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Are debates dumb now?

<div>May a Catholic lie to keep a secret you don’t want the person asking about to know?</div><div>First off, one is never obliged to tell someone something he has no right to know. On the other hand, we are not permitted to lie. It is sometimes said, &#8220;You may never lie, but you do not always have to tell the truth&#8221;—meaning, of course, that there are some truths you do not have to reveal.
Instead of a lie, one should use some manner of speaking from which the truth cannot be gleaned but which is not literally a lie. This includes some well-accepted social conventions such as, for example, telling a caller that someone is not in or cannot come to the telephone, meaning that he is not available. This spares the feelings of the caller, who does not have the right to know the reason why in any case.
In the case of extreme danger, when dealing with one who obviously has evil intentions, one may use materially misleading speech, but even then one may not lie. Telling the Communist officials that you do not know where the person they are seeking is is not a lie, since their intentions are unjust and they have no right to know; and there is also a sense in which you do not know exactly where the person is in the context of his hiding place. This case does not apply just because we do not want to expose the person to the law, but only in the case where those seeking him have no right to do so.
Remember also that in such difficult cases, where a person is responding immediately to a complex situation without much forethought, that God will surely not judge our efforts harshly, even if we fail somewhat under pressure. Simply put, a lie of convenience in a gravely difficult situation is most likely a venial sin either in itself or from the lack of freedom engendered by the circumstances.
</div>

Is It Ever OK to Lie?

<div>In your article, "Jesus Puts Mary in Her Place," you cited two examples in Scripture of how our Lord is not humbling his mother, contrary to some Protestant views. As a third example, what about John 2:4, in which Jesus says, "Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come"? Scott Hahn argues well that Jesus is referencing Genesis 3, and that, unlike Eve, the first “woman,” Mary is her docile to her divine son at the wedding of Cana—and thus God’s will in cooperating with his plan of salvation. </div><div>You’re <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jesus-puts-mary-in-her-place">absolutely right</a>—that example is a perfect fit. And I agree that we should see in “Woman” a reference to Eve. If you trace the chronology of John 1–2, it goes like this: 
<ul>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">“In the beginning” (John 1:1, obviously recalling Genesis 1:1); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 1: John prophesies about Jesus (John 1:19–28); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 2: “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him” (John 1:29); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 3: “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples” (John 1:35); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 4: “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee” (John 1:43); </li>
<li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}" aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Day 6: “On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples” (John 2:1–2).</li>
</ul>
The Hebrew calendaring uses “inclusive numbering” (which is why we say that Jesus rose “three days later,” even though by our counting, Friday to Sunday is only two days later). So, John saying that the wedding of Cana is “on the third day” means (from our counting) two days after what he’s just described. In other words, John’s new Genesis, which begins “in the beginning,” then has six days (just as Genesis 1 does). On day six in the Genesis week, you’ve got the creation of Adam and Eve, only Eve isn’t called Eve yet. She’s called “Woman.” Now, we’re at day six in the “Johannine week,” you’ve got a wedding, and you’ve got Jesus and Mary, and Jesus calls his mother “Woman.” 
</div>

The New Eve’s Cooperation With God’s Will

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3 Things Christians Should Admit Rhett Got Right...

Jimmy Akin briefly discusses the historicity behind the Pharisees and whether there were any female members, or wives of male members, in their ranks.

Were There Any Female Pharisees?

Karlo Broussard cites numerous Bible passages that refute both parts of the common Protestant belief &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/once-saved-always-saved">Once saved, always saved</a>.&#8221;

Does the Bible Disprove “Once Saved, Always Saved?”

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Do Protestants actually worship God?  @thecatechumen

Karlo Broussard explains the distinction between baptizing unconscious adults and babies.
Transcript:
Why can&#8217;t adults who are unconscious be baptized due to not being able to give consent, but babies can be baptized?
The implication being without consent, right? Yeah, right, the baby doesn&#8217;t consent, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it&#8217;s actually a great question. And the answer to the question, Cy, is gonna depend on what Lewis means by quote unquote unconscious. Because there are different ways in which someone can be unconscious.
Option A, or scenario A, an individual is unconscious like he&#8217;s knocked out, or he&#8217;s sleeping, or something. And then scenario B, the individual can be unconscious like when he&#8217;s dying, or they seem dead. But we&#8217;re really not absolutely sure.
And so if we&#8217;re talking about a scenario where somebody&#8217;s unconscious, like knocked out, or they&#8217;re sleeping, and it&#8217;s not a death situation, or the possibility of a death situation, there you have an adult who has not only the ability to consent, but the very exercise, the ability to exercise the power for self-determination. So it&#8217;s not just like a potential that needs more time to actualize, like in the case of an infant. But the adult there in that unconscious state would actually have the capability to exercise self-determination when one comes to consciousness. And so to baptize that individual in that situation or in that scenario would be contrary to the might, if the person doesn&#8217;t wanna be baptized, baptizing that individual would be contrary to the consent of the adult, which would be a violation of their self-determining dignity and their power. And so that is why in that scenario, we would not go and secretly baptize them while they&#8217;re sleeping or while they&#8217;re knocked out, because that would be an act of injustice toward their self-determining power. Now, infants only have, as I mentioned, the ability for self-determination, but they don&#8217;t have the capacity to exercise that power of self-determination. And so for their human being, yeah, they got the power for self-determination, to have intellect and will. And given time, they&#8217;ll be able to actualize those, actually use those powers that are already present within them as a human being. So therefore, infants and small children under the age of reason are rightly determined in some of their activities by those who have authority over them like parents. And so it&#8217;s not a violation of their self-determining power whenever we baptize them. Now, if the scenario is scenario B, like the individual is unconscious because we think he&#8217;s dead and like, we&#8217;re not sure he might not be dead. We&#8217;re not really sure if he&#8217;s dead or just on his way to death. Well, then an adult could be baptized there conditionally, even though the adult cannot give their express consent to baptism. And so, a conditional baptism is I baptize you, name of father, assuming, unconditioned that you are alive, if this person seems to be dead, unconditioned that you are alive, I baptize you in the name of father, son and Holy spirit. So if the person is merely unconscious and only seems to be dead, then that person, assuming that the will is properly disposed, that would receive the graces of baptism there. And so we can baptize an adult who is unconscious in one situation, like at the moment of death or near death,
with a conditional baptism, even without an expressed consent to receive baptism.
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Catholics Baptize Babies but Not Unconscious Adults?

