him to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. Once the blind man does that human act, Jesus heals him.
So just because an effect is brought about by God alone, like the spiritual rebirth, that doesn’t necessarily exclude human action, like ritual water baptism. It’s God’s prerogative to will ritual water baptism to be the means or instrument through which he communicates the blessing.
In the end, Baker’s reasoning falters because it assumes that God’s sovereign action excludes any human involvement. Scripture repeatedly shows that God often brings about supernatural effects through human instruments—whether it’s healing the sick, proclaiming the gospel, or even giving physical life itself. Baptism, in the Catholic view, fits this same biblical pattern: it’s not a human work that earns salvation, but the divinely chosen means by which God imparts it.
Thus, “born of water and Spirit” in John 3:5 can rightly be understood as baptism without undermining God’s grace or sovereignty.

When Baptism Is Too Manly for Protestants

Atheists have often viewed belief in God as wishful thinking—a projection of an idea because man fears death. Karlo Broussard discusses why this accusation does not disprove the existence of God.
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Transcript:
Atheists have often viewed belief in God as wishful thinking—a projection of an idea because man fears death.
But is this a fair claim? The answer’s no, and here are some reasons why.
First, not everyone accepts God’s existence out of fear of death. There are many who acknowledge His existence on the grounds of reasonable arguments, such as the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Second, even if someone does believe in God out of fear of death, it says nothing whether or not the proposition “God exists” is true.
Third, the same line of reasoning can be applied to atheists. Just as fear of death and a desire for eternal life could lead one to believe in God, so too a desire to not follow traditional moral standards could lead one to not believe in a god who will punish us for our misdeeds. Would such a desire make atheism merely wishful thinking, thus justifying theism? Of course not! Similarly, an atheist cannot justify his or her position by saying belief in God is wishful thinking.
Finally, the objection is absurd given the fact that traditional monotheistic religions embrace the doctrine of eternal damnation. How can the theory of ‘wishful thinking’ explain something so unpleasant—something even believers are subject to experience if they stop believing? You would think if belief in God were merely wishful thinking, then eternal damnation would not be a part of the religion. But it often is.
So, is it fair to attack theism on the grounds that belief in God is wishful thinking? Absolutely not! Therefore, it can’t be used to justify atheism.
If you want to learn more about this topic and others like it, visit our website at catholic.com.
For Catholic Answers, I’m Karlo Broussard. Thanks for watching.

Is Belief in God Wishful Thinking?

This year marks the ten-year anniversary of Peter Leithart’s “<a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/leithart/2015/10/what-i-want-from-catholics/">What I Want From Catholics</a>.” The 2015 wish list may seem like a trivial thing to mark an anniversary of. It made some waves when it was first published but has since died the quiet death of most internet blogs posts, being largely forgotten in the decade since.
But for me, the anniversary is like the death of a pop star from my youth. I vaguely remember when it was published, as I was starting to obsessively follow the Catholic blogosphere. When I stumbled upon it again more recently, it was another sharp reminder that many of my youthful memories are now measured in decades rather than years.
So I reread the list for nostalgia’s sake—and was hit by a passage that contributed to its initial rage-circulation:
<blockquote>I want Catholics to give up veneration of the consecrated host and other sacred objects. Jesus gave us his body and blood to eat and drink, not to admire. Whatever Catholics think they are doing, to Protestants they appear to be indulging in a form of liturgical idolatry. At the very least, they are distracting from Jesus’ purpose for the Eucharist: take, eat; take, drink.</blockquote>
These words are unremarkable from Rev. Leithart himself. He is a <a href="https://theopolisinstitute.com/staff/peter-leithart/">Protestant minister</a>, and so he calls Catholics to do exactly what we’d expect: Become more Protestant. I have no problem with that (though I think he is wrong); he’s asking what he ought within his tradition.
What’s more surprising is how many Catholics seem to have taken up his advice in the ten years since his letter.
As an altar server, I had a priest stop me from praying before Mass, claiming that it would take away from my “reception” of the Eucharist. In seminary, I had formators who discouraged us from adoration, dismissing such eucharistic prayer in words very similar to Leithart’s. Many readers could offer their own stories. We need not look to Protestant brethren for examples; in many parishes, schools, and internet caves, you’ll still find Catholics suspicious of eucharistic adoration, though often for the same reasons as Protestants: The Eucharist is to take and eat, not to look at.
These Catholics <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-06/vatican-tries-revive-eucharistic-adoration">didn’t originate</a> with Leithart, and realistically, they haven’t increased because of him, either. They’re instead another remnant of the post-Vatican II liturgical and spiritual upheavals.
In that sense, the argument is worth reexamining in 2025 just as in 2015. After all, the point is largely correct: The Eucharist <a href="https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/336/">is a meal</a>. It has its origin in the Last Supper, comes to us today in the ritual meal of the Mass, and is given to the faithful for consumption. Isn’t there a tension between this divine intention and adoration, where the Eucharist decidedly isn’t consumed?
This is a false competition, as anyone who has tried adoring the Eucharist knows. The Eucharist is meant for consumption, but that doesn’t necessitate that it’s meant for only consumption. But still, we shouldn’t presume God’s purposes of a gift as precious as Jesus’ body beyond what he told us—and it seems as though he’s told us to take and eat, without mentioning taking and adoring.
So let’s see if we can reason additional insight into the Eucharist from what Jesus did tell us. Perhaps he implied more than he was able to explicitly say in that little room 2,000 years ago.
Let’s instead use the closest analogy we have to the soul and the Eucharist—a man and his wife.
St. Paul prompts us in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%205&amp;version=NIV">Ephesians 5</a> to make the connection. <a href="https://suscopts.org/resources/literature/300/a-spiritual-study-of-the-song-of-songs-during-the-/#:~:text=In%20the%20fifth%20chapter%20of,is%20the%20celebration%20of%20marriage.">The Song of Songs</a>, and the <a href="https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/post/st-thomas-aquinas-on-the-eucharist">saintly commentaries</a> on it, prompt us to do the same, as does <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2019%3A6-9&amp;version=ESV">Revelation</a>. Most importantly, Jesus himself implies a nuptial dimension when he <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%2026%3A26">gives us his body</a>.
A woman gives her body to her husband in marriage in some sense for the purpose of sexual union and the bearing of children (perhaps among other purposes). After all, this is the consummation that seals the sacrament into an unbreakable bond; this is the action that separates marriage from other forms of friendship and relationship, and the core of why it’s a separate sacrament in the first place, as opposed to, say, sacramentalizing “friendship.”
But imagine the husband who says, “Honey, I really don’t want you wearing such beautiful clothes anymore, or doing your hair. When you do, I can’t help but admire the beauty of your body—but I don’t want to admire it; I want to experience it. So, except for when we’re in the marital embrace, I want you to wear this burka at all times.”
That husband clearly misunderstands the nature of a sexual union. Even Islamic cultures that laud the burka and the hijab <a href="https://iqranetwork.com/blog/when-can-a-woman-take-off-her-hijab-guidelines-and-exceptions/">do not do so at home</a> with the woman’s husband.
The admiration of the other, including of their body, outside of the actual sexual act clearly is ordered toward and helps facilitate the sexual act. As do other forms of bodily self-gift: taking out the garbage, giving a back rub, speaking pleasantries, or cuddling on the couch. The wife’s purpose in giving her body in the sacrament of marriage is for the husband to “take, have; take, hold.” That purpose is not frustrated by “take, look; take, admire.” In fact, it is furthered.
Of course, this “looking” isn’t the full story in marriage, either. My wife would doubtless be perturbed if I stared at her all day, especially if I refused to do anything else. My gaze of admiration can go awry if it is made into the goal rather than an instrument. Like a marital relationship, the Eucharist indeed is transgressed if “looking” and “adoring” eclipse the “taking” and “eating” and becomes a substitute for the clear primary intention Jesus had in giving us his body to consume.
This might also give an objection that even Leithart misses but is levied at times by the Orthodox: The Eucharist is too sacred for display. Yes, gazing and adoring are normally ordered toward reception and intimacy. But the Eucharist is so special that we ought to shield it from the ravenous gazes that may fall upon it.
This is the sensibility of Islamic and Eastern cultures in general. A Muslim woman needn’t wear the hijab with her husband, since everything about their relationship can be ordered toward intimacy, but she needs to wear it in most other situations because all men except her husband are not meant for that same intimacy with her. And though this seems extreme to most Christian cultures, the principle is shared by all faiths. A husband may not object to his wife’s lingerie at home, but he certainly objects to it on the street corner.
But this goes beyond adoration in general and gets to prudential applications of when and how the Eucharist should be exposed to faithful eyes. This is why the Church <a href="https://fdlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Guidelines-for-Adoration-and-Exposition-of-the-Blessed-Sacrament-Diocese-of-Lansing.pdf">has rules</a> about adoration: to protect it from abuses. Debates about the exact rules and application will rage on, as ever they have.
Perhaps the East ought to be less obscure, just as the West ought to be more modest. Or perhaps both are appropriate for their sensibilities, just as there are legitimate variations of physical intimacy among married couples. But the ever-changing mores about how, when, and where the Eucharist ought to be adored shouldn’t cause doubt that it should be adored at all.
The Eucharist is too sacred to look at, too sacred to touch, and too sacred to eat. Yet the Eucharist is “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20John%201%3A1">1 John 1:1</a>). Though we should guard against abuses, we must also remember that anything we do in relation to the Eucharist is a generous gift.
So, whereas objections can be excused from Protestants, and even from the Orthodox, fellow Catholics should know better. We look upon our beloved in love and admiration, and then, with hearts primed, we’re all the more able to unite in true affection in the eucharistic liturgy. For where the Eucharist is, there is Christ. And where Christ is, there is God.

Eucharistic Adoration: Good or Bad?

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You WILL NOT find the CANON in SCRIPTURE ALONE!

<h2>The Case</h2>
Stan filled the fireplace and lit the oak logs to make the living room cozy for the arriving guests. The Bible study had been announced at Mass, and now suddenly it was here. Stan and Suzie had been Catholics all their lives, but they had never really studied the Bible for themselves, so this was a new venture for them. They had just come home from work and had a few moments to wolf down last night’s leftovers and send the kids to the neighbors’ before prepping the living room.
They both hoped everything would go well. Since Catholics are generally uninterested in the Bible, they didn’t expect many to attend.
The doorbell rang. As Stan stepped toward the door, he noticed his large crucifix on the wall and quickly decided to take it down and set it behind the couch. He didn’t want to offend the guests.
Greetings were extended, and the guests settled into their seats. They had an interesting mix of participants. More than half were from the parish, but there were also a Presbyterian couple, a young woman who had left the Catholic Church, and a “non-denominational” couple.
Stan and Suzie thought a good mix of religious backgrounds was good. The pope had encouraged ecumenical activity, so they wanted several Christian traditions represented to keep the study balanced, ecumenical, and open-minded.
Stan started: “We haven’t had much time to prepare for this study, but I hope it’ll go well. As agreed, we’re all going to use the same translation so we can all be on the same page, so to speak. We’ll use only the Bible, avoiding other materials so the Holy Spirit can lead us.” Everyone agreed. Bible study should be fresh and open-minded—unhindered by “dogma” and denominational trappings.
Suzie had earlier removed the Catechism from the coffee table. She and Stan had also removed the crucifixes from the wall and the statue of Mary on the shelf to avoid any offense to the non-Catholics.
Without further ado, they all opened to the Gospel of St. John. “Who would like to read the first verse? Okay, Richard, go ahead.” Richard read, and everyone smiled. Stan cleared his throat. “Well, who would like to begin? What does this passage mean to you? Let’s keep it simple and not offend anyone by being too opinionated. Sarah, why don’t you begin? How do you feel about this verse?”
Sarah shared her impressions of the passage, and everyone followed in turn. Another verse was read, and again they went around the room to discover what each person felt about it.
Time just flew, and before they knew it, they had discussed the whole first chapter of St. John’s Gospel.
Everyone ate his coffee cake, and then the study ended. Stan thanked all of the guests for coming as Suzie retrieved their coats. Stan and Suzie shut the door behind the last guest, hung the crucifix back on the wall, and put the Catechism back on the table. Without a doubt, they felt that the Bible study had been a great success.
<h2>The Investigation</h2>
Grab your detective hat and magnifying glass, and let’s see how many fatal flaws you can find.
<ol>
<li>How should Stan and Suzie have prepared for the Bible study (2 Tim. 2:15)? Was creating a cozy atmosphere adequate preparation for a study of Scripture? Did they pray at the start or close of the Bible study (Ps. 119:17-19, CCC 2653-54)? Was the Sign of the Cross invoked (CCC 2157)?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>How did they misunderstand the Church’s teaching on ecumenism (CCC 816)? Is being non-offensive to people’s denominational sentiments the primary goal of a Bible study (Titus 1:9)? Are a good feeling and smiling faces proof of a successful Bible study (2 Tim. 4:3)? Should Catholics set aside their Catholic faith in order to “get along” with others in a Catholic Bible study (John 6:60-61, 66; Acts 20:27)?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>Is biblical truth relative and open to private interpretation, or did the authors have a definite meaning and intent to their writings (2 Pet. 2:20-21, CCC 109)? Which is more important: what we feel about the passage or what the author intended to say (Mark 12:24, 2 Pet. 3:16)? How important are the cultural and geographic surroundings, the original languages, authorial intent, and the context of the passage (CCC 110)?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li>Does dogma kill Bible study? Does the Holy Spirit work only apart from dogma, facts, and authority? (1 Tim. 3:6-14, CCC 89)?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="5">
<li>Is it wise to use only one translation when studying Scripture? Or would several good translations facilitate a deeper appreciation of the text?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="6">
<li>Is it true that Catholics are not interested in the Bible (1 Pet. 2:1-3)? Should Stan and Suzie have had higher expectations of their fellow Catholics and prayed for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to create a great thirst for the written word of God?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="7">
<li>Is the basis for Bible study an open-minded, democratic approach (CCC 85, 119)? Are the scriptures always easy to understand (2 Pet. 3:15-16)? What is the best way to discover the Bible’s meaning (CCC 109-119)? Does the use of commentaries and Church documents stifle Bible study? How do these sources protect the student of the Bible (1 Tim. 3:15)? Is the Bible opposed to Sacred Tradition (2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6; CCC 80, 120)?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="8">
<li>And lastly: Was it wise to send the children away? Maybe, maybe not—but in many instances, well-behaved children and teens would profit greatly from listening to adults intelligently and joyfully discussing the Bible (Deut. 6:6-7, Eph. 6:4).</li>
</ol>
Expert Witnesses
<ol>
<li>“Although there are many who believe that they themselves hold to the teachings of Christ, there are yet some among them who think differently from their predecessors. The teaching of the Church has indeed been handed down through an order of succession from the apostles, and remains in the Churches even to the present time. That alone is to be believed as the truth which is in no way at variance with ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition” (Origen [c. 185-c. 254], The Fundamental Doctrine).</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:20-21).</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>“So Philip ran to [the Ethiopian eunuch], and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless some one guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him” (Acts 8:30-31).</li>
</ol>

You Judge the Bible Study

Tim Staples affirms to a Protestant caller wishing for Christian unity why the Catholic Church is the most unified, whole, and true church, moreso than any Protestant denomination.

Barriers to Reconciliation With Protestants

<div>Is the Eucharist necessary for salvation?</div><div>Normatively, the faithful reception of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/eucharist">Eucharist</a> is necessary for salvation for those who have reached the age of reason, as Jesus makes clear in John 6:
<blockquote>The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.</blockquote>
The Church further affirms this basic teaching in CCC 846. And yet the Church distinguishes between those who knowingly reject Christ and his Church with grave culpability and those who don’t (CCC 847-48).
Thus, the Church summarizes re: the Eucharist and other <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/sacraments">sacraments</a>, beginning with baptism:
<blockquote>The Lord himself affirms that baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments (CCC 1257, footnotes omitted).</blockquote>
</div>

Is the Eucharist Necessary for Salvation?

<div>Can anyone achieve heroic virtue?</div><div>Jesus reminds in Scripture that “with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). Of course, we must cooperate with God’s grace. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus provides us with a blueprint for holiness, without which heroic virtue cannot be attained.
Indeed, if heroic virtue is to be attained, we must strive to “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), realizing, as St. Paul proclaims, that we “can do all things in him who strengthens me” (2 Cor. 12:8-10). In the process, Jesus reminds us, we must exercise radically childlike faith, because the road to eternal life is narrow and hard (Matt. 7:13-14). So we must be committed, like a great athlete, to undergo redemptive suffering so that our virtue may be refined, realizing that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:8-10).
And, as we progress in virtue, we will increasingly attain the incomparable peace of Christ that the world cannot give (John 14:27).
</div>

Can Anyone Achieve Heroic Virtue?

<div>What happened to Barabbas?</div><div>There is nothing in the New Testament that tells us anything about Barabbas after he is released. Traditional early Christian sources also don&#8217;t mention anything about his fate. Later legends would tell either of his conversion or of his death shortly thereafter in a failed rebellion.
</div>

What Happened to Barabbas?

<div>As a Christian, can I just let go of my abusive family?</div><div>First, based on the nature of your question, I infer that you are not speaking about a spouse or your own children, but rather your family of origin. You’re certainly not obligated to subject yourself to abuse, including from family members. We should pray for those who have abused us (see Matt. 5:44), including our parents, and maintain communication with them, if possible and including to give them a lovingly faithful Catholic witness. On the other hand, if communication inevitably leads to abuse of one sort or another, including to children for whom you are responsible, it is best for your well-being—as well as your dependents—to keep a safe distance long-term from abusive family members.
In making a judgment about whether to have any communication with one’s abusive family members, and potentially how much communication, a Catholic should consult a faithful priest confidante as well as likely a licensed therapist who is a faithful Catholic—or, at the very least, a therapist respectful of his Catholic faith. As we note in our <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/mental-health-awareness-mens-mental-health-month">mental health tract</a>, we recommend that you consider contacting Dr. Gregory Popcak and his team at the <a href="https://www.catholiccounselors.com/services/our-counselors/">Pastoral Solutions Institute</a>, who might at least be able to give you a referral; and/or visit <a href="https://catholictherapists.com/">CatholicTherapist.com</a>. Your diocesan Catholic Charities department might also have staff counselors you could consult.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) provides additional counsel, specifically regarding children to their parents, and the moral principles expressed can be applied to other types of family relationships:
<blockquote>As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family . . . But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so . . . Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them. (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a4.htm#III">CCC 2217</a>)</blockquote>
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Dealing with One’s Abusive Family

Jimmy Akin gives a young questioner advice on how to explain her pursuit of modesty and abstinence to her non-Catholic friends, and explains why God commands these of us in the first place.
Transcript:
Host: Arabella, on YouTube, watching on YouTube Live, writes the following: &#8220;As a 21-year- old female college student, how do I explain to my non-Catholic friends why modesty and abstinence are so important to me?&#8221;
Jimmy: Well, um&#8230;it depends on who your friends are, but there are a number of approaches here. One thing you could say is, &#8220;I&#8217;m a Christian and this is part of my faith and my faith is important to me. And if you&#8217;re my friend, you should be able to respect that, whether you agree or not. Whether this is important to you or not, it&#8217;s important to me because it&#8217;s part of my faith, it&#8217;s part of my spiritual heritage, and it&#8217;s very close to my heart.&#8221; And so that&#8217;s one way of dealing with the question.
Another way is to dig into the reasons a little bit more. The reason that this is important to Christians is not just because it&#8217;s a rule. You know, rules are important, but this isn&#8217;t just because it&#8217;s a rule. Ultimately the rules that God gives us are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-law-of-god">to make us happy</a>. And if you are modest in dress, and if you are abstinent until you&#8217;re married, you&#8217;re gonna save yourself a lot of headaches.
You know, Cy and me, we&#8217;re a little bit older, and we&#8217;ve seen a lot of people our age who have not lived according to these rules and have ended up badly hurt. And so it&#8217;s something that&#8230;life experience teaches people: if you stick with the way we&#8217;re designed, which is to have one spouse and save ourselves for that spouse and not play around in other ways, either mentally or physically or whatever, you end up saving yourself a lot of pain and you end up happier in the long run.
Also, one of the reasons you&#8217;re happier is because you have <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/all-anyone-sees">demonstrated integrity and respect</a>, and you&#8217;ve insisted on respect from other people. So rather than flaunting your physical assets and encouraging others to mentally degrade you in their minds, you&#8217;ve insisted on respect, and you can feel confident and good about that.
And so those are some additional reasons. So you can be happy even now by this. You can always take pride in the fact that you&#8217;re doing what you should, and that gives you a good feeling, and when you know you&#8217;re doing right, you feel right. And so you&#8217;ll be happier even now doing this, and you&#8217;ll certainly be happier later when you look back and say, &#8220;I&#8217;m so glad that I didn&#8217;t do those other things that would have led me to be unhappy now in my life.&#8221;

Defending Modesty and Abstinence as a College Student

<div>Billy Graham was not Catholic, but was exposed to the faith, did he go to heaven?</div><div>That’s a question only God can answer (see CCC 1021-22). Though Billy Graham was not a Catholic, as a Christian he dedicated his life to preaching the redemptive love of Jesus Christ for all mankind, and he had friendships with prominent Catholics like St. John Paul II.
If one refuses to become Catholic knowing that Christ made the Church necessary for salvation, that person couldn’t be saved because it would be tantamount to rejecting Jesus, through whom all salvation comes (CCC 846; Acts 4:12; Timothy 2:4). But only God can answer that question for any non-Catholic (see CCC 846-48). And, of course, each Catholic will also face their own particular judgment before God (CCC 1021-22).
For more on the salvation of non-Catholics, see <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-salvation-of-non-catholics">our response on the subject.</a>
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Will Billy Graham Go to Heaven?

Define being Christian and Christ’s two natures

Karlo Broussard shows from <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/scripture-and-tradition">Scripture</a> why a person must be validly baptized in order to be a member of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/where-does-the-bible-say-the-church-is-the-body-of-christ">Mystical Body of Christ</a>, and explains the three conditions that a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/trinitarian-baptism">baptism</a> must meet to be considered valid.

Are “Christian” Groups without a Valid Baptism Actually Christians?

<div>How much power do the devil and his demons have over our thoughts? Can they actually place thoughts into our minds? </div><div>Demons can influence our thoughts much in the same way as other human beings can. The only difference is that other human beings can only observe our behavior and hear our words, but demons can see a bit deeper; namely, they can see our imagination and memory and the feelings that come from them. So they are able to tempt us more precisely, you might say, than another human being, since they can perceive the images we carry within.
Even so, demons cannot reach to our strictly spiritual faculties—that is, our reason and our will. These can be moved directly only by God and by ourselves. So when a demon tempts us, he is trying to assure himself that we will fall away from God, but the demon can never be sure that we have lost God&#8217;s grace or were fully guilty for the sin we fell into under temptation. We must remember that the demons are more desperate than they are powerful.
It is also essential to keep in mind that we have guardian angels who constantly work to move our imagination and memory and feelings toward God and away from sin. Since these good angels see us in the light of the vision of God that they possess, their work in us is much more effective and accurate than that of the demons, most especially if we invoke our guardian angels and open ourselves to their influence by seeking to do the will of God and avoid the occasions of sin.
</div>

Can Demons Put Thoughts in Our Minds?

How is the original sin passed down within the framework of evolution?

My husband is not Catholic. He took issue with Rev. 12 and claimed that it cannot be Mary and Jesus. He said that it was all false. How can I respond?

Is there any contradiction in enjoying earthly pleasures like watching football and playing cards and fulfilling the call of being a saint?

Can the devil have power over people after death? Is there any benefit for having masses said for people we can assume are already in heaven?

Siying’s conversion story

I just joined the Church. I know there is a 1 hour fast before communion. Can we drink coffee?

If my friends don’t know Church teaching or misconceptions, but love God, what are they responsible for?

Why did Mary have to be sinless and why do we have to follow that line of thinking?

What’s the historical doctrinal development of transubstantiation and what does substance actually mean?

&#8220;How is original sin passed down through evolution?&#8221; This episode explores the intersection of faith and science, addressing questions like how to respond to claims about Mary and Jesus in Revelation 12, and whether enjoying earthly pleasures contradicts the call to be a saint. Tune in for a thoughtful discussion on these important topics and more.
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How Could Original Sin be Passed Down Through Evolution? Mary and Saints

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<h3>Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Lectionary: 280</h3>
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<h4>Reading 1    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/acts/11:19">ACTS 11:19-26</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
Those who had been scattered by the persecution 
that arose because of Stephen 
went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, 
preaching the word to no one but Jews. 
There were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among them, however, 
who came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well, 
proclaiming the Lord Jesus. 
The hand of the Lord was with them 
and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 
The news about them reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, 
and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch. 
When he arrived and saw the grace of God, 
he rejoiced and encouraged them all 
to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, 
for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. 
And a large number of people was added to the Lord. 
Then he went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 
and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. 
For a whole year they met with the Church 
and taught a large number of people, 
and it was in Antioch that the disciples 
were first called Christians.
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<h4>Responsorial Psalm     <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/psalms/87:1">87:1B-3, 4-5, 6-7</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R.    (117:1a)  All you nations, praise the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
His foundation upon the holy mountains 
the LORD loves: 
The gates of Zion, 
more than any dwelling of Jacob. 
Glorious things are said of you, 
O city of God! 
R.    All you nations, praise the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
I tell of Egypt and Babylon 
among those who know the LORD; 
Of Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia: 
“This man was born there.” 
And of Zion they shall say: 
“One and all were born in her; 
And he who has established her 
is the Most High LORD.” 
R.    All you nations, praise the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia. 
They shall note, when the peoples are enrolled: 
“This man was born there.” 
And all shall sing, in their festive dance: 
“My home is within you.” 
R.    All you nations, praise the Lord. 
or: 
R.    Alleluia.
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<h4>Alleluia     <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/10:27">JN 10:27</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
R. Alleluia, alleluia. 
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; 
I know them, and they follow me. 
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
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<h4>Gospel    <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/john/10:22">JN 10:22-30</a></h4>
<div class="poetry">
The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. 
It was winter. 
And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. 
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, 
“How long are you going to keep us in suspense? 
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 
Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. 
The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. 
But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. 
My sheep hear my voice; 
I know them, and they follow me. 
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. 
No one can take them out of my hand. 
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, 
and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. 
The Father and I are one.”
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Source: <a href="http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings">cms.usccb.org</a>
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Daily Holy Mass: Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Trent is back and, given the upcoming election, just in time for an open-mailbag episode related to faith, morality, and politics.

Politics and Morality Q+A

<div>Has there been any changes in the Church in the past few years that would allow a pastoral associate to give a homily even though he has about two more years before becoming a deacon?</div><div>Someone studying to become a deacon is considered a layperson. Therefore, all rules that apply to preaching and the laity apply to him. The laity do not preach during liturgical services.  
Laity are generally permitted to give spiritual reflections at retreats, prayer meetings, and when bringing Communion to shut-ins.
Canon 766 does permit the laity to occasionally preach in church outside of Mass, but this requires the permission of the bishop, and this permission can only be granted if such an arrangement is necessary.
</div>

Can the Non-Ordained Preach?

Making suffering meaningful

The biggest hurdle trying to convince people of the pro-life argument, that is that human life is innately valuable, is apathy. I find that people either A) don’t care that the child in the womb is a life, and/or B) people don’t think there...

Are there any saints you have a strong devotion to?

If you notice others around you, be it coworkers, friends, acquaintances, etc., talking about their anti-Catholic beliefs, what is your obligation to say something in defense of the Catholic Church? Is it necessarily a sin of omission to not confront t...

I have a friend who is a Protestant who told me that the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed recited by Catholics is in “error” because scripture claims that only Jesus Christ is the Creator, not God the Father. His comment is “Show me the Father who ...

Hi Trent! Sometimes I feel that I get too deep in the online apologetic world and am wanting to disconnect a little bit. What prudential or practical advice would you give for disconnecting from the online world and building a better habit for spiritua...

Can you clarify the Church position on cremation for us?

In this Catholic Answers Live episode, Trent Horn addresses how to find meaning in suffering, confronts the problem of apathy at the heart of many pro-life objections, and shares insights into personal devotion to the saints. He also offers practical guidance on when and how to respond to anti-Catholic claims, how to answer objections to the Trinity and the Creeds, and how to balance online apologetics with a healthy spiritual life rooted in prayer and Scripture. The episode concludes with a clear explanation of the Church’s teaching on cremation.
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Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

Making Sense of Suffering | AMA: Catholicism

One of the most common arguments made by apologists for Islam is that Jesus Christ was a member of their religion. The argument goes something like this:
<ol>
<li>Christians claim to follow Jesus.</li>
<li>Jesus was a Muslim, since he practiced many of the same things Muslims do.</li>
<li>Therefore, Christians should truly follow Jesus and become a Muslim!</li>
</ol>
Not convinced? You’re not alone.
<h2>Specific Examples</h2>
In a recent video titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6lDLTVJr7Vw">🤔 Was Jesus Actually&#8230; a Muslim?</a>”, Lily Jay provides one of the best (or worst?) examples of this argument. You may know Lily Jay from her short-form videos, in which she preprograms ChatGPT to give answers that confirm Islam. In this video, which does not include a scripted conversation with ChatGPT, Lily gives many examples of Jesus’ religious practices that seem to line up with Islamic practices. At the end, she asks the pointed question: “So what religion was Jesus?” She expects that she’s demonstrated he was a Muslim, but she has fallen far short of that. Let’s analyze each example she gives.
<h2>Jesus called God “Allah,” right?</h2>
We’re off to a rough start. The word Allah just means “God” in Arabic, so Jesus calling God “God” in a different language isn’t really a strong argument for him being a Muslim. This would be akin to arguing that all of pagan Rome was actually Christian because everyone used the word deus to describe the Roman gods—a word that would later be used exclusively for the Christian God. This argument fails even more since Jesus did not speak Arabic and most likely never used the word “Allah.” It’s largely accepted by scholars that Jesus spoke Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. Interestingly, none of those languages includes the word “Allah.”
We don’t have to guess how Jesus would have said “God,” because we have an example directly from the Gospel of Matthew. Rather than “Allah,” Jesus says in Matthew 27:46, “Eli Eli lama sabachthani?”, which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. The word for “God” in Aramaic is “Eloi” and, it is “Eli” in Hebrew.
Interestingly, Arabic Christians and Jews were using the word “Allah” to refer to God long before Islam came into existence. So if merely using the same word for “God” makes one a member of a religion, would this mean that Muhammad was a Christian or a Jew? If so, then Muslims have an interesting problem before them. If not, then this argument cannot be used in the other direction, either.
<h2>He prayed with his head to the ground</h2>
This is the most common argument used to demonstrate that Jesus was a Muslim. Let’s look at how Jesus prayed and see if it lines up with how Muslims pray.
It is true that Matthew 26:39 records, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed . . .” “So if Jesus prayed with his head to the ground,” the argument goes, “why don’t Christians pray like that today? Who is really following Jesus’ example?”
Well, first of all, there is only this one instance of Jesus praying with his head to the ground. More often, he is described as praying in other ways, like standing and looking up (John 11:41) or sitting (John 17). He is also never seen praying at five designated times each day, as Muslims do.
Now let’s go back to Matthew 26:39 and read the rest of the verse. After falling to the ground, Jesus prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” A beautiful prayer, but one that the Quran expressly forbids.
Surah 112:1-4 says, &#8220;Say: He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent.&#8221; If Allah does not beget, then he does not have any children. Thus, Jesus would be committing a grave theological error in calling Allah “Father” here.
An even clearer condemnation of this language is found in Surah 9:30, which says, &#8220;The Jews say, &#8216;Ezra is the son of Allah&#8217;; and the Christians say, &#8216;The Messiah is the son of Allah.&#8217;
That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?&#8221; According to the Quran, Jesus should be destroyed for praying the way he does.
It gets even worse if you look at the Hadith, a body of authoritative Islamic texts outside the Quran. Sahih Muslim 831a records Muhammad saying, “Do not pray after the morning prayer until the sun rises, and do not pray after the afternoon prayer until the sun sets.” Sahih Bukhari reiterates the same prohibition, “There is no prayer after the Fajr prayer till the sun rises, and no prayer after the ‘Asr prayer till the sun sets.”
Yet in Mark 1:35 Jesus prays at sunrise. And Matthew 14:23 records Jesus praying at sunset.
So yes, Jesus is recorded as praying in a way vaguely similar to Muslims one time in the Gospels. But he is recorded many more times as praying in direct contradiction to the prescriptions in Islamic texts. Can someone be considered a Muslim if he acts contrary to the Quran and Hadith?
Furthermore, similar to the previous argument, Christians were praying with their heads to the ground long before Islam existed. Many Christians to this day pray prostrate. This <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/ZFlKU1TDdPA?si=Q4U-eSMi-6_6mPI0">brief video</a> shows an Orthodox Christian priest demonstrating how to pray the Jesus Prayer with prostration. Christian prostration prayers go back all the way to the first century, and we even see examples of this in the Old Testament (or Torah). Nehemiah 8:6 says, “They bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”
We are now in the same conundrum as the last argument: if Jesus praying “as Muslims do” makes him a Muslim, then does Muhammad praying how Christians did long before Islam existed make him a Christian?
<h2>He fasted forty days, never ate pork, was circumcised, washed before praying</h2>
At the risk of sounding repetitive, these were practices within Judaism and Christianity long before Islam existed. Christians were fasting for forty days as early as 325 and likely before then. This is almost 300 years before Islam existed and has its roots in the scriptural examples of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Christ, all of whom fasted for forty days in preparation for a calling from God.
<h2>He greeted everyone with “Salaam Alaykum”</h2>
No, he greeted everyone with “Shlama amukhun,” since he spoke Aramaic and not Arabic.
<h2>He forbade being drunk</h2>
Yes, but he did not forbid alcohol. He even turned water into wine so that a wedding party could continue drinking (John 2:1-11). This directly contradicts the Quran, which calls alcohol “defilement from the work of Satan” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:90–91). So which is it? Is Jesus a Muslim, or is he producing “defilement from the work of Satan”?
<h2>He taught everyone that there is only one true God</h2>
Correct, but he also claimed equality with God, which the Quran rejects. Aside from calling himself the Son of God, he also claimed to have the authority of God. Namely, he forgave sins (Mark 2:5-7), claimed to give eternal life (John 10:28), and claimed to be the judge on the Last Day (John 5:22-23). There are many, many <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/when-jesus-said-he-was-god">other examples</a>.
Jesus was so clear about his divinity and authority that it got him in trouble more than once (John 8:58, 10:30-33). As noted above, the Quran strictly prohibits this. If Jesus is a Muslim, he’s not a very good one!
<h2>His mother wore a headscarf</h2>
Yup! Just as Jews and Christians had done centuries before Islam existed. Many Christian women today veil at Mass. This is far from an exclusively Islamic practice.
<h2>So what religion was Jesus?</h2>
Jesus was clearly Jewish. He was circumcised in accordance with Jewish law, he was dedicated in a Jewish synagogue, he celebrated Jewish holidays like Passover, and he referred constantly to the Jewish scriptures.
But he wasn’t just any Jewish man. Jesus came to fulfill the Law of Moses (Matt. 5:17), and he claimed to have authority over that Law during his Sermon on the Mount, where he declared what the Law says followed by “but I say to you” (vv. 21-48). He, being the High Priest and the Lamb, offered himself as a sacrifice in atonement for the sins of the world, and he established his Church to administer the grace he earned on our behalf (Matt. 16:18-19, John 20:21-23). If any Muslim truly believes that Jesus was sent by God and wants to follow his teachings, then he should go to his local Catholic parish and begin the process of joining the Church Jesus Christ founded.
<h2>What these similarities actually show us</h2>
Rather than showing that Jesus was a secret Muslim, the superficial similarities between Islam and Christianity show that Muhammad was a heretical Christian. This is how St. John of Damascus, a Christian living under Muslim rule, viewed Islam. In On Heresies, John Damascus calls Islam the “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” and says of Muhammad, “This man . . .  having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy.”
Through all of this exploration, we have discovered that Jesus Christ was certainly not a Muslim . . . and Muhammad was a seriously misled and heretical pseudo-Christian.