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DAY 349
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CHALLENGE
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“Peter didn’t have any special authority, because Jesus gave the power of binding and loosing to others. This simply refers to the ability to preach the gospel and admit people to the kingdom, as Peter did with Jews on Pentecost (Acts 2) and Gentiles with the household of Cornelius (Acts 10–11).”
DEFENSE
This interpretation does not fit the text or the context.
First, while Jesus gave the power of binding and loosing both to Peter (Matt. 16:19b) and to others (Matt. 18:18), this wasn’t the thing that made Peter unique (cf. CCC 881). In addition to giving him this authority, Jesus gave him the name Peter (“Rock”) and declared him to be the rock on which he would build his Church (Matt. 16:18). He further gave him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 16:19a), making him a unique leader in the Church (see Day 30). Thus the interpretation does not fit what the text says about Peter, who was singled out as unique.
Second, the interpretation does not fit the context of other New Testament passages, which also indicate Peter had a special role (e.g., Luke 22:31–32, John 21:15; see Days 19 and 276).
Third, the idea that the power of binding and loosing merely refers to preaching the gospel doesn’t fit the text. In Matthew 18, the concept is raised in the context of Church discipline—of disciplining a Christian brother who sins against another Christian (cf. 18:15)—not preaching to the unevangelized.
Fourth, the power to bind and the power to loose are two distinct and opposite abilities. If one were preaching the gospel then the other would be withholding the gospel, and it was not within the purview of the apostles to do that. Peter could not have decided to withhold the gospel from either Jews or Gentiles (Matt. 28:19–20, Acts 1:8).
Fifth, the phrase “bind and loose” was an established Jewish idiom. It referred, among other things, to the ability to forbid and to permit—i.e., to make and abolish rules of conduct (cf. Matt. 23:2–4). Thus Josephus records that during the reign of Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees exercised the power of binding and loosing in Judea (Jew-ish War 1:5:2[110]). It also had reference to the ability to absolve or to refuse to absolve sins (cf. John 20:21–23, CCC 1444).
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Binding and Loosing

<div>Since in vitro fertilization (IVF) creates lives, how could anyone think it’s wrong?</div><div>The <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/rethinking-in-vitro-fertilization">wrongness of IVF</a> often gets obscured by people pointing to the children who came from IVF and assuming that their intrinsic goodness validates the method that brought them into existence. Children who came into existence through adultery, fornication, rape, prostitution, or via surrogacy are just as intrinsically good, but that doesn’t mean that the way that they came into the world is good or should be defended.
Arguments against IVF include that human embryos are often purposefully destroyed in this process when they are not implanted, which is the direct killing of innocent human beings. The documentary Eggsploitation exposes how college-aged women, who are often struggling financially, are coerced by offers of tens of thousands of dollars to donate their eggs, even at great risk to themselves. IVF also frequently relies on women acting as surrogate wombs to birth these embryos. Pope Francis, in a January 8 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, has recently called for a global ban on surrogacy, saying, “I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”
Another practical argument against IVF is that there is no objective way to stop its use at just infertile married couples. The United States once tried to make contraceptives legal only for married couples, but the right of single people to have what married people can access was later upheld in the 1972 US Supreme Court case of Eisenstadt v. Baird. So there’s nothing to keep an unmarried man from contracting for a sperm donor and an egg donor, have embryos created from that in IVF, use a surrogate womb to gestate the child, and then have the child delivered to the consumer.
The most basic reason that IVF is wrong is because children have a right to come into existence in their mother’s body and be protected from coming into existence in a laboratory, where they might be shipped off to their mother’s womb, or a stranger’s womb, or <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/blog/on-ivf-alabama-and-frozen-babies">to cold storage indefinitely</a>. The Catechism says, children have “the right ‘to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of [their] conception’” (2378).
</div>

How can in vitro fertilization (IVF) be wrong if it creates lives?

<blockquote>Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).</blockquote>
I am a Martha. And proudly so! I love to work and, most importantly, serve as a laborer in the Lord’s vineyard. Previously having a fifteen-year career in the Church, I now serve as a volunteer at my parish by teaching marriage prep with my husband, leading story time at Vacation Bible School, and cultivating a family ministry for young parents. Despite not being paid for these roles, I view them just as seriously and with as much commitment as a formal job description. It’s the Martha in me. Give me a task, and I get it done.
However, the Lord said that Mary chose the better part, not Martha. Rather than being distracted by tasks, Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.
St. Gregory the Great wrote, “For what is set forth by Mary, who sitting down gave ear to the words of our Lord, save the life of contemplation? And what by Martha, so busied with outward services, save the life of action? Now Martha’s concern is not reproved, but that of Mary is even commended.” He then arrived at this vital conclusion: “For the merits of the active life are great, but of the contemplative, far better.”
I have never viewed the story of Martha and Mary as a condemnation of my personality and giftings. Rather, it is a lesson that teaches me how to channel my desires to work and serve and from whom I receive the grace to activate these gifts. I find great fulfillment in completing a task and seeing the good fruit stemming from it. Many of us garner satisfaction and a sense of achievement from a completed project, especially when we are credited for our efforts. How many contemplatives are praised by modern-day society? Not many. It’s the activists, the leaders, and the doers of the world who most often receive the accolades.
However, one of the greatest change agents of the twentieth century was also a deep contemplative: St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It still shocks me to this day that she spent two hours daily in eucharistic adoration. And yet she was able to accomplish so much good for the Church and the world and was publicly recognized for it, most notably winning a Nobel Peace Prize. This great modern saint was certainly both a Martha and a Mary.
I have been privileged to spend considerable time with religious sisters in the United States. These consecrated women have been shining witnesses to living like Mary by sitting and listening to the Lord during their daily commitments to prayer. They just as strongly witness to life as a Martha by working to the bone in the service of others—women like the <a href="https://hawthorne-dominicans.org/index.html">Hawthorne Dominicans</a>, who care for the poor dying of cancer; the <a href="https://sistersoflife.org/">Sisters of Life</a>, who live alongside women in crisis pregnancies; and the <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/36112/how-a-nuns-home-is-helping-girls-freed-from-sex-trafficking">Hospitaler Sisters of Mercy</a>, who run a rehabilitation home for victims of human-trafficking.
Anyone who exhibits peace beyond understanding and joy in the midst of suffering is undoubtedly a Christ-follower and has converted her heart to Christ through a personal relationship. Relationships are built upon undivided, quality time with the other person. Jesus said the better part “will not be taken away from her,” and so what is most stunning about these consecrated women is their deep and everlasting joy.
When Martha was working, she was not fully present with the Lord, allowing him to guide her in the use of her talents. In busy family life, it can be difficult for the laity to look at the lives of the saints and imagine fitting in a holy hour, let alone two! However, a recent event in my own Catholic community led me to believe that I’m surrounded by Marys who have chosen the better part.
A family of eight was celebrating their daughter’s birthday at a local ice-skating rink. Many other Catholic families were present for the festivities. The birthday girl collapsed on the ice and had a potentially fatal heart episode. I was not present at the event, but I heard firsthand from witnesses about how the next fifteen minutes played out, before the paramedics arrived. The mother immediately called everyone to gather around to pray the rosary. While little children were crying and deeply disturbed at seeing their friend suffering, the victim’s mother thought of others and calmed everyone down through prayer until the first responders arrived.
I must admit, as a Martha, I was angry when I first pictured this scene. I kept asking questions: Why didn’t the paramedics arrive sooner? Why did no one physically run outside, where there was better cell service, to call the first responders? And why was the mother standing in a prayer circle rather than holding her daughter, as she was most likely dying? I was angry with the other parents for not being doers and thinking on their feet.
Well, I failed to see the bigger picture. That young lady miraculously survived, and I was able to witness her perform on stage just six months later in a rendition of The Sound of Music. I cannot describe how humbling it was to hear her sing the lyrics: “Climb every mountain, search high and low. Follow every byway, every path you know. Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow. Till you find your dream.”
Could the prayers of her mother and others present have been exactly the “task” that saved her life and enabled her to follow her dreams? Due to being raised in a contemplative family, could the disposition of her own heart have aided in her remarkable recovery? If the young lady had passed away, would her mother and all those who spent those critical moments in prayer have felt the consolation of the Divine Healer as she transitioned from this life to the next?
I have taken these questions to prayer many times, and considered why I reacted so strongly against those who clearly “chose the better part,” no matter the outcome.
Martha’s personality as an active task manager does not change after Jesus reproaches her. When Jesus returns to Bethany in John Chapter 11, she runs to greet him while Mary stays home. She clearly goes out and actively does something by telling Jesus he has the power to save her brother, Lazarus. But it is also clear that she has had a conversion of heart. This time, she listens to Jesus and shows great faith that his way and his timing are better than hers.
May we all do the same, showing great faith and a willingness to become more like our Savior through a meaningful, personal relationship. St. Martha, pray for us!

Are You a Martha or a Mary?

You WILL NOT find the CANON in SCRIPTURE ALONE!