Was Jesus a Muslim?

Leo Severino, the producer of movies such as Little Boy and Bella stops by for a chat about his new book, Going Deeper: A Reasoned Exploration of God and Truth. We also discuss the movie business, and the unreasonableness of much modern thinking.

A Reasonable God

Because of certain statements Jesus made, some have thought he predicted the end of the world in his own day—wrongly, since the world didn’t end.
One statement is that “this generation will not pass away” before the events of the Olivet Discourse take place (Mark 13:30). However, Jesus wasn’t predicting the end of the world. When read in context, this statement referred to the events leading up to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70.
Another statement also occurs in the Olivet Discourse, when Jesus describes the coming events and says, “And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds” (Mark 13:26-27).
Since Jesus will return from heaven at the end of the world (Acts 1:11), many have understood this as a reference to the Second Coming. And, because prophecy can have more than one fulfillment, it may point to the Second Coming. However, this wasn’t what it referred to in the events leading up to the destruction of the temple.
Part of the confusion is caused by the fact that many only study their Bibles and don’t read the historical sources that reveal what happened when Jesus’ words were fulfilled.
The Jewish historian Josephus, who was an eyewitness of the events, reported that God gave great signs in the heavens to show that the temple would soon be destroyed. These included a star that resembled a sword hanging over the city, unexplained light shining around the temple and its altar, chariots and soldiers fighting in the clouds, and heavenly voices saying “we are departing” from the temple (Jewish War 6:5:3[288-310]). The same signs are mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus (Histories 5:13).
It is quite possible that the sign of Jesus appeared in the clouds to signify judgment. However, it’s also possible that this should be understood as a continuation of the common Old Testament image of God riding the clouds like a chariot, coming in judgment on those who have done wrong (Ps. 104:3, Isa. 19:1-2, Jer. 4:13-14, Ezek 1:4, 26-28). It was even prophesied that the Son of Man would ride on such a cloud and be given dominion by the Lord (Dan. 7:13-14).
In such passages, God did not appear physically in the clouds, but came spiritually as a judge. Jesus’ prophecy thus may be fulfilled symbolically in the events of A.D. 70: after the Jerusalem authorities destroyed the temple of Jesus’ body (John 2:19-22), Jesus came spiritually to judge the Jerusalem temple, which he had found wanting (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17) and so announced its doom (Mark 13:2).
And, now that he has been given dominion by the Father, he gathers his elect or chosen people from the four winds through the spread of the gospel. The cessation of worship at the Jewish temple thus corresponds to the dawning of the Christian age.
This also is the explanation for a statement that Jesus makes to the high priest Caiaphas. When asked if he is the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus replies: “I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62).
Jesus is not prophesying that the Second Coming will occur during Caiaphas’s lifetime. His statement reflects Daniel 7:13-14, where the Son of Man is brought before God in heaven to receive his kingdom. The prophecy thus refers to Jesus ascending into heaven (Acts 1:9), where he received his kingdom (7:55-56) and where he now reigns (1 Cor. 15:24-26).
Theologians also have explored the idea of an adventus medius (“middle advent”) of Christ prior to the Second Coming. It is a spiritual “coming” of Christ in which he is preached to the world and becomes present with his people (see Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2, epilogue).
This is the explanation for passages such as when Jesus says, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23) or “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). These refer to spiritual comings of Jesus, not his Second Coming. We thus need to be aware that not all passages that speak of Christ as coming refer to the end of the world.
A final statement that should be considered is, “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (Mark 9:1; cf. Matt. 16:28; Luke 9:27).
This is not about the end of the world, for “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21), and some of Jesus’ disciples were about to see it manifested in a powerful way. In each Synoptic Gospel (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the Transfiguration immediately follows Jesus’ announcement (Matt. 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36). Jesus takes three of the disciples—Peter, James, and John—up a mountain. His clothing becomes dazzlingly bright, Moses and Elijah appear beside him, everyone is enveloped in a cloud, and God the Father speaks from heaven, identifying Jesus as his Son and his Chosen, and declaring, “Hear him!”
This manifestation is the coming of the kingdom “with power” that Jesus referred to, and the text of each Gospel suggests that this is the way the evangelists understood it. Not only does the Transfiguration happen right after the announcement, but each Gospel says it was about a week later (Matt. 17:1, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:28—the slight difference in the number of days may reflect reckoning parts of days as wholes and counting days as beginning at sunset, midnight, or dawn). Peter, James, and John thus were the three who did not taste death before they saw the kingdom coming with power (see again Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, ch. 9).

Did Jesus Mess Up a Prophecy?

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DAY 148
CHALLENGE
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“The historical sources that mention Jesus are all dependent on what they’ve heard from Christians. Why should we believe what they say?”
DEFENSE
The extent to which they are dependent on Christians for their information is questionable, and even if they derived all of it from Christian sources that would not make them unreliable.
The sources we cited probably have different degrees of dependence on Christian sources for their information about Jesus:
<ul>
<li>Suetonius is not known to have interviewed any Christians. He did have access to the official Roman archives when writing The Lives of the Caesars. He also had contact with various learned Romans. The fact that he seems to mistake the word Christus as Chrestus is a sign that he was getting his information from non-Christian sources.</li>
<li>Tacitus also is not known to have interviewed any Christians. He did, however, use official Roman records in writing the Annals, and it is likely he took his information about Jesus from them.</li>
<li>Pliny the Younger interviewed Christians about their practices, and it may be that, in writing his Letters, he was largely dependent on these interviews and what was commonly said about Christians in Roman society.</li>
<li>Josephus probably encountered Christians, but he also had access to Jewish records that he used in Antiquities of the Jews. He also was born in Palestine in A.D. 37, and there were many non-Christian Jews living there who had independent knowledge of Jesus.
The assertion that these authors derived their knowledge of Jesus exclusively from Christian sources is implausible. While they may have gained information from Christian sources (especially Pliny the Younger), they also had independent information.
Even if they did not, it would not deprive their writings of value. Information is not to be dismissed if it can be traced to a Christian source. Historians do not systematically reject what is said by Chris- tians and treat such sources as “guilty until proven innocent.” To do so would simply be anti-Christian bias.
Even if everything these authors wrote was derived from Christian sources—which is very unlikely—it still reveals what was being said in their day about Christ and Christianity, and this itself provides a powerful argument for the existence of Jesus (see Day 8).</li>
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Dependent Historical Sources?

Can someone who isn’t Christian—or even hasn’t heard of Jesus—still be saved? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Jimmy Akin joins Cy Kellett to explain what the Catholic Church actually teaches about the possibility of salvation for non-Christians.
Transcript:
Cy: For Jimmy Akin, a question from Chris. Who wants to know this: Can you explain what Christian non-exclusivism entails and, more importantly, what the biblical and patristic evidence is that this is an acceptable non-heretical position? I watched the Theology Unleashed videos you were in and feel like this position would change entirely how I see everyone, Christians and non-Christians also. Are there not things like the infilling of the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Holy Spirit that devotees of other religious traditions cannot experience or share in outside of explicit faith in Jesus?
Jimmy: Okay, so we got quite a number of issues there, so let me take them one at a time. Could I explain what Christian non-exclusivism entails? Sure. It&#8217;s normally called Christian inclusivism. Christian inclusivism is the idea that there are people who can be saved and go to heaven even though they&#8217;re not consciously Christian in this life. This is a position that is taught by the magisterium of the Catholic Church.
Pertaining to the second thing that is asked about, what is the biblical and patristic evidence that this is acceptable? Well, it&#8217;s something that goes all the way back. If you look, for example, in the Old Testament, there are no passages that say, &#8220;Oh, you&#8217;ve got to be a Jew in order to go to heaven.&#8221; Now, there&#8217;s really not much discussion of the afterlife in the Old Testament. I mean, it is there, but we&#8217;re not given a lot of information about it. But there are no passages that assume that non-Jewish people are damned. That&#8217;s just not there.
When we get to the New Testament, there are passages that emphasize that one needs to accept Christ, and you know, that&#8217;s important for our salvation. But there are other passages in the New Testament itself that can point to a non-exclusive understanding of that. For example, in the Book of Acts, in chapter 17, St. Paul is talking to the Areopagus in Athens, and he notes that the Athenians have been making offerings to God because he found an altar in Athens that said, &#8220;To an unknown God.&#8221; He says, &#8220;What you&#8217;ve been worshiping in ignorance, I&#8217;m now going to tell you about.&#8221;
So he acknowledged that the Athenians were worshiping God. They just didn&#8217;t know about God, but they reasoned correctly that there must be a God they were not otherwise aware of. So let&#8217;s make sure we worship him too. That was a good thing. St. Paul also talks to them about how, even though they have been led astray to worship idols, which they shouldn&#8217;t do, those were times of ignorance that God has winked at. That&#8217;s the term that&#8217;s used in Greek. It means God is overlooking those. He&#8217;s not going to hold you accountable for that, provided now that you have more knowledge, you do what you need to, which is worship Jesus.
But notice that this is implying that up to now they would have been able to go to heaven. They were worshiping God, they recognized there was a God, they were trying to worship him; they weren&#8217;t responsible for the idols they also worshiped. And God thus winked at those times. This indicates some possibilities for salvation for people who weren&#8217;t consciously Christian.
The same is true for Jewish people who never heard the message of Jesus in the first century. If Jews before the time of Christ were saved, and there were still Jews in good conscience at the time of Christ or just after the time of Christ, and they never heard the message of the Gospel, well, if they would have been saved before, they would be saved now. God&#8217;s not going to go into their souls because they&#8217;ve never heard the message of Jesus and then rip out the sanctifying grace that was already there. So it&#8217;s going to be possible for those individuals to be saved.
In Romans, at the beginning of the book, St. Paul talks about how Greeks who don&#8217;t know the law of Moses nevertheless have moral principles, which Paul refers to as the law of God written on their hearts. He says their consciences alternately accuse them or perhaps even excuse them on the day when judgment happens. So this text at least holds out a possibility that people who don&#8217;t know God&#8217;s law consciously the way Jews did may nevertheless be excused on judgment day.
This was the understanding of early Christians as well. There were a lot of early Christian authors who recognized that, you know, hey, some of the Greek philosophers got really close to Christianity. They realized that we need to live in a moral way. They realized there must be this creator God. And they&#8217;re almost like Christians before Christians, you know. What was said by some of the early church fathers was, well, these anonymous Christians, you know, people who didn&#8217;t have the name Christian but who nevertheless realized, yeah, we need, there&#8217;s a God and we need to live in a moral way. We need to live in accordance with God&#8217;s will. They were trying to live their lives according to reason.
Now, in Greek, the word for reason is Logos. Logos is also the Greek term that is translated as &#8220;Word&#8221; in John 1. So, &#8220;In the beginning was the Word,&#8221; or &#8220;In the beginning was the Logos.&#8221; And the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. Oh, look, these Greeks are trying to live according to Logos. So even though they don&#8217;t know about Jesus, they&#8217;re still trying to live according to the Logos, and the Logos is Jesus. So they&#8217;re trying to live according to Jesus and his will, even though they haven&#8217;t been taught about Jesus. And so they also could be saved.
This is something that goes all the way back, like I said, into the Bible and into the early church. People kind of lost sight of it for a number of centuries after the evangelization of Europe because after Europe was majority Christian, it was just kind of assumed that if you weren&#8217;t a Christian, it was through your own fault. You know, you might be a Jew or a Muslim or something, but you&#8217;d heard about Jesus, and it was just kind of assumed it was your own fault if you hadn&#8217;t embraced Jesus.
Although there were other authors who said, you know, we haven&#8217;t really been treating all the Jews great, and maybe that&#8217;s part of why they haven&#8217;t accepted him. But what really changed this was the discovery of the New World. Because prior to the discovery of the New World, people would consider, well, what if someone were raised on an island or something and never heard about Jesus? They speculated, well, maybe in that case God would send an angel to preach to them and to baptize them.
Then we find the New World. There aren&#8217;t just islands; there are continents with millions of people who have never heard about Jesus. God has not been sending angels to preach the gospel to them, certainly not in very many cases. So it looks like we need to look for another solution here. That helped retrieve the idea that the early church fathers had explored about people being united to Jesus in a saving way without understanding that in this life. Just like the Greek philosophers, they would say, oh, yeah, they&#8217;re united with Jesus in a saving way because they&#8217;re trying to live according to Logos, even though they don&#8217;t have a full understanding of Logos.
The discovery of the New World helped revive that teaching, which had been part of Christian tradition. And so that&#8217;s the position of the Catholic Church today.
Now, our inquirer Chris says he watched videos I did on Theology Unleashed. Theology Unleashed is a YouTube channel run by a gentleman from down under named Arjuna Gallagher. He&#8217;s a Vaishnava, which means, effectively, he&#8217;s a Hare Krishna. So he&#8217;s a Hindu. He has had me on a few times to do dialogue about, you know, Christianity and things like that.
The Vaishnava tradition actually has quite a bit in common with the Christian tradition. They believe that there is a single God and that the essence of being in union with this God is love. That&#8217;s the most important thing. You do have personal, conscious union with God for eternity. You&#8217;re not absorbed into God or anything like that. That&#8217;s not part of the Vaishnava tradition. So Vaishnavism is a monotheistic version of Hinduism that believes in a single great creator that we are distinct from and who wants an eternal love and relationship with us. Love is the greatest of the theological virtues, just like it is in Christianity.
So there&#8217;s a lot of commonality there. One of the differences is, you know, they have reincarnation in place of purgatory. For Catholics, the way you get purified is purgatory. For them, the way you get purified is reincarnation. So that&#8217;s a difference. But in terms of some of the broader principles, they&#8217;re actually quite similar.
Chris then says, &#8220;Aren&#8217;t there things like the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that devotees of other religious traditions cannot experience or share in outside of explicit faith in Jesus?&#8221; Here, the Catholic Church doesn&#8217;t have a teaching. It teaches that we do receive these things as part of our Christian initiation and Christian life, but it doesn&#8217;t say, and nobody else in the world ever gets them.
I think if you want to hold that, yeah, they just don&#8217;t get the infilling of the Holy Spirit or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that&#8217;s a defensible position. That&#8217;s a position you can hold. But I also think that you could hold a position like St. Augustine and say, you know, we are bound by the sacraments, but God is not. He can give his graces to anybody he chooses.
So if God chose to have the Holy Spirit indwell a person or give someone a gift in another religion, then God could do that. It&#8217;s up to him to choose how he&#8217;s going to distribute his gifts. In fact, Jesus makes the point that it&#8217;s the Spirit who determines these things, not us. And it&#8217;s not always fully predictable.
So I would say there can be a reasonable difference of opinion here about whether and to what extent God gives spiritual gifts to non-Christians who are trying to reach out to him and please him, even if they don&#8217;t understand him fully.
Cy: Chris, thank you so much for the question. Jimmy Akin, our guest this hour and next hour. So another hour coming up of Internet Ask Me Anything. Lots of fascinating questions. Some interesting Internet names attached to those questions.

Do Catholics Believe Non-Christians Can Be Saved?

It&#8217;s a delicate time to talk about anger. There is a lot to be angry about. There&#8217;s a lot in the secular world to be angry about. There&#8217;s a lot in the church to be angry about, but we want to be giving an account of our faith that draws other people—most especially our children—towards the faith. Matthew Walther and Cy Kellett discuss how anger can ruin apologetics.

Anger as Bad Apologetics

May those who do not receive the Eucharist be saved?