<div>Why does John the Baptist deny he is Elijah?</div><div>John the Baptist say he is not Elijah because he is not Elijah. Luke 1:17 clearly states this when it says: &#8220;[John the Baptist] will go before [Jesus] in the spirit and power of Elijah.&#8221; John the Baptist is believed to have the role of Elijah, he is not literally the person Elijah.
Jewish people in the 1st century believed that Elijah would return to earth because Elijah had not died but was taken up to heaven (2 King 2:1-11). The Jewish people believed he would physically return to earth from heaven before the coming of the messiah. That is why John the Baptist denied he was the literal physical return of Elijah from heaven but Jesus affirmed he was a &#8220;typology&#8221; of Elijah (Matt. 11:14).
</div>

Why Does John the Baptist Deny He Is Elijah?

<div>Is it a sin to waste food?</div><div>Yes, it’s wrong to deliberately waste food.
The Church indirectly addresses this general matter by speaking of our responsibility to help provide for the needs of our neighbors, including their need for food (CCC 2447).
Sadly, a good deal of food is wasted at restaurants, as many people are casual about not consuming the food they order.
Parents can instill an awareness of global solidarity by encouraging their children to be grateful for and consume the food they receive at home. Parents can also set a good example by not purchasing more food than the family needs, striving to make sure nothing goes to waste, and also periodically contributing nonperishable foodstuffs to parish food banks or similar entities.
Unfortunately, having worked for a major grocery chain, I’m aware that certain well-meaning laws actually hurt efforts to aid the poor, because they prevent the distribution of foods after expiration dates, even though the food will be edible for several more days.
</div>

Is It a Sin to Waste Food?

What happens to tribes that are not exposed to Christianity?

I’m a sponsor for a friend in RCIA. He has been donating to a Shriners hospital in honor of his friend. Is this a problem for him as he discerns the faith?

What mechanism do you have to rationalize today being right compared to the Church being wrong in the past on topics like Geocentrism?

Why does Mark’s gospel not mention Mary’s presence at the crucifixion?

Why does Jesus have to announce our sins in the final judgment? Does purgatory exist after the final judgment?

Ask Me Anything

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian. If I got in a time machine and teleported back to post-schism Catholic Europe (let’s say the 1400’s) would it be a sin for me to receive the sacraments there? Would it then cease to be a sin if I teleport...

On a previous episode you were talking about theophanies and christophanies and how it’s possible that any of the three persons of the Trinity could be incarnate in any event other than Christ’s birth. I assume the angel Jacob fought and th...

Was Genesis written after Jacob’s lifetime? I’m having a conversation with a friend who believes Eve had relations with Satan, stating that the word beguiled in Hebrew means to seduce body and soul. She bore Cain from that union and that&#8...

The video game character “Kirby” has a unique power: He has a nearly bottomless stomach, and whenever he consumes an enemy, he temporarily gains their powers in what is called a “copy ability”. If Kirby were to be received into ...

I have heard it described that God created all the humans, angels, nature, and all of our world as an author creates characters in a book. God is a creator, and humans are sub-creators. When God created the world, he gave the beings in it various souls...

I was watching Capturing Christianity with Fr. Lampert today when a caller asked about a spiritual/demonic attachment to him since living in a house where a woman was murdered by her husband.  It made me think of something horrible.  My mother had an a...

I have a weird question pertaining to guardian angels and reincarnation reports. Do our guardian angels get transferred to other people when we die? For example, could my guardian angel have guarded another person who died at the same time I was concei...

What do you think an alien grey meat would taste like, and would it a sin to eat one?

If DNA haplogroups have proven all humans came from Africa roughly one hundred thousand years ago, why did God not choose an African man to create a Covenant with and likewise not choose to become incarnate with an African as Adam was? Wouldn’t it have...

Suppose that we discover that the gift of creativity is much more literal than we thought, and then when someone crafts a fictional narrative, it creates an alternate world, a sort of pocket dimension, that follows their story. Would an author who tend...

It says in the Bible that humans were created a little lower than the angels. I’ve seen this interpreted to mean that all physically embodied beings are necessarily lower than angels in power and intelligence because angels are pure spirits. But ...

Can you have your iRobot, or any robot or AI thing we come up with in the future to do work for us, work on Sunday?

How much does the moon weigh?

Does the Bible DISPROVE that Mary was SINLESS?

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DAY 42
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The Gospel accounts of what happened at Jesus’ tomb contradict one another.
DEFENSE
They do not contradict. They agree on all the core facts, and the differences in detail are due to the literary choices that ancient authors regularly made.
All four agree that women went to Jesus’ tomb after the Sabbath, around dawn on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1–2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). The stone was rolled away, the body was gone, and they encountered an angel (Matt. 28:2–7; Mark 16:4–7; Luke 24:2–7, 10; John 20:1, 11–13).
The evangelists do mention different details. All the Gospels indicate Mary Magdalen was among the women, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke mention her companions. Which ones are mentioned was likely determined by who an evangelist knew to be there, who he thought his audience would recognize, and who he wanted to emphasize.
Matthew and Mark mention one angel, while Luke and John indicate there were two. The formers’ omission of the second angel is an omission, not a contradiction (see Day 37). Mark refers to “a young man . . . in a white robe,” but leaves it to the reader to infer that he was an angel. The others make this explicit, and also take note of his clothing, which is described as “white as snow” (Matthew), “dazzling” (Luke), and simply “white” (John).
The evangelists record different parts of the angels’ message. Mat- thew and Mark mention that Jesus will appear to the disciples in Gali- lee (see Day 115), while Luke and John omit this.
Matthew mentions the guards at the tomb, which he previously mentioned in Matthew 27:62–66. He also records that an angel rolled back the stone. This is implicit in the other three. The way Mat- thew records the angel’s action could be read as a flashback (i.e., what happened before the women arrived). Even without this reading, the evangelists were not bound to record events in chronological order (see Day 89).
John mentions that between the time the women first visited the tomb and the angelic encounter, Peter and John visited the tomb. Peter’s visit is also confirmed in Luke 24:12.
Such variations are choices that an ancient author would be expected to make. None involve contradictions.
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</div>
</div>

What Happened at Jesus’ Tomb?