If I asked you, “What role does the epistle of James play in apologetics?”, you’d probably say something like, “Isn’t that the book people bring up when Catholics and Protestants debate faith and works?”
And you’d be right—but there’s actually more to it than that. James also gives us some interesting material when it comes to understanding the nature of justification.
One big difference between Catholic and Reformed Protestant views is this: Catholics believe that justification is grounded in an inner transformation—a real righteousness that God creates within us by his grace. Reformed Protestants reject this idea, instead holding that justification is purely a legal declaration by God. So when this issue comes up, Catholics often point to Scripture passages that show justification being tied to this inner, grace-filled righteousness.
One of those passages is James 3:16–18. Let’s take a look at what James says:
<blockquote>For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.</blockquote>
Now, you might be thinking, “Wait—how does this support the Catholic view of justification?” Fair question. It’s not immediately obvious. But with a little digging, we can see how it connects.
Let’s zoom in on that phrase: “The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
The Greek word James uses for “righteousness” here is dikaiosunē. That’s closely related to the verb dikaioō, which James used earlier in chapter two when he wrote, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (v. 24).
James is pointing back to Abraham’s example here, saying,
<blockquote>Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? . . . And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God (vv. 21-23).</blockquote>
This quote from Genesis 15:6 is key, because Protestants and Catholics agree that it refers to Abraham being justified before God. Paul uses this same verse in Romans 4 when he talks about Abraham’s justification. So if James is linking our justification to Abraham’s, then he’s also talking about being justified in God’s sight—not just before other people.
Now, when James later talks about the “harvest of righteousness” in 3:18, he’s building on that same theme. He’s not suddenly switching topics. That “harvest of righteousness” points to our state of being justified—our righteousness as Christians.
So what does that mean for the Catholic understanding of justification? Well, it shows that James sees our justified state as being rooted in a real, interior righteousness—something that God works in us.
James makes this point in a couple of ways.
First, look at the contrast he sets up. He starts by talking about jealousy and selfish ambition—clearly inner attitudes—and says that where those exist, chaos and bad behavior follow. These aren’t just outward sins; they’re states of the heart.
Then he contrasts that with wisdom from above, which is pure, peaceful, merciful, and full of good fruits, connecting such wisdom to our state of justification—the harvest that is righteousness. The implication here is that our state of justification is the opposite of the prior interior states of unrighteousness.
Given this contrast, it follows that our state of justification is constituted by an interior righteous (or just) state of the heart. So on one side, we have inner corruption leading to disorder, and on the other, we have an interior righteousness that produces peace. Justification, therefore, is a matter of the heart—that’s to say, justification is rooted in the interior righteousness that God brings about within us.
Second, James connects our justified state (the “harvest of righteousness”) with something we do: cultivating peace. This implies that our actions—particularly those that come from a rightly ordered heart—have a role in our justification.
Now, Catholics don’t believe that we earn our initial justification through good works. The Church is clear: nothing we do before justification can merit grace. That’s straight from Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9: “By grace you have been saved . . . not by works.”
But once we’ve been justified by grace, our cooperation with that grace matters. That’s where actions like cultivating peace come in—they build on the justified state we’ve already received.
Paul teaches that the act of cultivating peace contributes to us being “justified.” Given that the act of cultivating peace flows from a heart aligned with God’s will, it follows that our justification involves an interior righteousness.
To sum it up: James offers two key insights that support the Catholic view of justification being rooted in an inner transformation.
<ol>
<li>He contrasts righteousness with inner corruption, showing that justification involves the heart.</li>
<li>He links justified living (the harvest of righteousness) with good actions that come from a rightly ordered will—another way of saying interior righteousness.</li>
</ol>
And all of this happens by God’s grace. So when Reformed Protestants reject the idea that justification involves our interior transformation, they’re actually going against what James is telling us in Scripture.

James, You’ve Gone and Done It Again!

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Where did the Bible come from?

Is the Eucharist idolatry?

<div>What kind of rosary has only one bead between the crucifix and decades?</div><div>That would be the Dominican rosary. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/order-of-preachers">Dominicans</a> do not begin the rosary with the Apostles Creed and the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-lords-prayer">Our Father</a>, three <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/hail-mary">Hail Mary</a>s, and the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/glory-be-doxology">Glory Be</a> for the pope&#8217;s intentions. They begin it in the way one prays the Little Office of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/mary-the-blessed-virgin">Blessed Virgin Mary</a>. They start with the first part of the Hail Mary:
<blockquote>V: Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee.
R: Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.</blockquote>
The <a href="https://www.friarly.com/the-rosary.html">Dominican Rosary</a> continues with two prayers taken from the Liturgy of the Hours:
<blockquote>V: O Lord, open my lips.
R: And my mouth shall declare Your praise.
V: O God, come to my assistance.
R: O Lord, make haste to help me.</blockquote>
Then the Dominicans recite the doxology (Glory Be). And then an alleluia, <a href="https://rosarypilgrimage.org/pray-the-dominican-rosary/#:~:text=For%20each%20of%20the%20three,Dominican%20rosary%20has%20fifteen%20decades.">except during Lent</a>. They then begin the first decade in the usual manner.
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The Dominican Rosary

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Karlo Broussard to discuss the role of the priesthood in light of Jesus&#8217; fulfillment of the Old Testament laws. Dr. Karlo dives into the significance of the torn veil and how it impacts our understanding of the New Covenant. Don&#8217;t miss this enlightening conversation that challenges common beliefs!
Transcript:
Caller: I was raised a Catholic and I went to Catholic school, and I ended up converting to non-denominational Protestant beliefs because I am convinced from my study of Scripture that the Old Testament requirement to have a priest as an intermediate back then you would take your sacrifice to the priest.
And it could be for your whole family, that transgressions of your entire family. And God the Father came down once a year.
And he interacted with the priests behind the veil. We know that Jesus fulfilled all of the laws and the prophets, and there were 600 and something rules, including the 10 Commandments that were all mandatory behavior and rules. When he hung on the cross and he said, &#8220;It is finished,&#8221; that is the point where the Old Testament ended when the veil was rent and the New Testament began.
Karlo: Yeah.
Caller: Question number one, can you give me any New Testament scripture justifying why we still need an earthly priest?
Karlo: Oh great. Okay. Okay. So if the question has to do with ministerial priesthood, the question ultimately is did Jesus give us such ministerial priests? Okay, because I understand your line of reasoning that there were priests, there was a ministerial priesthood in the Old Testament with the Old Covenant. And according to your line of reasoning, it seems as if you&#8217;re arguing that because Christ has come, there is no longer any ministerial priesthood whatsoever. But notice that the conclusion there doesn&#8217;t necessarily follow from the premise.
I would agree with you that the Old Testament priesthood no longer exists. Because as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 7, when there is a change in the priesthood, there&#8217;s a change in the law. So Christ is our one high priest according to the book of Hebrews. Right? Christ is our one high priest.
But consider this, Keith. St. Peter in First Peter, chapter 2, verses 5 and 9 refers to the Christians as a priestly nation, a kingdom of priests. So St. Peter affirms that we&#8217;re all priests in and through the unique priesthood of Jesus. But notice St. Peter is drawing a parallel or alluding to explicitly Exodus chapter 19, verse 6, where the Israelites are referred to as a kingdom of priests.
And so notice how you have a match or a parallel between the bottom rank of priestly ministry, namely the universal priesthood of the Israelites and baptized believers in the Christian Church. You also have a parallel with the top rank of priestly ministry, because for the Israel of God in the Old Covenant, Keith, just because you had a universal priesthood of Israelites, it didn&#8217;t follow that you did not have a higher priestly rank of Aaron and his sons.
And so likewise in the New Covenant, we not only have a parallel with the bottom rank of priests in Christ, the universal priesthood, we also have the parallel with the highest rank, the top rank of Jesus. But just as they had a middle rank in the Israel of God in the Old Covenant, namely the sons of Aaron who ministered with Aaron, so too, at least we can see it&#8217;s plausible, biblically speaking, in light of St. Peter&#8217;s allusion to the Israel of God in the Old Covenant, drawing a parallel that there would also be a middle rank of priestly ministry to minister with Christ, not apart from Christ, but in and through the one priesthood of Christ.
So in light of that parallel, I think we at least have some biblical plausibility. But for the evidence that Christ constituted the apostles as priests, consider this, Keith. Consider that in John 20:23, which I&#8217;m pretty sure you&#8217;re familiar with, I would assume you&#8217;re familiar with if you&#8217;re a student of the Word, when Jesus tells the apostles in the upper room, &#8220;Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whosoever sins you retain, they are retained.&#8221;
Now, as you already mentioned, Keith, you&#8217;re well aware that in the Old Testament, those who God associated with the forgiveness of sins and making atonement for sin were his ministerial priests. So to be associated with administering the forgiveness of sins for the Old Covenant was to be a priest. That was a priestly function to minister on behalf of people to God for the forgiveness of sins.
And here in John 20:23, Jesus clearly is giving the apostles authority to not only offer sacrifice and atonement for sin, to request God to forgive, but to actually make a judgment to forgive or to retain, and that they have this ministry of administering the forgiveness of sins in, of course, the name of Jesus, because Jesus says he breathes on them and gives them the Spirit to do so.
&#8220;As the Father hath sent me, I now send you.&#8221; So too, these apostles are ministerial priests because Jesus is associating them with the reconciliation of people back to God. And so in essence, that&#8217;s a priest, a mediator. But more specifically, they&#8217;re associated with reconciling people back to God by forgiving sins. And that&#8217;s revelatory of their priestly nature.
You could look at the Last Supper. Jesus says, &#8220;Do this in remembrance of me.&#8221; The Greek there for &#8220;do this&#8221; is *poeo*, which has sacrificial overtones, suggesting that Jesus is commanding the apostles to offer the Last Supper as a sacrifice. And inasmuch as it&#8217;s a sacrifice, that suggests that he views them as ministerial priests. For the role of a priest is to offer sacrifice.
And then finally in Romans 15, Keith, Paul refers to his ministry as a priestly service. And the Greek word that he uses there, the root is *jerus*, which is the Greek word that&#8217;s used for the Jewish priests of the Old Testament. So Paul himself views his ministry as a priestly ministry. So those are just a few examples. What do you think of that, Keith?
Caller: I agree with just about everything you said because we do take on priestly roles as&#8230;
A born-again&#8230;
Christian, as a saved&#8230; I think we agree on the saved term. The plausibility that it could very well be like that does not outweigh the fact that when you look at what that veil represented and he did away with the veil at his death, I go to God now with my sins. There&#8217;s no veil that I can&#8217;t go behind anymore. There&#8217;s no veil that requires me to go to the priest.
Karlo: All right, all right, let me just jump in right here real quick. Keith, your position would make perfect sense in saying, well, if the veil is rent and therefore there&#8217;s no priest, but you have to face the fact that Jesus actually reveals to us that he gives the apostles a ministry of reconciling people back to God by forgiving and in some cases not forgiving, in which case people wouldn&#8217;t be reconciled back to God.
So rather than focusing simply on the limited information that we have with that one instance of the veil being rent, you can&#8217;t read that. I would encourage you not to read that in isolation and exclude it from what Jesus says elsewhere.
And a Catholic can read the renting of the veil in that the union between God and the human race is now restored through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And rather than approaching God for the forgiveness of sins through the ministers of the Old Covenant, Keith, what the renting of the veil reveals is that we can only approach the Father and receive his mercy in and through the one high priest, Jesus Christ.
And he is the one mediator between God and man. Any other forms of mediation, like our mediation, Keith, when we pray for each other or from the Catholic view, the mediation of the priests in forgiving sins and who are successors to the apostles, and when the apostles are forgiving sins, that mediation is in and through the unique mediation of Jesus. And that&#8217;s what the renting of the veil represents. Christ is now our access to the presence of God.
Caller: I see that the apostles were given the ability to forgive and as he put or not. Okay, but that still sort of segues right into my second question. And let me just put it this way. I heard mention a couple of callers ago, several times he mentioned the infallible teachings. And sometimes I have issue with that. If you don&#8217;t have a scripture to back it up, then how is it infallible? And I agree that his rationale and his line of thinking is very reasonable. Very reasonable.
Cy: Let&#8217;s let Karlo respond to that, because I think the point he&#8217;s making about if you don&#8217;t have a scripture to back it up is exactly the challenge that we&#8217;re&#8230; it&#8217;s at the root of much of the conversation.
Karlo: Okay, so concerning the evidence for the infallibility of the church, if Keith is asserting that we must provide a biblical text, a text from the inspired word of God, that the church of Jesus is infallible, well then that brings up the question. Well, you need an infallible voice in order to rely on an infallible testimony in order to know that these documents are inspired to begin with, in order to begin deriving knowledge about divine revelation, right?
So if the claim is, well, the Bible&#8217;s inspired, so we need some evidence from the inspired word of God for infallibility. Well, your claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God presupposes or assumes there&#8217;s already an infallible testimony that you can rely on. And you got a problem there if you only look into the New Testament historical evidence.
Because neither Jesus nor the apostles ever tell us which documents are inspired by God and thus consequently infallible. But what we can do is we can look at these documents as historical documents, right? And we can say, well, historically speaking, Jesus had a group of 12, among which was one that he appointed to be the leader, Peter. And we can defend that with Matthew 16:18. It makes him the rock or the visible foundation of his church. He gives him the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Right? And in that conversation with Peter, when he&#8217;s making him the visible foundation of his church on earth, he says the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Right? So that indicates that the church which Peter&#8217;s the foundation of, which Peter represents in his ministry, is not going to ever fall prey to Satan overcoming it, which would be if the church ever officially taught something heretical and erroneous contrary to God&#8217;s revelation, then Satan would have overcome the church.
But Jesus promised Satan will never overcome the church. Therefore, whenever the church teaches something as coming from divine revelation in a definitive way, it follows from that that it&#8217;s going to be protected from error. It&#8217;s going to be protected from Satan.
Right? Furthermore, we could look to Luke 22:29-32. That&#8217;s where Jesus tells Peter, he&#8217;s telling the apostles, &#8220;Satan desires to sift all of you.&#8221; You all in plural there in the Greek. But then he prays directly for Peter. &#8220;But I pray for you that once you have turned, strengthen the brethren.&#8221; I pray that your faith may not fail. Jesus makes an exclusive promise to protect Peter from the sifting of Satan when Satan&#8217;s desiring to sift all of them.
So from that we can infer a special protection of Peter and by way of extension his successors, that they would be protected from the sifting of Satan concerning teaching us things about what God has revealed to us, that through his Son Jesus, and by the Spirit leading the apostles in the apostolic age.
Right? And then of course, in 1 Timothy 3:15, St. Paul says, &#8220;The church, which, remember Peter&#8217;s the foundation of, is the pillar and bulwark, or ground of truth.&#8221; Well, if the Church, the ground of truth, that implies that the Church is immovable in the truth. It can&#8217;t be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, right?
But if Peter is the visible foundation of that Church, well, then it follows that Peter too is immovable in the truth, the ground of truth, because he&#8217;s the representative of the Church. So when we look at that historical evidence and we follow the historical trail subsequent to the apostolic age and other historical writings, seeing that there were successors to St. Peter and the bishopric of Rome, then we have historical evidence that those same promises Jesus made to Peter and to the Church as a whole whom Peter represents would apply to his successors as well.
And so thus we have historical evidence that there is an infallible testimony that we can rely upon to know that those historical documents are indeed inspired by God and to give us definitive, infallible teaching concerning what pertains to God&#8217;s revelation, whether faith or morals. And so that would be the Catholic approach for establishing the infallibility of the papacy and, of course, the Church united to the papacy.
Cy: Keith, I&#8217;m really grateful that you took the time to call and to visit. I really could listen to a conversation between two men who know their scripture so well and go back and forth all day. But however, I have a bunch more callers on the line, so I have to continue on. So I&#8217;ll just say thanks, Keith, I hope you will call again.

I’m Not Catholic Because Every Christian is a Priest!

<div>Why did Jesus not mention that his Mother was a virgin and that we should pray to her?</div><div>It would hardly have been appropriate or respectful for Jesus to discuss his Mother&#8217;s sexual history during his public ministry. He entrusted to his Church the task of discerning and then promulgating the dogma that his Mother was a perpetual virgin.
As for praying to the Blessed Mother, Jesus explicitly gave Mary to his beloved disciple, John, to be his own mother, which implies that he has given her to all Christians to be their mother and to have a filial relationship with her (John 19:26-27).
For more information, I recommend the Catholic Answers tracts <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/mary-ever-virgin">Mary: Ever Virgin</a> and <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints">Praying to the Saints</a>.
</div>

Jesus and His Mother

Cy Kellett is joined by apologist Joe Heschmeyer to discuss the challenges of accepting Catholic dogma from the perspective of a former Protestant pastor. Joe shares insights on the necessity of a unified understanding of Scripture and the role of dogma in guiding theological beliefs.
Transcript:
Cy: Welcome, Tony. Why aren&#8217;t you Catholic?
Caller: Several years ago, I actually subscribed to the Catholic Answers magazine about 25 years ago. And I was mulling it over and I ended up becoming a Protestant pastor. At the end of the day, it&#8217;s basically whatever is held by the Catholic Church to be dogma must be accepted by every Catholic. And obviously within that, there are other reasons, specific theological reasons why I&#8217;m not Catholic, but that&#8217;s the main one.
Joe: I think that&#8217;s a great way of articulating that. Objection. First of all, what denomination or tradition were you a pastor? Were or are you a pastor in assemblies?
Caller: I was formerly Assemblies of God, but here recently, more non-denominational Pentecostal traditions.
Joe: Sure. Okay. So, I mean, I don&#8217;t want to put words in your mouth. Would it be fair to say you think that some dogma is okay?
Caller: Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, a good percentage of Catholic Christianity is simply well-articulated Christianity.
Joe: Yeah. And so, I mean, even like within the Pentecostal world that you operate in, you&#8217;ve got Trinitarian Pentecostals and you&#8217;ve got Oneness Pentecostals, and both are reading the scripture and both are, you know, praying to God and trying to understand what his will is, what the meaning of scripture is, etc. So it seems to me like there is a need that both you and I see to have some way of adjudicating which readings of scripture are correct and which ones aren&#8217;t correct. Is that fair to say?
Caller: Well, yes. I think that the problem you have with a lot of theological trends and many Pentecostals kind of go on certain bandwagons is that, you know, they interpret it for themselves without actually looking at the scholarship, without looking at, you know, how it was originally interpreted by the Church Fathers or early Christians, you know, before a certain period of time, a point of no return, as most Protestants would kind of benchmark certain historical events. Does that make sense?
Joe: Yeah, it does. It makes total sense. And I would actually provisionally agree with you, Tony. If the Church isn&#8217;t infallible and it&#8217;s just one group of Christians telling another group of Christians what they should believe, then I would actually suggest maybe we shouldn&#8217;t have any dogmas at all. Because if it&#8217;s just, well, group A says we should interpret it in a Trinitarian way and group B says we should interpret it in a Unitarian way and neither side can speak on behalf of God, well, then I don&#8217;t know why I should trust either one over the other than that I happen to agree with A over B.
But when I go back and read the Bible, I see actually a very different picture. You have people who, you know, they read the Bible differently, they understand the Gospel differently. That has always been the case. And so in Acts 15, when you get the Judaizers who say, well, look, you know all these Old Testament passages about keeping the Mosaic Law, so therefore new converts have to keep the law of Moses and, you know, they gotta get circumcised. This is a theological dispute about the meaning and interpretation of Scripture. They can quote Bible verses at each other night and day. And frankly, the Judaizers have plenty of verses they can point to that make it look like they&#8217;re right, but they&#8217;re wrong.
And the way it&#8217;s settled isn&#8217;t that everybody just reads the Bible the same way. The way it&#8217;s settled is the Council of Jerusalem meets in Acts 15 and just declares that the Judaizers are wrong and speaks on behalf of the Holy Spirit. Acts 15:28. It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us, and then tells people what they are bound to believe and what practices they are and are not bound to hold.
So if the Church from the time of the first century has that authority, then dogma becomes really good, because every dogma is greater insight into how to understand the Gospel message. If the Church doesn&#8217;t have that authority, but I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on in Acts 15, or if the Church had that authority and then lost it somehow, then I don&#8217;t see a principled reason to say the Church can declare dogmas in areas that I agree with, but they can&#8217;t declare dogmas that challenge the way I would read Scripture on my own. I don&#8217;t know, maybe I don&#8217;t want to straw man your position at all. Is there?
Caller: Sure, sure. You need dogma to be definitive in anything. You need certain boundaries and certain&#8230; You need to color within the lines and express where the lines are. So obviously most Christians would say that in order to be a Christian, you need to believe X, Y, and Z. You know, Christians, people that don&#8217;t believe in the Trinity aren&#8217;t necessarily&#8230; Most mainstream Protestant denominations wouldn&#8217;t consider them to be Christians. You know, so I hear you.
And of course, you know, the Assemblies of God have the 16 fundamental truths. Presbyterians have their beliefs, Methodists have certain confessions. I get that. It just seems like within the Roman Catholic Church, not the Eastern Catholic Church, there is a need to maybe overly define certain things versus allowing some freedom of personal exploration. Obviously, we see the danger when we look at the growth of Protestantism with personal interpretation run amok. There needs to be some sort of authority and that needs to be expressed clearly. But there should be some freedom or some mystery allowed. Like, let&#8217;s say the Eastern Orthodox do allow certain mysteries and don&#8217;t necessarily feel the need to explain certain things where the Catholic, Roman Catholic Church does. And so that&#8217;s basically just that.
Joe: Yeah. No.
Caller: Sorry.
Joe: No, no. I kind of cut in. I apologize. But I guess I&#8217;d&#8230; Let me toss something to you and see how you&#8217;d take that. If the Church is infallible, it seems to me that that clarity with dogma is actually really helpful. Like, it&#8217;s not good if it is a case where one group is actually misunderstanding and another group is understanding correctly and the Church can speak to which one&#8217;s right and which one&#8217;s wrong, wouldn&#8217;t that be a good thing in that case? I mean, even though&#8230; Sure, I guess if you have a certain conception of freedom, maybe not. But it seems like you have a greater knowledge of the truth in that case.
Caller: I understand. I hear you. And I guess for me it was just a matter of, hey, I have&#8230; In order to become a part&#8230; I had&#8230; This was 25 years ago. I had to fully assent to everything. And if I&#8217;m going to be honest with you, I didn&#8217;t. So I couldn&#8217;t, you know, I did get confirmed and I did do, you know, go spend some time about a year or two studying Catholicism. But at the end of the day, to be a good Catholic, I had to assent to everything that was dogmatically passed down through the Magisterium, and I could not do that. And because of that lack of freedom, I just had to be honest with myself and ended up going a different route.
Joe: Look, I respect your intellectual integrity there.
Caller: Yeah. Okay.
Joe: I do. I think that you are&#8230; It is better to say I can&#8217;t say yes to this in good faith than to just pretend like you can when you can&#8217;t. And I would suggest this as a way to, for anyone who might be in similar situations to what you were in, if you take the teachings of Jesus and you just start with listing all the teachings and say, which ones do I agree with? Which ones do I not agree with? There are ones that I&#8217;m going to be confused by and ones that I&#8217;m going to be challenged by. But if I start with who Jesus is, is he who he claims to be, then it&#8217;s a lot clearer. Then I can say, okay, well, I actually trust him even when I would have come to a different conclusion.
So I&#8217;d suggest that the question with the Church one way, and I know this is the way many people go about it, is they think, okay, here are all of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Does my reading of Scripture align with each of these? Here, yes, here, no. But I think the deeper question to ask is the Church doesn&#8217;t just claim to happen to be right in these. Like the Church claims to be the Church founded by Jesus Christ. The Church claims to speak with the authority of God in certain contexts and to be the bride of Christ and points to biblical support for that. I think those claims are either true or false. And if they&#8217;re true, we should all be Catholic. And if they&#8217;re false, then frankly, none of us should be Catholic. Even if the Catholic Church happened to get all of the disputed questions right.
You know, in that sense, it&#8217;s different than being Assemblies of God or non-denominational or Presbyterian or whatever else where the statements of belief aren&#8217;t held to be infallible, they&#8217;re fallible. Men&#8217;s best guess about what Scripture means and what Christianity should stand for. And there&#8217;s an acknowledgment often pretty explicitly that this best guess may not be perfect, it may not be right, and the denomination next door may have a different best guess. Now, they don&#8217;t say best guess, but you see what I mean. Like if it&#8217;s&#8230; I guess it does come down to this question of who is the Church? And if so, then the question of my freedom kind of takes on a different character. Does that&#8230; I don&#8217;t know, does that make sense?
Caller: Tony, I hear you perfectly. I understand.
Joe: All right, that may be the best we could do for today, but I appreciate your call a lot and I think you&#8217;ve done a good job of putting to words experiences many people have!

Why Must I Believe Everything the Church Teaches?

FEMALE PASTOR calls Catholic show

All 10 archbishops of New York have been Irishmen of one degree or another. Author George Marlin shares their history with us, and a bit of the history of New York as America&#8217;s leading archdiocese.

Sons of St. Patrick

<div>Is the Holy Cloak of St. Joseph novena Church-approved?</div><div>Yes, it is. This devotion is well known in Italy on account of the priests of the Work of St. Luigi Guanella, and it is a well-established devotion in honor of St. Joseph that has been known to gain many graces for those who practice it.
It began in the diocese of Lanciano in Italy in the late nineteenth century and received the approval of its bishop. The Church encourages the faithful to have recourse to St. Joseph in all their needs, and why not? He was chosen to supply the needs of the Lord Jesus himself, so Jesus is happy for him to help us who are his members and brethren.
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What About the Holy Cloak Novena?

Genesis 6 says that shortly before the Flood, “the sons of God” married “the daughters of men,” who gave birth to unusually tall people whom the Bible refers to as the Nephilim (Aramaic, “giants”).
In a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-angels-mate-with-human-women">previous post</a>, we mentioned the three main theories about this mysterious incident:
<ol>
<li>The sons of God were the righteous line of Seth, and the daughters of men were the wicked line of Cain.</li>
<li>The sons of God were human rulers, and the daughters of men were common women.</li>
<li>The sons of God were fallen angels, and the daughters of men were human women.</li>
</ol>
As we saw, the first of these doesn’t work because the line of Cain went extinct with the Great Flood, and Genesis says the sons of God also mated with the daughters of men after the Flood, allowing the Israelites to later encounter “the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim)” (Num. 13:33) when they entered the Promised Land.
The second theory is also problematic because the phrase “sons of God” is never used for human rulers in the Bible.
On the other hand, “sons of God” is consistently used in the Old Testament to refer to high-ranking angels, which would support the third interpretation.
Modern people tend to dismiss the third option because angels don’t have physical bodies, but this is something doctrinal development has made clear. This fact was not clear to the ancient Israelites, who didn’t have a problem with embodied angels, and when trying to figure out what an ancient text means, we need to determine what it would have meant to the original author.
Further, Christian thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas have held that even if angels don’t normally have physical bodies, they can assume them. So before we set the third theory aside, let’s consider what evidence we have for it.
One of the books that some New Testament authors read was 1 Enoch. This book is directly quoted in Jude 14-15, which describes it as containing prophecy.
In 1 Enoch, a group of angels decide to leave heaven and marry human women. They also teach mankind destructive skills like how to make weapons for war, how to make cosmetics for seduction, and how to perform magic. They corrupt mankind by these skills, and after they get married, their sons are violent giants, and the resulting corruption brings on the Great Flood.
The fact is that the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6 is the most ancient one we have on record. In The Word Biblical Commentary on Jude 6, the British scholar Richard Bauckham writes:
<blockquote>According to Jewish tradition, [angels] descended from heaven to marry human wives and corrupt the human race in the period before the Flood. This was how the account of the “sons of God” in Gen 6:1-4 was universally understood (so far as our evidence goes) until the mid-second century a.d., though the tradition took several varying forms.
From the time of R. Simeon b. Yohai in the mid-second century a.d., the traditional exegesis was replaced in Judaism by an insistence that the “sons of God” were not angels but men. In Christianity, however, the traditional exegesis had a longer life, questioned only in the third century and disappearing in the fifth century.</blockquote>
This understanding was not limited to just one or two sources. In The Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis 6:1, another British scholar, Gordon Wenham, writes,
<blockquote>The “angel” interpretation is at once the oldest view and that of most modern commentators. It is assumed in the earliest Jewish exegesis (e.g., the books of 1 Enoch 6:2ff; Jubilees 5:1), [the Septuagint], Philo De Gigant. 2:358), Josephus (Ant. 1.31) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen 2:1; CD 2:17–19). The [New Testament] (2 Pet 2:4, Jude 6, 7) and the earliest Christian writers (e.g., Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen) also take this line.</blockquote>
The angelic interpretation of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 is thus the universal and earliest view in both Jewish and Christian circles, across a wide range of sources.
What all of the sources have in common, though, is that they were all written in the period around the birth of Christ—either a few centuries before or afterward. But Genesis itself is from an earlier period, and how a text was later interpreted does not automatically tell us how it was interpreted at the time it was written. What would help is if we had material from before Genesis was written that could shed light on the matter . . . and we do.
One of the things that scholars of Genesis have noted is that its author frequently engages in anti-pagan polemics by giving an orthodox alternative to the ideas of surrounding pagan cultures. This is why in Genesis 1:16, he says that “God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night,” but he does not name them as the sun and the moon.
The reason is that the words for “sun” and “moon” were also the names of the sun god and the moon god, and he doesn’t want the reader thinking that the high God made the sun god and the moon god. The message is, “They’re just lights! Don’t worship them!”
For those familiar with the ancient Near Eastern background that the author of Genesis is undermining, the background to Genesis 6 is clear. In Mesopotamian literature, there was a group of demigods known as the Apkallu. They were wise and taught mankind the skills that made Mesopotamian civilization great.
The Apkallu also mated with human women before the Great Flood and fathered divine-human hybrid children who were Mesopotamian king-heroes.
The Flood itself comes about differently in Mesopotamian mythology. There, the Flood happened because the human race multiplied so much that it was making too much noise at night and keeping the gods awake, so they sent the Flood to get rid of the problem.
It thus appears that the author of Genesis is rebutting these Mesopotamian ideas in his introduction to the Flood narrative.
Instead of the Apkallu being the good guys who made Mesopotamia great, the sons of God were fallen angels who abandoned heaven and improperly mated with human women. And the skills they taught corrupted mankind and brought on the Flood, which wasn’t a petulant act of the gods because mankind was making too much noise; it was sent because of man’s wickedness.
It thus looks as though we have evidence for the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6 both before Genesis was written (with the Mesopotamian Apkallu) and after it was written (in the Jewish literature from around the time of Christ).
This provides significant support for the angelic interpretation, but is there any way we can confirm it? That’s what we’ll discuss in my next post.
Posts in series: <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-the-nephilim-biblical-aliens">one</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/7-mysteries-about-the-nephilim">two</a>, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-angels-mate-with-human-women">three</a>

Rebellious Angels and the Great Flood

<div>Is the eternal law God himself or did God create the eternal law?</div><div>According to St. Thomas Aquinas, &#8220;A law is nothing else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community&#8221; (P. 1, Q. 91). Since God is eternal, his rule over the universe and his dictates for how it ought to be are eternal as well. The eternal law is not something God made but is identical with God&#8217;s unchanging reason and desires for creation.
</div>

God and the Eternal Law

A long-standing disagreement between Catholics and Protestants is whether or not infants need to be baptized. Joe Heschmeyer discusses why the bible supports infant baptism and the difference between original sin and personal sin. He sights two main biblical passages that support the Catholic tradition and teaching of infant baptism.

The Bible Supports Infant Baptism (here’s why)

Episode 148: 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C
In today’s episode, there are two details that we reflect on from the second reading, taken from 1Timothy 2:1-8. The first detail has a two-fold relation to apologetics. One is that it relates to the topic of “Double Predestination.” The other detail relates to the topic of Hell, which is related to the previous topic of double predestination. The second detail is related to the topic of the invocation of Mary and the saints.

Does God Will Some to Hell? St. Paul, Predestination, and the Saints

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DAY 11
CHALLENGE
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“Science cannot accept the supernatural. The natural world is all there is.”
DEFENSE
At best, this leads to a reductionistic understanding of science. At worst, it reflects intellectual prejudice.
The term “nature” is often used to refer to the visible world we see around us (i.e., the world detectible by the senses and by scientific instruments). The supernatural then would be anything that falls outside of the visible world.
On this understanding, the assertion that science can’t accept the supernatural would mean that science cannot deal with anything outside of the visible world. It would not mean, however, that there is nothing outside the visible world. Just because we can’t detect something with the senses doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. There could be vast realms outside the visible world that would be inaccessible to science on this understanding.
Further, those realms might be capable of interacting with the visible world, which would pose a challenge for science. We might be able to see visible effects of causes in the non-visible world, but science would not be able to explain the effects by their true causes, which it would be forbidden to discuss.
Sometimes people use “nature” to refer to everything that exists. On this understanding, one could assert that nature is all there is, but this also would not mean that the visible world is all that exists. There still could be vast realms not accessible to the senses. They might even interact with the visible world. Using “nature” to refer to everything that exists just reclassifies things that would otherwise be called super- natural as exotic parts of nature.
The claim that the visible world is all that exists is simply an assertion. It is not a scientific claim because it cannot be verified by science. If science, by its nature, is limited to examining the visible universe, then there is no way to perform a set of observations and experiments proving that there are no realms outside the visible universe. The as- sertion that only the visible world is real thus would be a matter of unscientific prejudice against the idea there is anything outside the visible world.
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Science and the Supernatural

Trent’s obsession with industrial safety videos returns! In this episode Trent talks about delta-P, Caterpillar tractor protocol, and the goriest safety video on YouTube he could barely watch.

Don’t “shake hands with danger”!

What do we get wrong about reaching teens?

I teach catechism. What resources do you recommend implementing those principles?

I’m a catechist. The teens don’t even want to talk. How do you even start to engage them?

How do you capture the kids younger since in their teen years, we’ve already lost them?

I made my students feel like this was their program, their opportunity. What are your thoughts on that approach?

How do you talk about prayer to teens?

What things can you do to keep your young adult kids engaged when they come home from Catholic university?