<div>What is the story of the San Danmino Cross?</div><div>This is the painted crucifix that became animated when Jesus told Francis of Assisi to rebuild his Church. Francis originally took Jesus’ words literally, attempting to rebuild the church where the crucifix was located. In time, however, he realized that Jesus meant helping to restore the Church at large, which he facilitated through the founding of the Franciscans.
For more on the images depicted on the San Damiano Cross, <a href="https://www.monasteryicons.com/product/Story-of-the-San-Damiano-Crucifix/did-you-know">see this explanation</a>.
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What Is the Story Behind the San Damiano Cross?

Episode 39: Year A &#8211; 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we going to focus on five details found in all the Mass readings for this upcoming 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A. One detail comes from the first reading, taken from Isaiah 56:1, 6-7. Three come from the second reading, which is taken from Romans 11:13-15, 29-32. The fifth detail comes from the Gospel reading, which is Matthew’s record of Jesus’ exchange with the Canaanite woman who requests that He exorcize her demonically possessed daughter, found in Matthew 15:21-28. There is a host of apologetical topics that relate to these details: penitential deeds, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, God’s goodness, the problem of evil, secondary causality in saving others, and Jesus’ good character.
Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082023.cfm">https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082023.cfm</a>
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday</a>

The Goodness of God and the Problem of Evil

Modern movies continue to be problematic, promoting twisted popular agendas to young audiences and slipping past adult audiences. How can Catholics respond to movies and television that pose such grave moral challenges?

Is Enola Holmes the Most Evil Movie Ever Made?

In 1 Peter 2:9 Peter says that believers are “…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…”

Is there a connection between John the Baptist baptising Jesus with the anointing necessary for one to be a priest?

How do I explain to a friend the importance of confessing sins to a priest?

How does the Church have any clout to teach on IVF when it is ran by men and IVF is a woman’s issue?

Does human fatherhood and motherhood last in eternity?

I’ve been asked not to attend daily Mass at local parish because complaints have been made about my children being distractive, what can I do?

&#8220;Does human fatherhood last in eternity?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the nature of familial relationships in the afterlife, alongside other topics such as the significance of confessing sins to a priest and the Church&#8217;s authority on issues like IVF. The conversation also touches on the connection between John the Baptist&#8217;s baptism of Jesus and priestly anointing, providing a rich exploration of faith and doctrine.
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Does Human Fatherhood Last in Eternity? Confession and IVF

In this episode, we look at the little-known story of the &#8220;Corinthian Creed&#8221; and its implications. So what is the Corinthian Creed, just how old is it, and what does it tell us about the case for the Resurrection?

What the “Corinthian Creed” Proves About the Resurrection

In this free-for-all Friday, Trent answers questions from his patrons on absolutely anything they want to ask him.

FFAF: My Patrons “Ask me anything”

Did Jesus really appear to 500 people at once?

Do good works earn grace if I’m in mortal sin?

How can Catholics affirm the Filioque without compromising the Trinity?

Why does the Angelus say “conceived by the Spirit” before “be it done”?

Can someone avoid sin without grace?

If Jesus finished His sacrifice, why do we still suffer?

What’s the significance of confirmation?

Where are Jesus’ and Mary’s bodies now? What is Heaven?

How can Jesus be both divine and human?

When did the liturgy of the word begin?

Why do even trained exorcists risk being deceived by demons?

Must a Doctor of the Church be a canonized saint?

&#8220;Did Jesus really appear to 500 people at once?&#8221; This episode explores this intriguing question while also addressing topics such as the relationship between good works and grace in mortal sin, and how Catholics can affirm the Filioque without compromising the Trinity. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these essential aspects of faith.
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Did Jesus Appear to 500 People at Once? Confirmation and Grace

Will there be a Rapture, and how should Catholics respond to popular “rapture” theology?

Will there be a literal thousand-year reign (the “millennium”)?

What is the Catholic understanding of the Three Days of Darkness?

What is the Illumination of Conscience or Warning, and when might it occur?

What is “Antichrist”?

&#8220;Will there be a Rapture?&#8221; This episode dives into the Catholic perspective on popular rapture theology and explores key topics such as the concept of a literal thousand-year reign, the Catholic understanding of the Three Days of Darkness, and the nature of the Antichrist. Join us for an examination of these important eschatological questions.
[Encore episode, original air date July 25, 2025]
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What is The Rapture? Eschatology, the Antichrist, and More

In this episode Trent sits down Erik Manning of isjesusalive.com to debrief his recent debate on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Resurrection Debate Debrief (with Erik Manning)

Cy and Matthew discuss the Synod on Synodality, recognition of saints among Catholics and Orthodox and the results of the 2024 U.S. election.