&#8220;How do we engage teens in faith and Eucharistic adoration?&#8221; This episode explores effective strategies for connecting with young people, addressing common misconceptions about reaching teens, and discussing the biblical foundations of Eucharistic adoration. Additionally, we delve into resources for catechists and ways to foster meaningful conversations about prayer with teens.
<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 Do We Engage Teens in Faith?

DEBATE REVIEW: Redeemed Zoomer vs Doug Wilson on SCHISM

How to discern between Catholic and Protestant apologetics?

How were the apostles chosen?

How can we comfort the suffering (2 Cor 1:3-5)?

Why does God allow suffering and evil?

Do we receive the full Eucharist with just the host?

&#8220;What can we do to comfort the suffering?&#8221; In this episode, we explore this vital question alongside topics such as the selection of the apostles and the reasons behind God&#8217;s allowance of suffering and evil.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
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How Can We Comfort the Suffering? Apostles and Evil

I’m always surprised by the ignorance of most Christians when it comes to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/who-are-the-jehovahs-witnesses">Jehovah’s Witnesses</a>. For instance, my wife, who is a cradle Catholic, thought they were Protestants like any others, but ones that just happened to go door-to-door in their evangelization work. She was shocked to find out that they don’t believe in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/in-defense-of-the-trinity">the Trinity</a> or the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-do-we-refute-the-soul-sleep-argument">immortality of the soul</a>. And many people I speak to have no idea that Jehovah’s Witnesses practice a form of shunning against former members (called disfellowshipping). “Like the Amish?” they’ll say.
But the ignorance can go both ways. As a teenage Jehovah’s Witness, I’ll never forget the time in high school when I learned from a Baptist girl that she (and her church) believed in the Trinity. “You believe in that three-headed god?” I asked. “I thought only Catholics believed that!”
As a former Witness, I’d like to present a few of the more salient points you should be aware of when encountering a Witness. This will be a sort of “insider’s perspective” on Witness practice and belief, where I highlight some of the things people unfamiliar with the Witnesses miss when <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/evangelizing-jehovahs-witnesses">dialoguing with them</a>. It’s not exhaustive, but it is a place to start.
First of all, “the organization,” as it was colloquially referred to by the membership, is a bureaucratic entity that is constantly changing. For decades, the mainstay of JW life was the reporting of “time,” or the hours spent going door-to-door that every Witness in good standing was expected to complete—typically a minimum of eight hours per month. That requirement was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/timekeepers-no-rank-file-jehovahs-witnesses-say-goodbye-tracking-prose-rcna126582">done away with</a> recently—an astonishing development, because it was formerly understood to be a <a href="https://watchtowerwayback.org/jw-wb/English/Magazines/The%20Watchtower/1943%20The%20Watchtower.pdf">directive from Christ Himself</a> (203), with the Watchtower’s <a href="https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/201988328#h=5">detailed instructions</a> on how to properly do it being deeply embedded in Witness praxis.
The shunning practice has undergone a pretty significant modification as well. Among other things, Witnesses are now <a href="https://cne.news/article/4220-jehovahs-witnesses-ease-shunning-rules-after-blow-in-oslo-court">permitted to say a greeting</a> to the disfellowshipped person (the exception being those disfellowshipped for apostasy). Finally, one of their lingering failed prophecies has been <a href="https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/w20100615/United-in-Love-Annual-Meeting-Report/">further</a> “<a href="https://jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php#2010">adjusted</a>”—namely, that “the generation” that witnessed the events of 1914 would not die prior to the start of the Great Tribulation. It’s now been necessary to posit the existence of “overlapping generations” as a suitable interpretation of “this generation” (Matt. 24:34) to avert systemic doctrinal collapse <a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a>.
Nevertheless, there are a several constants when it comes to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Let’s discuss some common ground we have with Witnesses that you might not be aware of.
What do we have in common with the Witnesses, besides both being lumped into the general category of “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/they-told-me-jesus-isnt-god">Christians</a>”? Witnesses are generally considered “conservative,” and so there is a good deal of overlap regarding traditional morals, with the notable exceptions of our stances on remarriage and contraception. But the major (and perhaps surprising) area of convergence is the similar insistence on membership in a visible, earthly organization as being necessary for salvation. For the Witnesses, the Watchtower organization is God’s dispenser of truth on earth. God leads it into all truth through a gradual process of increasing “light” (Prov. 4:18). “Current understandings” that are suspected by a Witness to be wrong are therefore opportunities to suspend judgment and “wait on Jehovah” to correct matters.
It might be necessary to carefully distinguish this from Catholic teaching. Some Witnesses are aware of certain changes in tone in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council and will attempt to conflate the two phenomena. Catholics believe in one dogmatic gospel, delivered once and for all by Christ Jesus to his apostles. The understanding of this deposit can deepen, and we’re assured of the Holy Spirit’s guidance in this process, but it can never contradict what came before. And on certain prudential matters, the Church can change her stance as the needs of a particular age may require (on questions of social justice and relations with other faiths, for example). In contrast, Witness dogma can openly contradict what came before it, and Witnesses admit as much, based on their belief in progressive revelation. For example, at one time, Witnesses believed that all Christians would go to heaven upon their deaths. Later, in 1935, they received <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Conscience-struggle-between-religion/dp/0999499203">clarification</a> from God that only 144,000 would do so, and that the rest would live forever on a paradise earth (16).
Despite these crucial differences in our understanding of how revelation works, Catholics can still praise the Witnesses for seeing the need for a concrete, visible faith community with a clear authority structure. Sadly, though, many ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses have not considered the possibility of entering the Catholic Church precisely because they feel so burned by their experience with religious authority in the Witnesses. Presenting a compelling vision of our historic hierarchical structure and how it corrects the deficiencies in the Witness model is therefore something to approach sensitively when talking with ex-Witnesses.
Remember that if a Witness is willing to talk to you at any length about matters of faith, you’ve already made some progress. Being exposed to something different is all it takes to trigger curiosity many times, so just giving him a glimpse of the beauty and depth of Catholicism can often be the best strategy.

Jehovah’s Witnesses: An Insider Perspective

<div>What does it look like to love sinners, instead of rebuke them?</div><div>The two can—and should—go hand in hand. One of the spiritual works of mercy is <a href="http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/jubilee-of-mercy/the-spiritual-works-of-mercy.cfm">admonishing the sinner</a>, and this should be done out <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/blog/philip-kosloski/admonish-the-sinner-pope-francis-and-the-third-spiritual-work-of-mercy">of true love.</a> “Admonish” is less of a harsh word, though “rebuke” need not exclude genuine love.
In short, we can and should correct sinners out of love for them and the harm sin can do in their lives and those of others, and yet we should continue to interact with them in love if they don’t immediately repent. Sometimes people can take awhile to have a major conversion, and so we want to support them throughout that process, while never condoning, let alone participating in, their wrongdoing.
Finally, learning from St. Thomas Aquinas, fraternal correction should be brief, charitable and rare, meaning that people should really see that we love them holistically and do not want simply to correct them regarding their sin.
</div>

How Do You Love Sinners Instead of Rebuking Them?

<div>A friend went to psychic years ago. I lost touch with her. A I responsible for trying to contact her to tell her it’s a mortal sin?</div><div>You say you’ve lost contact with your friend. Do you know how to get back in contact with your friend or know someone who is likely to help you in succeeding in that request?
If you can answer one or both of those questions affirmatively, then, out of charity, it’d be good for you to let your friend know to avoid psychics and trust in God, instead of consulting problematic spirits to deal with life issues (see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htm">CCC 2115-17</a>). Yet, make sure to approach your friend with humble charity, including because it’s been a good while since you’ve last spoken (see 1 Pet. 3:15). If your friend is Catholic, encourage her to take advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation. If she’s not, encourage her to repent to God on her own.
Further, consulting a psychic is certainly, objectively, gravely wrong. However, remember that mortal sin involves two other components: full knowledge and full consent of the will (see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm">CCC 1857-61</a>). Consequently, while encouraging your friend to repent and avoid this sin, don’t presume to judge her subjective culpability.
If you are not able to contact your friend, pray for her repentance and conversion.
</div>

Should I Reprove a Friend for Consulting a Psychic?

In this episode Trent answers a common argument from silence related to Mary&#8217;s Bodily Assumption and the witness of the Church fathers.

Answering Arguments from Silence Against Mary’s Assumption

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DAY 291
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CHALLENGE
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“Christian appeals to natural law are futile. In nature we see animals committing all kinds of acts—such as rape, homosexuality, and purposeless killing—that Christianity considers immoral.”
DEFENSE
This misunderstands the concept of natural law.
Confusion on this point is understandable. We see many “laws” in operation in nature. Some of these are studied by sciences such as physics and commonly referred to as laws (e.g., the laws of gravitation, optics, or thermodynamics).
The field of ethology studies animal behavior and, though its findings aren’t as often referred to as laws, it does frequently report animal behaviors that would be deemed immoral if done by humans.
However, when moral theologians refer to natural law, they are not talking about either of these. The Catechism explains: “This law is called ‘natural,’ not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature” (CCC 1955). In other words, in discussions of moral theology, the natural law refers to the moral laws that we can discern by reason, which is rooted in human nature.
Moral theology thus does not make appeals to the behavior of animals. It does not matter whether ducks rape ducks, whether penguins engage in homosexual behavior with penguins, or whether baboons gratuitously kill baboons. None of these creatures have the human gift of reason.
Appeals to natural law are thus appeals to human nature and to what reason tells us about moral behavior:
The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid (CCC 1955).
The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties (CCC 1956).
Although our reason is disfigured by sin and we find it easy to ra- tionalize immoral behavior, moral reasoning is a human universal, and thus the natural moral law finds expression in all cultures.
TIP
For more, see the International Theological Commission’s document, “In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law,” available online.
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Appealing to Natural Law

In this free-for-all-Friday, Trent examines the history of so-called &#8220;ugly laws&#8221; and how the world used to be very different for disabled people.

FFAF: Was It Ever Illegal To Be Ugly?

Did you know there is a feature in modern Bibles that is only a few centuries old that ha potential to distort the meaning of God’s word?

How Modern Bibles Conceal Doctrine

The Priest Who Sacrificed Himself to the Nazis

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

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

Should Christians “Trust the Science”?

Are you struggling to bring your children back to the faith? Keith Nester shares his heartfelt advice on how to navigate this common parental challenge. Discover practical tips and encouragement from a seasoned spiritual guide.
<a href="https://youtu.be/pLAXOW79Mn4">Full Interview</a>
Transcript:
And this might actually be the most common question that I get after talks and often I&#8217;m baffled at what to say. So I want to hear what you have to say.
What can I do to bring my children back to the faith? I don&#8217;t know what I did as a parent. I don&#8217;t know where I went wrong, but none of my adult children are practicing the faith or most of my adult children are not practicing the faith.
I get that. That&#8217;s the most asked question I get too, Cy.
And here&#8217;s the deal. There&#8217;s no easy answer to that question because there&#8217;s no one thing that&#8217;s going to work for everybody because everybody&#8217;s different.
Relationships are different. Some people have relationships with their kids where they can sit down and really openly share about things. Other people have relationships with their kids where their kids don&#8217;t care about what they say. But what is universal in that is prayer and also living the faith in front of your kids and everybody else in devotion and in joy. Those are the two biggest things. And then trusting God to work. That&#8217;s where I think a lot of us fall down. We want to take control of that process.
We want to say, &#8220;Okay, God, I&#8217;ve got to figure this out. What can I do to bring my kids back?&#8221; The reality I&#8217;ll tell people is this. You can&#8217;t do anything to bring your kids back. You can only allow God to work through you in the ways that he sees fit. But what you need to do, regardless of whether you have kids or not, is you need to live your faith before them with everybody, with devotion and with joy. Because if you take away either one of those two things, it&#8217;s going to be a disaster. If you take away devotion and you&#8217;re just kind of a, &#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t care. I don&#8217;t really practice my faith. I don&#8217;t go to church every week. I don&#8217;t fulfill my obligations as a Catholic.&#8221; Then they&#8217;re not going to listen to anything that you say. They&#8217;re not going to watch any videos you send them. They&#8217;re not going to read any books that you give them. Because if they look at your life and your faith is sort of mediocre to them and it doesn&#8217;t really affect your life much, they&#8217;re not going to care.
Or if you&#8217;re like the other kind of person that you&#8217;re like, &#8220;No, I practice my faith to the nth degree,&#8221; but you&#8217;re grouchy about it all the time. And all it does is make you depressed and grouchy and sour. That&#8217;s not going to draw them in either. I think we all know people in both camps. We know some people who are like happy-go-lucky, but they don&#8217;t really know or care about their faith. And then we know other people that they look like Mr. T, but they got all miraculous medals on and they&#8217;re just like, they&#8217;re in the church praying 50 million rosaries every day and every other word out of their mouth is about this. But yet they don&#8217;t exude joy.
That&#8217;s going to have the same effect. People are going to look at that and they&#8217;re going to say, &#8220;That&#8217;s not really for me.&#8221;
So you have to do both and you have to trust that God is at work in that.
Man, it&#8217;s so hard to do because I mean, because what I often say to people is I&#8217;m in the same boat you are. I&#8217;m not, so I don&#8217;t have some brilliant answer to this, but that trusting part is hard. You just want&#8230; That&#8217;s what you want as a parent is for your children to be all right. I know that the safe harbor,
the safe harbor in this world is Jesus and I just want them in that safe harbor.
I&#8217;m with you too. I&#8217;m with you too. I will tell you this.
God, you have to play the long game and you have to trust God and you have to hit what&#8217;s pitched to you, meaning you&#8217;ve got to have your eyes open.
Remember, God has a process in this, not you. What I mean by that is this.
You might have an interaction with your son or daughter where God is priming the pump for you to encourage and equip them in some way, but maybe it&#8217;s going to happen in a way that you never thought possible. Maybe it&#8217;s going to happen through some kind of tragedy or through some kind of heartbreak that your kids are going through, or maybe it&#8217;s going to happen through something that&#8217;s going to happen in your life that they&#8217;re going to pay attention to see how you respond to that. What does your faith mean to you when life hands you something difficult?
Sometimes it&#8217;s through those things that none of us would choose, but God chooses to work in and through those things. You have to always ask yourself every day, what does it look like for me to be faithful in this situation right now? Maybe I have a son or daughter who wants nothing to do with me, and I&#8217;m not allowed to share the faith. I&#8217;ve had my kids tell me, &#8220;Keeffe,&#8221; or they say, &#8220;Dad, I don&#8217;t want to hear it. We&#8217;re sick of hearing about the Catholic Church all the time. Shut up about it.&#8221; I have to ask myself, what does it look like in that situation for me to be faithful when they say that to me? I&#8217;ve had other times when they said, &#8220;We have a lot of questions about this. Can we meet and talk?&#8221; I have to be faithful in that and say, &#8220;What do I get to do in this situation?&#8221; I&#8217;ve had situations where I&#8217;ve said, &#8220;Hey, do you want to come to Mass with me?&#8221; Or, &#8220;Will you come to Mass with me?&#8221; They&#8217;ve said, &#8220;No.&#8221; Then I&#8217;ve had other situations where they&#8217;ve called me and said, &#8220;Hey, can I come to Mass with you?&#8221;
I guess my point is this.
It&#8217;s a roller coaster ride. Of all kinds of different situations and scenarios, you can&#8217;t just overlay one thing over that for everybody in all times and all places. For the love of God,
please, and I&#8217;m a content creator, you guys are content creators, do not think that the answer is just giving them a book or sending them a video. Do not spam your kids with all the Catholic stuff. It&#8217;s only going to work against you. Again, I&#8217;ve got books about this, you guys too, but I would rather have nobody buy my book than have my book be used as some way to pound something over somebody that&#8217;s not ready for it who is going to just be like, &#8220;Get that away from me.&#8221; If they&#8217;re not ready for it, don&#8217;t think that that&#8217;s the answer. Yet, why do we do that? Because it&#8217;s easy.
I can buy a book, I can just, &#8220;Here, read this.&#8221; I remember what it was like when I wasn&#8217;t Catholic and people wanted me to become Catholic. Every time I turned around, someone was handing me a book or handing me a trinket or handing me a medal or handing me a rose, and I&#8217;m just like, &#8220;What do I do with all this stuff?&#8221; What I really needed was someone who could show me what Catholicism was, not just give me homework.
That&#8217;s what we need to do with people.
Hey, thanks for watching. If you like this Catholic answer, be sure to like, subscribe, and check out our live streams Monday through Friday, 3 to 5 p.m. Pacific, or find the episode after on YouTube, our favorite podcast platform, or our Catholic Answers app.

How to Bring Adult Children Back to the Faith?

<div>Is living together with a significant other still considered cohabitation if there is no sex involved? Are the two different?</div><div>For the purpose of this answer, I&#8217;ll assume by &#8220;significant other&#8221; you are referring to a romantic partner of the opposite sex to whom you are not married and who is not married to anyone else. (If any of these conditions are not accurate, then the definition of the sexual sin in question changes and may increase in gravity.)
<a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-cohabitation-is-morally-wrong">Cohabitation</a> between unmarried partners of the opposite sex is an occasion of two sins, not just one. The first is, of course, fornication (sexual relations outside of marriage by an opposite-sex couple). If sexual relations are not occurring during cohabitation, then the couple is not guilty of fornication. They may, however, be placing themselves in a near occasion of sin—which means proximity to the temptation of sin—and we are supposed to avoid near occasions of sin.
The other sin is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/scandal">scandal</a>, which is defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
<blockquote>Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor&#8217;s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense (CCC 2284).</blockquote>
A couple who lives together outside of marriage creates scandal by engaging in an action that may lead others into sin, either by allowing people to believe that they are engaging in fornication or by tempting people to believe that cohabitation outside of marriage is okay so long as the couple does not engage in sex. Either way, the couple is creating spiritual obstacles for others, and to do so is indeed an occasion of sin.
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May a Man and a Woman Live Together without Having Sex?