Church in the News

When Was Abraham Justified? (1st Anniversary Special!)

In this rebuttal Trent corrects the errors and faulty arguments in John Oliver’s defense of “trans-rights” in relation to segregated sports, bathrooms, locker rooms, and the ethics of so-called “gender affirmation therapies”.

REBUTTING John Oliver on “Trans Rights”

This is Why They Killed Charlie Kirk…

First Sunday of Advent, Year A:
In this episode of The Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on two apologetical themes that arise out of the Liturgy of the Word for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A. The first is the so-called rapture doctrine (at least the pre-tribulation version of it), which comes up in the Gospel reading from Matthew 24:37-44. The second is the doctrine of “once saved, always saved,” which the second reading from Romans 13:11-14 gives us an opportunity to talk about.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112722.cfm">Readings</a></li>
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Does the Bible Support the Rapture?

The author of a brand new book called Exorcism, Father Vincent Lampert explains exorcism as a ministry of charity. The long-time exorcist of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis has seen many strange things, but insists that the most important lesson from exorcisms is to rely on Christ, who is the help of all in need.

The Truth About Exorcism

Anti-Semitism is the bigotry that never rests. And these days, there are Catholics in the public sphere once again proposing degrading ideas regarding Jews. How is a Catholic to understand Catholic/Jewish history in a way that comports with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Joe Heschmeyer joins us.

How Should a Catholic Think About Anti-Semitism

What religious group is more likely to convert to Catholicism?

It’s a <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-does-kamala-is-brat-mean-how-gen-z-memes-turned-kamala-harris-into-a-brat-summer-icon">brat girl summer</a> . . . and, frankly, it’s a little alarming.
The summer of 2022 presented as <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/popculture/what-is-feral-girl-summer-meaning-rcna28179">feral girl summer</a>, in which we were all called to celebrate our wild side. This led, in 2023, to <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/rat-girl-summer-rcna100800">rat girl summer</a>, which encouraged females to scurry aimlessly outside their homes while nibbling snacks. Now, in 2024, we are celebrating the summer of the brat, a term to denote late-night partying, volatile female emotions, and a shade of lime green that looks good on exactly no one.
Adult females are, in essence, spending summer after summer in the least appealing ways possible and convincing themselves that it’s a cute way to celebrate their girlhood.
The primary problem with this is that they are no longer in girlhood and should have long ago advanced to womanhood. Charlie XCX, the British pop star whose album launched the brat trend, is thirty-one years old, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/charli-xcx-brat-review-1235031414/">Rolling Stone</a> defines brat as “a hyperpop roller coaster of post-Saturn return, early-thirties anxieties, and It-girl bravado.”
If I chose to be generous about extending youth beyond the time it is strictly necessary, I would say that a person is in adulthood when she reaches the age of a college grad. This is typically around twenty-two to twenty-four and allows for several years of post-high school shenanigans. By the time a person reaches her thirties, she should be well beyond youth and fully embracing mature adulthood.
But the unfortunate truth is that people without the grounding of marriage and children can struggle to grow up. <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/womens-impact-on-the-economy">Recent studies</a> forecast that 45 percent of women ages twenty-five to forty-four will be single by the year 2030. This leaves us with a disconcerting number of lime green-clad women scurrying around the streets, eating snacks.
For further proof that our women are stuck in adolescence, we need not look beyond the album that gave us all these brats. Charlie XCX delivered catchy electronic club vibes with an honest analysis of her own insecurities and mean-girl tendencies. She discusses the frenemy who she couldn’t be even if she tried; living as 365 party girl, but often feeling like a wallflower at those parties; how it’s so confusing to be a girl; and how she wishes she could rewind to simpler times. In short, this album is loaded with lyrics that would be appropriate for pubescent teenagers, but it is somehow instead the anthem of our thirty-year-olds—and, in an especially alarming case, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/23/kamala-harris-charli-xcx-brat">fifty-nine-year-old </a>who is running for president.
In short, women are regressing. Our extremely feminist culture has brought us from the early days of desiring that women have a vote, through the Sexual Revolution, and now to this new stage of encouraging women not to be women at all, but remain in a strange stage of volatile adolescence.
With this regression comes the same mean-girl bullying that we all learned to fear in our school days. This is showcased perfectly in the recent attack on the “<a href="https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/meet-the-queen-of-the-trad-wives-and-her-eight-children-plfr50cgk">Queen of the Trad Wives</a>,” also known as Hannah Neeleman, published in the London Times. The article interviews Neeleman about her life as a mother of eight living on a farm that was made successful by her own efforts on social media. However, in spite her obvious success in multiple areas of the life she has chosen, she is slammed as being oppressed by her husband and children, who, the author claims, are constantly correcting, interrupting, and hanging on her. The message is clear: no matter how beautiful, successful, and fulfilled your life seems, you can’t possibly be happy if you have a husband and children suffocating your feminist potential.
This feminist trend of calling any conservative woman oppressed was also analyzed by <a href="https://reason.com/2024/08/01/from-usha-vance-to-ballerina-farm-denying-conservative-womens-individuality/?itm_source=parsely-api&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">Elizabeth Nolan Brown</a>, who comments that this same phenomenon is seen in the liberal reaction again J.D. Vance’s wife, Usha. Brown points out how condescending it is to assume that a woman is incapable of wanting something different from the feminist ideal: “This manifests as utter disbelief that women like Hannah Neeleman and Usha Vance could be happy co-pilots in the lives they and their husbands are leading. . . . But it&#8217;s not actually feminist to paint all women with one brushstroke. Women are not and will never be a monolith.”
Granted, not all of us want to live on a farm with eight kids, but in the same vein, not all of us want to throw ourselves into a career. Women should be free to live a variety of lives, but regressing to mean-girl adolescent tendencies is never going to be a successful solution for empowering women, and giving up on adulthood altogether and living the life of a volatile party girl is similarly useless. For women to thrive and succeed, we need all of humanity to thrive, and for humanity to thrive, we need the family unit to thrive. J. Michael Miller, in <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/revitalizing-society-through-the-family-vision-of-john-paul-ii-10443">his analysis</a> of the work of John Paul II, distilled it beautifully when he said, “Whenever a family fosters love, it performs an inestimable service to society and to the coming of the kingdom. If we are first a communion within the family, then we can later enter into communities in society. A civilization of love has its roots in a family of lovers.”
Trends come and go (thankfully), but truth is a timeless foundation to build your life on. Women cannot operate in a world separate from men and children any more than a child can survive without its mother or men can thrive without women. We all need one another.
When we crumble into a life that is selfish and self-centered, we rapidly become brats. As I have said to my children—and I’m sure many of you have said to yours—“don&#8217;t be a brat.”