In this episode Trent sits down with Fr. Gregory Pine to talk about his new book on the one virtue that can help us balance our religious life and help us be less weird.

Can You be too Religious? (with Fr. Pine)

In this episode Trent comments on the recent documentary AKA Jane Roe which purports to include a “deathbed recanting” of Norma McCorvey’s (Roe from Roe v Wade) pro-life convictions.

Investigating Norma McCorvey’s “Deathbed Confession”

DIALOGUE: Can Reason Prove the Universe Began? (with Jimmy Akin)

We just got confirmed this past weekend and I just want to say thank you!

I’ve been praying the 7 Sorrows. One-line states something about suffering in silence. Should I not tell my husband when I’m having a bad day?

What is the relationship between a prudential judgement and the justification for it? Can a bad reason undermine the judgment itself?

If God’s Will will always be done, then what is the purpose of praying for things?

What resources do you recommend to properly understand Papal encyclicals?

How do I deal with the final hurdles to conversion?

If God’s will is inevitable, why pray at all? We explore how prayer fits into God’s providence, and also tackle questions on prudential judgment, understanding papal encyclicals, and the emotional hurdles people face when approaching full conversion.
Join The CA Live Club Newsletter: <a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub?email">Click Here</a>

What’s the Purpose of Prayer If God’s Will Always Happens?

Why was Enoch not considered canon if the disciples referenced it?

Why is confession to a priest necessary?

Who is St. Mary Salome? Was she the Blessed Mother’s sister?

Why is the penalty of sin, death? It seems so harsh.

Rather than having a Catholic funeral Is having a mortuary service burial, okay?

Is there any truth to the rumor that the baptism formula was in Jesus name early on?

What would be the implications of a person without a soul?

Could a Catholic accept Jesus as the new Isaac and Peter as the new Abraham as an explanation of Mt. 16:18-19?

My husband is interested in Catholicism. He asked: 1 Peter 2:25 Why is the word bishop replaced to overseer in some versions?

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, we tackle one of the most intriguing questions about the Bible’s development: If the disciples and early Christians referenced the Book of Enoch, why isn’t it part of the biblical canon? We explore the Church’s criteria for canonization, Enoch’s influence, and why it ultimately didn’t make the cut.
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Why Isn’t the Book of Enoch in the Bible If the Disciples Referenced It?

Joe replies to &#8220;THE ROSARY || The SHOCKING TRUTH that most people don&#8217;t know&#8230;&#8221; by DLM Christian Lifestyle. He unpacks how a misreading a Scripture can lead to misunderstandings about the rosary.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I&#8217;m Joe, Heschmeyer, and today I want to explore the rosary because the rosary is perhaps the most practiced Catholic devotion outside of mass and the sacraments, and it&#8217;s been suggested as part of your regular prayer life by many of the Great Saints people like Padre Pio, Louis de Montfort, Therese of Lisieux, as well as countless popes. So it goes almost without saying that Catholics hold the rosary in high esteem and many non-Catholics in their hand find the rosary strange, maybe unbiblical, even pagan. So today I want to look at some objections to the rosary raised by Daniel Martiz, a non-denominational Christian who has a YouTube channel called DLM Christian Lifestyle, and he&#8217;s got a very popular video against the rosary. He&#8217;s got more than 300,000 views at the time of this recording, so it really seems to resonate with people and he makes several arguments against the rosary, chiefly that it&#8217;s unbiblical because number one, it&#8217;s not found in scripture.
Number two, it&#8217;s too repetitive. Number three, it&#8217;s too focused on Mary, and number four is to physical. So I want to address each of those objections in turn, but first, if it&#8217;s not too repetitive, I want to thank all of my supporters over on shameless joe.com. Particularly today. I want to thank Andy and Anna supporters and friends who recommended that I do a video on the Rosary. So for as little as $5 a month, you too can need access to ad-free episodes exclusive q and a live streams. And lately we&#8217;ve been trying to include notes and other resources used in each episode. Now your direct support is what keeps this channel going and keeps the production quality as high as it is. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who&#8217;s currently supporting, and if you&#8217;re not yet and would like to, you could do that over@shamelessjoe.com. And with that, let&#8217;s get into Daniel&#8217;s first objection. Namely, the word rosary is never mentioned in the Bible, and since scripture doesn&#8217;t tell us that we have to pray the rosary, it&#8217;s therefore wrong to pray it.
CLIP:
Now, I need you to listen very carefully because this is very important. Nowhere in scripture does it say you have to pray with the rosary, so it&#8217;s unbiblical.
Joe:
Ironically, Daniel wrote a nearly six minute long prayer of his own that he says we should start our day with. We don&#8217;t find his prayer in the Bible. So is it wrong to write your own original prayers or not? And if it&#8217;s not wrong, well, is it wrong to pray a prayer that somebody else wrote or is it okay when Daniel does it and bad when Catholics do it? Well, even more ironically, the prayers that Daniel&#8217;s complaining about are actually drawn from scripture, but we&#8217;re going to get to that shortly at the heart of his confusion is this idea that he and many other people have that unless the Bible says you must do X, then it&#8217;s unbiblical and you&#8217;re not allowed to do X. Okay, so let&#8217;s just grant that premise for a moment and think about where it goes. How far does that rule extend?
Nowhere in the Bible says we have to pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. Does that mean it&#8217;s wrong to cry to Jesus for that matter? Nowhere in the Bible tells me which books we have to believe are in the Bible, and just as we don&#8217;t find the word rosary in the Bible, we also don&#8217;t find the word Bible in the Bible. So does that mean it&#8217;s unbiblical to have a Bible? In fact, what about this itself nor in the Bible says we have to do only those things taught in the Bible. That&#8217;s a manmade Protestant tradition. It&#8217;s not something that Jesus or the apostles ever taught. So the rule is really self-refuting since it actually outlaws itself. So the problem with the rosary can&#8217;t just be that Jesus didn&#8217;t give it to us. A better objection is that the rosary is too repetitive.
CLIP:
Wow. It is like we learn nothing from what Jesus even told the Pharisees back in the day telling them to stop repeating their prayers because that is exactly what the rosary was made for, and that&#8217;s exactly what people are doing today.
Joe:
Now, Daniel doesn&#8217;t explicitly cite any biblical support for his claim here, but I suspect that he&#8217;s got in mind Matthew chapter six, verse seven, in which Jesus says not to heap up empty phrases or in the King James version, not to use vain repetitions, but Jesus is clearly not saying that we&#8217;re not allowed to use form prayers. The Psalms are formed prayers, and he&#8217;s not saying that we&#8217;re not allowed to pray the same prayer repeatedly after all. In the very next breath, he gives us a form prayer. He gives us the our Father, and we know that even as far back as the first century Christians were in the habit of praying this prayer three times a day. Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane, prays the same prayer three times in a row as Matthew 26 tells us, Jesus went away and prayed for the third time saying the same words.
St. Paul likewise describes going to God with the same prayer request repeatedly. So what does Jesus actually prohibit in Matthew chapter six? Well, the Greek word there refers to someone stammering or rambling or a mindless sort of repetition. In other words, when you&#8217;re praying, don&#8217;t just do it mindlessly and Catholics agree as Pope St. John Paul II explained, the recitation of the rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace helping the individual to meditate on the mystery of the Lord&#8217;s life as seen through the eyes of Mary. In contrast, if we&#8217;re just mindlessly saying the words, that kind of mechanical repetition of formulas is the very thing that Jesus warns against, but this is true of any prayer, even the prayer that Jesus himself gives us in Matthew six. So repetitive prayer and form prayer are good and perfectly biblical, but only have done in a way that is contemplative and not just mindlessly mechanical. Now, a third objection that Daniel raises and one which I know that many people have is that the rosary is focused too much on Mary. Now, there&#8217;s two versions of this argument. One is that we&#8217;re not allowed to ask for Mary&#8217;s intercession at all.
CLIP:
In fact, nowhere does it say that you should pray to Mary because Mary is dead.
Joe:
When the Sadducees made a similar argument against those saints who had died, Jesus responded by reminding them that God is the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and that he is not the God of the dead, but of the living even tells them you are quite wrong and suggests that this is because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. And I think that is a sufficient response here. If you think that the saints are simply dead in the grave, if you don&#8217;t realize that they&#8217;re alive right now in the presence of the living God in heaven, then you don&#8217;t understand scripture or the power of God.
CLIP:
There is no other mediator, only Jesus Christ. He&#8217;s the only mediator between humans and God, one Timothy two verse five, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Joe:
Just once, I wish that Protestants misquoting that verse would finish the sentence because as you might guess, it doesn&#8217;t end with the comma as it appears in Daniel&#8217;s presentation. If you read what St. Paul actually wrote, you&#8217;ll see how badly that passage is being taken out of context. Not only is Paul not denouncing going to other people for intercession, he literally begins the chapter by urging that supplications prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men. He then refers to Jesus as the one mediator who gave himself as a ransom for all that testimony to which was born at the proper time. So notice in calling Jesus our one mediator, he&#8217;s not saying that Jesus is our one intercessor that would contradict what he&#8217;s just said about our need to intercede for one another. Rather by calling him the one mediator. He means that he&#8217;s the one who died on the cross for all of us as the ransom for the sins of all mankind. It&#8217;s not an argument against going to somebody else for intercession at all. A stronger objection yet is that while it is fine to go to other Christians, including the saints to pray for us, the rosary goes to Mary just too many times
CLIP:
Today the basic rosary only has 59 beats. Listen to this, 53 of them are for Hail Mary&#8217;s, the other six for our father&#8217;s prayer,
Joe:
And he&#8217;s actually leaving a couple of prayers off there. I mean, on each of the five decades of the rosary, there&#8217;s a Lord&#8217;s prayer, an our Father, 10 Hail Marys. Then a glory be which is directed to each of the persons of the Trinity. And then many people add a prayer at the end. Someone&#8217;s called the oh my Jesus prayer or the Fatima Prayer, which is as you might imagine directed to Jesus. So it&#8217;s not really a 53 to six kind of split, but nevertheless, I take the broader point. It is true that the most common prayer in the rosary is the Hail Mary. So I completely understand the concern of people who think that&#8217;s too much focus on Mary. Now, I think that&#8217;s a needless anxiety. You don&#8217;t actually have to measure how many times you talk to your fellow Christians and ask them to pray for you compared to how many times you talk directly to God.
That&#8217;s not a principle found anywhere in the Bible. In fact, we want to watch out for any anxiety that pits one good thing like intercession against another good thing like going directly to God. Remember in John 12, when M anoints Jesus&#8217; feet with oil, it&#8217;s Judas who objects that the money could have been used for the poor. And Jesus shows us in his response that this kind of anxiety isn&#8217;t from God. Oftentimes when you do something good, you&#8217;ll find people complaining that you didn&#8217;t do some other good thing. If you spend a lot of money on a church, people will complain about how that money could have gone to the poor. But if you spend a lot of money on a casino or at a casino, they don&#8217;t even think twice about it. That&#8217;s how you know this kind of anxiety isn&#8217;t really coming from God.
And the same is true about anxiety, but how you&#8217;re spending your time. Now, look, if you are not praying to God enough, fix that. Go to him more. But do that by cutting out the distractions from God in your life, the worldly pleasures, the self indulgences, that sort of thing. Don&#8217;t do it by pitting prayer to God against asking your brothers and sisters in Christ for their intercession. But okay, look, many Protestants believe it&#8217;s not just about balance. Even one hail Mary is too many because it&#8217;s idolatrous to that. I would ask if you&#8217;re worried about the Hail Mary, which part is it that strikes you as idolatrous? Let&#8217;s take it piece by piece. The first part goes Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Now, that&#8217;s basically verbatim the angel Gabriel&#8217;s greeting to Mary in Luke 1 28. The second part goes, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
Jesus. Here again, basically verbatim of Elizabeth&#8217;s greeting in Luke 1 42. Now granted we&#8217;ve added the names Mary and Jesus to signal who we&#8217;re talking about, but surely that&#8217;s not idolatry, right? So that leaves us with the third part, holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Now, hopefully you think Mary is a Christian, and hopefully you don&#8217;t think asking another Christian to pray to God for you is idolatry. So where is the problem with the hail Mary? Exactly. Well, according to Daniel, the problem is insane. Holy Mary, that we shouldn&#8217;t call Mary holy at all.
CLIP:
Nowhere in scripture does it say that Mary is holy. It&#8217;s unbiblical.
Joe:
But Daniel is quite mistaken Here, the Greek word for holiness, hagios is used to refer to the holiness of God, certainly, but the exact same word is also used to describe anyone or anything set aside for God. So the exact same word is used to describe the holy of Holies, the holy women in prophets of the Old Testament and all the saints. The word that gets translated as saints and English is literally just the plural of the word holy. It&#8217;s the holies. The saints are the holies. So it&#8217;s perfectly biblical to describe Mary as Holy Mary, or in fact to refer to the Holy saints in heaven. Other Protestants are going to object to a different part. They&#8217;re going to say, the problem isn&#8217;t that you said Holy Mary, it&#8217;s that you said mother of God, but you really can&#8217;t deny that without denying either A, that Mary is the mother of Jesus, or B, that Jesus is God. And scripture refers to Mary is Jesus&#8217; mother and to Jesus&#8217; God. So here again, we should listen to Elizabeth who greets Mary as the mother of my Lord and Luke one, this is all perfectly biblical. Finally, Daniel argues that the rosary is wrong because it uses beads and we&#8217;re not allowed to use material things in worship. Now, bear in mind that as Daniel himself points out the rosary, beads aren&#8217;t like an object of our worship. They&#8217;re literally just keeping track of where we are in our prayers.
CLIP:
The beads are used by Catholics to help the practitioner to keep track of around 180 prayers.
Joe:
So rosary beads are no more idolatrous than an abacus or a bookmark. You don&#8217;t even need them to pray the rosary. You can use your fingers, but Daniel claims that this is still evil because it&#8217;s using material things.
CLIP:
It&#8217;s strange that people always want to add manmade traditions to their religion, to the Bible, never add something to the Bible. Don&#8217;t add holy water crosses and all of these things and thinking that it will have more power. No, listen carefully. Scripture says that we can only worship God in spirit and in truth, no material things.
Joe:
When Jesus talks about worshiping in spirit and in truth, he&#8217;s not disparaging the use of material things at all. In fact, Jesus in scripture works through physical things quite regularly, water into wine, clay, the touch of his hands, bread and wine into his body and blood, and ultimately his life, giving death on the wood of the cross as he bodily dies for us and pours out his blood on the wood of the cross. That&#8217;s Christianity. Now, Daniel and many other Protestants bring up this objection to material things and worship ultimately due to what I call the gnostic strain in Protestantism. It&#8217;s rooted in this idea that spiritual things are good while physical things are evil, or at least unspiritual in a way that gets in the way. Now to some that might make even intuitive sense, we talk about sins of the flesh and earthly pleasures, but this is rooted in this much deeper problem, and it&#8217;s one that I addressed last week. One of the arguments against relics is based on the same worldview. So where does this rejection of physical objects and worship come from and how can we answer it using the Bible? Well, you&#8217;re going to have to click here to find out. For Shameless Popery, I&#8217;m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.
&nbsp;

Does the Bible CONDEMN the Rosary? (Reply to DLM Christian Lifestyle)

In this episode, Trent gives us an update on his family life as well as some exciting courses he will be recording for the Catholic answers School of Apologetics, including one designed to keep you from becoming an “apologetic chat-bot.”

Horn Family Update and “Don’t be an ‘Apologetic Chat-Bot’”

No, 90% of Catholics Aren’t Leaving The Church…

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DAY 68
CHALLENGE
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“If praying to Mary is good, why don’t we see it in the New Testament?”
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DEFENSE
We would not expect to.
Not every teaching has to be present in Scripture (see Day 5), and not every practice consistent with Christian liberty has to be documented in the New Testament. It took time for Christians to work out the implications of the deposit of faith Jesus gave the apostles.
Scripture shows an awareness that we can pray for the dead (2 Macc. 12:42 and, quite possibly, 2 Tim. 1:18) and an awareness that those in heaven intercede for the living (2 Macc. 15:12, 14; Matt. 18:10; Rev. 5:8, 8:3–4). It was not long before Christians took the natural step of asking those in heaven to pray for them (see Jimmy Akin, The Fathers Know Best, chapter 52).
Whether this practice was already in use in the first century, we do not know, but if it was, we still would not expect to see references to Marian prayers in the New Testament. Its documents are not private devotionals and are not the type of literature we would expect to contain such references. The Gospels are set during the life of Christ, when Mary was clearly still alive, and Revelation is a prophetic work that records almost nothing of John’s life outside the vision.
We do find references to personal prayer in Acts and the epistles, but there is a good reason they, too, wouldn’t include Marian prayers: Mary was probably still alive. According to the Protoevangelium of James (chapters 8–9), Mary was betrothed to Joseph when she was twelve. This was a common age for girls to be married (boys typically married in their teens). The Talmud describes the onset of puberty as the preferred time for a daughter to be married (b. Sanhedrin 76a-b).
If Mary was thirteen when Jesus was born, then, based on the traditional date of his birth in 3–2 B.C., Mary would have been born around 15 B.C. She would be seventy in A.D. 55 and eighty in 65. Acts was written in A.D. 60, and the New Testament epistles were written between the late 40s and the mid-60s. It is thus quite possible that Mary had not reached the end of her earthly life.
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Praying to Mary in the New Testament

The Jews of Jesus&#8217; time, like Jews today, prayed for the dead. Apologist Joe Heschmeyer looks at how Jesus and the early Church responded to this widespread practice and finds strong evidence that the Lord intended his Church to continue it.