Don’t Be a Brat

When I tell people I recently wrote <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/confusion-in-the-kingdom/">a book</a> critiquing liberal Catholicism, I sometimes get this reply: “I’m not a liberal Catholic or a conservative Catholic. I’m just a Catholic.”
Are these made-up labels to stoke controversy? Or do they track with a real division within the Church?
First, labels are just approximations of real divisions, so they will always be much broader than the nuanced opinions of people who might fall under them. But just as I can know who has a beard and who doesn’t even though I don’t know when stubble becomes a beard, I can know when some expressions of Catholicism tend to be more liberal and others tend to be conservative.
But what does that refer to?
Typically, it refers to the ongoing project of retaining the truths of the Faith handed on in the past while adapting them to new and ever-changing circumstances.
On the very, very far left, you would have people who say there is nothing essential to be handed on. They might even deny fundamental elements of the Creed. Indeed, theological liberalism reached its heyday in the early twentieth century, when, in reaction to the work of German higher form criticism, it tried to “modernize” the Christian faith by rejecting doctrines like the Virgin Birth.
Similar controversies in the nineteenth century arose in the Catholic world, with scholars questioning doctrines like papal infallibility (prompting that doctrine’s reaffirmation at Vatican I), the miracle accounts of the Bible, and even foundational teachings like the deity of Christ. One prominent French scholar referred to Jesus as un homme incomparable—an incomparable man, but a man nonetheless. Pope Pius X called this primacy of modern sentiments over divine revelation “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi Dominici Gregis 39).
More conservative Protestants famously countered this liberal movement through the publication of a series of essays called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, which became the background for later Protestant “fundamentalist” movements. That’s where one can fall into the other extreme, such as by saying that acceptance of the theory of evolution (or, for some people, even heliocentrism) means that we have entirely abandoned the Faith.
So the far left, who say “anything is up for grabs,” and the far right, who say “nothing can ever change,” are the bounds of the theological spectrum, and everyone else falls somewhere on it. I find that “liberal Catholics” tend to fall toward the end that is more open to the idea that fundamental Church teaching can change to incorporate modern ideas—particularly regarding life and human sexuality—even if they don’t come right out and say it.
It could be a Catholic author who says the faithful must support certain policies related to climate change, gun control, or affirmative action. Or maybe it’s a Catholic author who says Catholics would really respect women by not outlawing abortion. Or maybe it’s a well-known Catholic priest who says it’s okay to have “gay pride.” These public figures don’t outright say, “The Church is wrong on abortion and homosexuality,” but they do something worse . . . their actions sow seeds of doubt that cause some people to reject the Church’s teachings in the name of liberal values like “inclusivity.”
I don’t want to spend time arguing about matters Catholics are free to disagree about, especially since Scripture condemns this kind of quarreling and infighting. St. Paul said, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. . . . Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Rom. 14:10, 19).
But sometimes fellow believers can confuse the faithful, and when this happens, they must be corrected.
Paul makes this point at the end of his letter to the Romans: “Take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded” (16:19-21). He also encourages St. Timothy to “convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings” (2 Tim. 4:2-3).
Some people may say I’m being divisive for calling certain people “liberal” or “conservative.” But I would point them to Catholics who voluntarily choose these labels. For example, Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/distinctly-catholic/liberal-catholics-and-temptation-sectarianism">says</a>, “We liberal Catholics never went away and never could go away.” And Reporter executive editor Heidi Schlumpf <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-connections/liberal-catholicism-weve-been-here-all-along">gives</a> this description of the liberal (or, as she says, “progressive”) Catholic:
<blockquote>They are the gray-haired old-timers at church reform organizations and parishes. They are the young Catholics taking their first theology course at a Catholic college or university—and the theologians teaching those classes. They are the retired priests, sisters, and even some bishops who have spent their lives working for social justice. They are Women’s March marchers, Green New Deal supporters, and Black Lives Matter protesters across generations.</blockquote>
So yes, there are “liberal” Catholics and “conservative” Catholics.
Of course, we all, liberal or conservative, are “Catholic”—provided that we assent to the teachings of the Church. One can be a faithful Catholic and hold imprudent theological or political positions, be they liberal or conservative. That’s why we must always be on guard against errors and ambiguities that can put us in danger of falling off the barque of Peter, whether it’s off the “left” or the “right” side.