The Jewish Roots of Praying for the Dead

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent break down the elements that make up modern musicals and shares some of his favorites, with a few of his own renditions to share!

What I Love About Musicals

Catholic therapist and author of “Beyond the Birds and the Bees,” Dr. Greg Popcak sits down with Trent to talk about how to raise sexually whole and holy kids.

The Catholic “Birds and the Bees” – Part 1 (with Dr. Popcak)

Is a boy who says he “feels like a girl” or vice-versa basically saying God is not good at creating?

I had a friend who I learned who was going to marry another man. I told him I couldn’t go to the wedding. Because of this I learned a bunch of my friends are gay and they are now mad at me. How can I make amends with them?

What kind of training is the Church giving priests to minister to same-sex attracted people? When I was in high school (60+ years ago) the priest wouldn’t even talk to me.

Does the use of hormones in contraception and in our food have an effect on mental health?

I’m all about inclusion and acceptance. What has helped me is that when I notice the haters, I ask them “imagine if a woman’s brain went into your body and your brain went into her body. And then the doctor asks you what gender are you.” That makes peo...

&#8220;Is God good if a boy feels like a girl?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the nature of identity and divine creation. Other topics include navigating friendships after expressing disagreement with same-sex marriage, the Church&#8217;s training for priests to support same-sex attracted individuals, and the impact of hormones on mental health.
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Is God Good If a Boy Feels Like a Girl? Acceptance and Love

DIALOGUE: Did the Apostles Die for a Lie? (with Paulogia)

Some scientists claim there is no such thing as porn addiction, but in this episode Trent Horn and Matt Fradd set the record straight and offer resources for those who want to break free of the sin of pornography.

Is Porn Addiction a Myth? (with Matt Fradd)

In this episode Trent breaks down a conspiracy about Jesus that even fringe atheists reject.
Transcription:
Trent:
There are weird conspiracy theories and then there are Bonker crazy ones. Today we&#8217;re going to refute one such conspiracy about Jesus that even fringe atheist scholars think is insane. But documentaries supporting this theory get over a million views on YouTube so it counts as extremely popular low hanging fruit to rebut, namely the claim that Jesus Christ never existed because he was invented by the Roman Empire. The main book peddling this theory is Joseph at Will&#8217;s, Caesar&#8217;s Messiah, the Roman conspiracy to invent Jesus according to at will Christianity was invented by Emperor Titus sometime after the Jewish revolt that took place between AD 66 and 73. Jesus was invented in order to promote a pro-woman, peaceful Jewish Messiah who would suppress further revolts against Rome. In order to accomplish this goal, the Romans had Flavius Josephus, a former Jewish freedom fighter who defected and became an advisor to Titus create. What we now know is the New Testament. There&#8217;s a lot wrong with this argument, so let&#8217;s go through the key parts of the documentary that try to support it.
CLIP:
It&#8217;s during this period that a new literature enters history which describes a peace loving turn, the other cheek preaching Jewish Messiah named Jesus Christ. But if the Flavian wrote the gospels, how could a Roman family know how to write Jewish literature that refers to Jewish prophecy? The answer lies in the flavian collaborations with a number of Jewish intellectuals beginning with their own court historian Josephus,
Trent:
No, Josephus did not write the gospels. You can tell they&#8217;re written by different authors. Mark is not. Luke is not John is not Matthew, et cetera, and Mark wrote before the temple was even destroyed. But even if per impossible, Josephus did write the gospels, that still doesn&#8217;t explain the Jesus story because the documentary never mentions the writings of St. Paul. Paul says that he saw the risen Lord and he knew Peter the other apostles and James one of the Lord&#8217;s relatives. If Jesus Christ never existed, then who were these people? Even Jesus Mythicist like Richard Carrier agree. Paul existed and other skeptics agree with the historical consensus about St. Paul.
CLIP:
In almost 2000 years of intense scholarly scrutiny, seven of these 13 letters have withstood and emerged virtually unanimously as all being by the same author whom historians pragmatically identify as the Apostle Paul. These so-called undisputed letters are Romans first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians one, Thessalonians and Philemon.
Trent:
So while scholars disagree about some of St Paul&#8217;s letters, they agree the major letters were written by him and that he knew the apostles. The documentary simply ignores this massive problem with their thesis that Jesus was invented by the Roman empire.
CLIP:
So the Roman plot to invent Christianity is just so clever when you think about it through the Pope who is God&#8217;s representative on earth, they no longer needed expensive standing armies, wars and punishment of disobedient peasants. They could through religion rule their subjects.
Trent:
Okay, so the Romans create Christianity in the first century so they can better rule their subjects. But if that&#8217;s true, why did they kill people for belonging to the religion that they wanted them to belong to? Like the persecutions that took place under Emperor Nero? In Emperor Trajan&#8217;s letter to the Roman governor Pliny the younger written around the year one 12, he doesn&#8217;t say anything about this plot or that Christianity was something the Roman empire invented. Instead, he writes the following, these people are not to be sought for, but if they be accused and convicted, they are to be punished. But with this caution that he who denies himself to be a Christian and makes it plain that he is not so by supplicating to our gods, although he had been so formerly maybe allowed pardon upon his repentance. So the only reason Christian literature existed during this time period was because the Roman government allowed it to exist as part of a grand conspiracy.
This reminds me of the South Park episode, which said that the ultimate nine 11 conspiracy theory was that the government created all the nine 11 conspiracy theories in order to make people think the government was in control of everything. However, as Dirk Roman notes in his article book, burning is Conflict Management in the Roman Empire Book Burning in the early Imperial period was rare, generally despised and inefficient. The New Testament doesn&#8217;t take an overtly anti-woman position, and this isn&#8217;t due to it being created by Rome. Jesus and his followers simply worked within Roman rule to change society from within. But the bigger mistake which many conspiracy theories make about Christianity is the assumption that Christianity only came into existence through people reading the Bible. As I noted in a previous episode on a neglected argument for Sola scriptura, the primary way people learned about Christianity in the early church was through preaching oral tradition and obedience to the priests and bishops of their local church.
During this period, the New Testament documents were authoritative, but they had not reached the level of esteem given to the Old Testament scriptures, which is why the earliest Apostolic fathers usually did not cite them as scripture. Instead, you have people like Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome commanding Christians to follow their bishops and elders. So in order for Christianity to be a Roman invention, the Roman government would had to have enlisted untold numbers of people to pretend to be Christians and start this myth and then be willing to die for it in the coming persecutions. I call that unlikely to say the least.
CLIP:
Further, there had never been any archeologic evidence of Jesus Christ that had ever been discovered.
Trent:
So what? There isn&#8217;t archeological evidence for 99.9% of people who have ever lived and yet they lived. The lack of archeological evidence is concerning if we&#8217;re talking about something like the supposed existence of huge civilizations in the new world as described in the Book of Mormon, but this is typical for single individuals who were not famous rulers. There wasn&#8217;t even archeological evidence for Pontius Pilate until the Pilot Stone, which bears his name was discovered in Caesar Maritima in 1961. Next, the document claims Jesus was simply copied from earlier Jewish and Pagan themes.
CLIP:
A lot of the ethics of Christianity actually were around before Christianity do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is in fact from the Old Testament. Jesus didn&#8217;t make that up.
Trent:
That&#8217;s true. Leviticus 1918 says, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. But Jesus&#8217;s teaching fulfilled the Old Testament law by expanding the definition of neighbor to include every single human being because God loves and wants to save every single human being. This is why the Parable of the Good Samaritan was such a powerful teaching. The neighbor was the man who loved his neighbor. The sublime beauty of this story smashes the idea. Some Roman propagandist wrote the gospels and it fits nicely within the idea that this is simply divine wisdom incarnate. Also, I want to point out a double standard in hypercritical scholarship. If Jesus says something in the gospels that sounds Jewish, it must have been taken from the Old Testament, but if Jesus says something that sounds Christian, then the early church must have put those words in Jesus&#8217; mouth, and if he doesn&#8217;t sound like the Old Testament or the early church, then he must be a pagan ripoff. This is yet another example of heads I win tales you lose.
CLIP:
If you look at the elements which we found in the pagan mystery school myths, you find the story of a dying and resurrecting son of God who&#8217;s born of a virgin, has 12 disciples, turns water into wine at a wedding, it brings a new religion of love, is accused of heresy or of provocation by the authorities, is put to death sometimes by crucifixion, and then if you want to commune with the God man, you take bread and wine and then you can come to eternal life.
Trent:
So this is basically the zeitgeist argument that the story of Jesus was stolen from paganism. I&#8217;ve already debunked that in a previous episode on zeitgeist, which shows that many of these parallels are either trivial or the pagan God didn&#8217;t actually do what Jesus did, or it was the pagans who stole elements of Christianity centuries later. So check out that episode if you want to get the full rebuttal. I will say that I&#8217;m really amused. Timothy Frecker is in this documentary because he co-wrote an awful book on the subject called the Jesus Mysteries, which features an amulet on the cover called the Orpheus Amulet that he and his co-author claim is an image from late antiquity of a pagan deity being crucified just like Jesus. The men write as the final pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, we came across a small picture tucked away in the appendices of an old academic book.
It was a drawing of a third century CE amulet. We have used it as the cover of this book. It shows a crucified figure which most people would immediately recognize as Jesus. Yet the Greek words name the figure Orpheus BCUs, one of the pseudonyms of Osirus dionisis. The chance discovery of this amulet made us feel as though the universe itself was encouraging us to make our findings public. However, James Hanna, author of God&#8217;s Philosophers, how the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science went to the original source material of the old book these authors cite and it provides evidence that the amulet is a fake. You can also see this because the figure has bent legs popular in medieval depictions of crucifixion, not straight legs that were popular in ancient depictions. Richard Carrier, who remember, doesn&#8217;t even believe Jesus existed, even says the Jesus mysteries will disease your mind with rampant unsourced, falsehoods and completely miseducate you about the ancient world and ancient religion.
CLIP:
The final connecting point between the Flavian family and Christianity is that in the fourth century, Flavius Constantine made Christianity the state religion of Rome.
Trent:
When you hear a supposed academic or expert on Christianity say that Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, that&#8217;s a sign they are anything but an expert on the faith. That&#8217;s because Constantine only granted toleration to Christianity in the Western Roman empire through the edict of Milan in three 13, Christianity did not become the religion of the empire until Emperor Theodosius edict of Thessalonica in the year three 80. Next Atwell claims that one of the early Popes Clement of Rome actually belonged to the Roman Flavian family.
CLIP:
The Flavian family is connected to early Christianity in a number of unusual ways. So many members of the family were recorded as having been among the first Roman Catholic Saints. These include Flavia do Mattila, who is either Titus&#8217;s sister or his niece, and there is an inscription honoring Flavia for donating the land that became the first Christian catacomb and Flavia do. Mattila was the first Christian saint. Her son Clement is recorded as having been the first Roman Catholic pope after the Apostle Simon.
Trent:
There were some converts to Christianity among Roman elite, but that does not prove the Roman elite invented Christianity. But the more egregious error is that Clement of Rome is not the son of Flavia. Dooma Little is known about his life except that he was the fourth pope, not Peter&#8217;s immediate successor who was called Peter, not Simon at this time. Later legends give his parents the names Palestina and Maceda. The Catholic encyclopedia gives an explanation that probably explains at Will&#8217;s slipup and confusing to Clements in the middle of the 19th century, it was the custom to identify the Pope Clement of Rome with the console of 95 T Flavius Clemens, who I&#8217;ll add was Dooma till&#8217;s husband, not her son who was martyred by his first cousin, the Emperor Domitian at the end of his console ship. But the ancients never suggests this, and the Pope is said to have lived on until the reign of Trajan.
It is unlikely that he was a member of the Imperial family, the continual use of the Old Testament in his epistle. First Clement has suggested to Lightfoot funk, Nestle and others that he was of Jewish origin. Finally, we get to the part of the documentary that claims to reveal the secret codes Josephus left in the Gospels to prove he wrote it and that the stories are actually allegories about Roman control of the Empire. According to at Will&#8217;s book, what seems to have alluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus&#8217;s ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of Emperor Titus Flavius as described by Josephus. This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern. So how did modern scholars miss all of this? At Will writes the following, many of the parallels are conceptual or poetic, so they aren&#8217;t all immediately obvious. After all, the authors did not want the average believer to see what they were doing, but they did want the alert reader to see it. An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognized the literary game being played. The Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and the solution to that puzzle is we invented Jesus Christ and we are proud of it. Atwell offers many alleged parallels or secret codes, but here is a typical absolutely absurd one.
CLIP:
Jesus comes to the Sea of Galilee at the beginning of his ministry. He gathers his disciples to him and he says, do not be afraid. Follow me and become fishers of men. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus actually says catchers of men. Titus comes to the same location to the Sea of Galilee. He gathers his troops, his disciples together and he says, don&#8217;t be afraid. And then he leads them. They follow him and they attack a group of Jewish rebels. They sink the Jews boats. The Jews attempt to swim to safety, and the Romans use their spears to catch them. They become fishers of men.
Trent:
You heard him right at Will says that when Jesus calls the disciples to be fishers of men, this is a secret code written by the Roman authors of the Gospels related to a scene in Josephus history of the Jewish war against Rome, which took place shortly before the destruction of the temple between 80 66 and 80 70. Specifically, it&#8217;s a scene describing how Emperor titus&#8217;s troops would kill Jews who would escape them in the Sea of Galilee by cutting off their hands or their heads and shooting them with darts or arrows. At Will says Jesus has called to become a fisher of men, is a reference to when Romans caught Jews like fish in the battle of Lake Tiberius. Now, this is a case of what the biblical scholar Samuel Sandel called parallel mania finding parallels where none actually exist. It&#8217;s also an example of the importance of following this age old proverb.
When you hear hoofbeats think horses before unicorns, if something sounds like a simple story without a crazy hidden meaning, then it probably is unless evidence suggests otherwise. And really good evidence, I would say. And even the scholars who believe Jesus never existed, even they think that atwell&#8217;s argument is terrible. Robert Price, one of the only scholars in the world with a doctorate in New Testament studies who also denies Jesus existed is sympathetic to Atwell but writes, one hates to be so severe in the analysis of the work of an innovative thinker who gives us the gift of a fresh reading of familiar text, but in the present case, it is hard to euphemized. The reading given here is just ludicrous, ludicrous indeed because of Atwell&#8217;s thesis is right. Then not only did Jesus never exist, neither did Peter James or Paul. In fact, there would&#8217;ve been no Christians at all before the destruction of the temple in 80 70.
But we know this is not true because the Roman historian TAUs records in his annals that emperor Nero blame the great fire in Rome which took place three years before the Jewish revolt on a group called Christians. Even if TAUs were in on the act, how could the Romans have fabricated the existence of churches such as those in Corinth or Thessalonica that were supposed to have existed? According to the Book of Acts for decades before the Jewish revolt, when the first Jews who joined the Christian Church realized something was not quite right about a movement that literally spr up overnight that was supposed to have been around for decades. Finally, the author of First Corinthians admits that the cross a dying Messiah represented a stumbling block for the Jews. Now, Paul, the real author of First Corinthians, just had to accept that fact and preach it because Jesus&#8217;s crucifixion really did happen.
However, if the entire story was made up in order to appeal to Jews to get them to believe in Jesus, then why create a fake Messiah whose death would be so unique and unexpected, it would be rejected by the Jewish elite and instead be primarily embraced by the Gentiles who weren&#8217;t even a part of the conspiracy to begin with. Why create lots of other contradictory apocryphal gospels like the Gospel of Thomas that compete with your fake religion that you hope the future church will not deem to be canonical? None of it makes sense, which is why Richard Carrier writes, I gave him a fair shot, but at will never has any defensible examples, rarely knows what he&#8217;s talking about, gets a lot wrong, makes stuff up, never admits an error, and is generally in my experience, a frustrating delusional fanatic. So an even fringe scholarship rejects your view. To whom can you go? By the way, if you want to learn more about how to defend Jesus against similar conspiracies as well as more substantive objections, check out my book Counterfeit Christ, finding The Real Jesus Among the Imposters, linked In the Description below. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.

The Most Absurd Conspiracy About Jesus (REBUTTED)

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&#8220;Can we have absolute assurance of salvation?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the nature of faith and security in salvation. Other topics include responding to Southern Baptist views on the parable of Lazarus, the concerns of a Protestant considering OCIA, and strategies for evangelizing Muslims.
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