Liberal Catholics? Conservative Catholics?

Cy Kellett welcomes apologist Joe Heschmeyer to discuss the concerns of a former Baptist pastor who is contemplating joining the Catholic Church.
Transcript:
Caller: I have been a Baptist pastor for 24 years and resigned last month. And my wife and I have been moving toward the Catholic Church.
Joe: Glory to God. Glory to God.
Cy: And Paul. What a magnificent. That&#8217;s a big move. God bless you. I can&#8217;t imagine that there was anything easy about resigning after 24 years.
Caller: I mean, I obviously have a lot of questions, but one thing that gives me pause is, you know, so many seem to be since Vatican II, you know, all the people, you know, the Catholic Church is abandoning truth and tradition, and there&#8217;s so many of those voices. There&#8217;s just so much of that. And, you know, to be honest with you, it gives me pause. You know, I&#8217;ve actually heard people say that the goal is to rid, you know, Catholicism of the TLM and they&#8217;re moving away from what has been traditional doctrines and traditional practices. And how far does that go?
Joe: Those are great questions. I would step back and I would ask this. Throughout the ages, the Church has been beset by people preaching heresies and error and predicting the end of the Church and saying the Church&#8217;s days are up, they&#8217;re numbered, they&#8217;re over. And, you know, the Church isn&#8217;t going to survive the Roman Empire or, you know, they&#8217;re not going to survive the fall of the Roman Empire, or they&#8217;re not going to survive the Reformation, or they&#8217;re not going to survive the rise of Napoleon, or fill in the blank. Time after time after time after time. It looked like we were toast after Muslims conquered Istanbul. Well, you know, Constantinople and then turned it into Istanbul. They were very clear that Rome was next and Rome was not next. It never happened.
And so God has protected providentially, not through human agency, because if you look at the history of the Church, the human figures were fallible and broken and sinful and sometimes corrupt. And in spite of all of that, through all of that, God has continued to work through His Holy Spirit to keep the Church in the truth and to keep the Church in existence.
And if you look now, it is a matter of objective fact that the oldest government on Earth is the Vatican. Whether you agree with the Catholic Church or not, there&#8217;s just no getting around the fact that this small, relatively defenseless government that has been invaded numerous times by the Holy Roman Empire, by the Germans, by the Vandals, by the Goths, all of them seemingly coming from the same place. As I say that out loud, not a lot of invasions from the city. Napoleon. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.
And so they&#8217;ve been conquered repeatedly and yet survived. And the Pope was never replaced, and the papacy visibly continued on. The idea that Christ does this for 1900 years, and then at Vatican II is just like, ah, peace out. The Holy Spirit&#8217;s not going to protect you anymore. I protected the first 22 ecumenical councils, but not this one. That goes against every fiber of everything we know about Catholic teaching now.
Were there and are there people who tried to make Catholicism more popular and accessible in ways that backfired horribly? Absolutely. Are there people who were bad shepherds and malicious shepherds, in some cases predators, in some cases wolves in shepherd&#8217;s clothing? Absolutely. That is the case in the recent past. That&#8217;s certainly the case at times now. That was the case throughout the whole history of the Church.
But none of that invalidates the core claims that Christ built this Church and has sent His Holy Spirit to protect the Church, so that amidst all of the chaos, the Church still stands. And there are times that are more placid and times that are more chaotic. There&#8217;s a beautiful passage by St. Basil the Great writing in the three hundreds in the aftermath of the First Council of Nicaea and just describing how chaotic the Church was. And he described it as like a naval battle where every ship was firing upon every other ship and even your friends start shooting at you.
And that circular firing squad is very much what Catholic YouTube can feel like or the Catholic Twitter world can feel like, of just Catholics attacking other Catholics and everybody tearing one another down. And that is, again, even though it&#8217;s new in one way with the media, it&#8217;s not new in another way, because the hearts of men are what they always were.
And as a result of that, I can say with confidence, whatever damage we may do to one another in the online space, however much we may be adjudicated guilty for having torn down our brothers rather than building up the body of Christ, the Church itself will remain, and it has remained in the face of similar controversies and conflicts in the past. So don&#8217;t fall for the lie that for 1900 years, God protected the visible Church. And then, you know, for the past 50 or 60 years, He just decided not to anymore.
Caller: My concern is not that I believe the Church will collapse and cease to exist. My concern is the, you know, the drift toward liberalism and the loss of reverence, which is one of the things that has so drawn me to Catholicism, you know, is when I walk into the sanctuary, there is just a sense of the holy, you know, that&#8217;s so absent. And, you know, so many Protestant churches are just so casual, you know, and I guess I&#8217;m just concerned about a drift toward liberalism and toward abandoning traditional, you know, doctrines and beliefs that have always been, you know, just standard, you know, Christianity.
And I guess that&#8217;s not so much that my concern is the Church will cease to exist. But gotcha is that, you know, there this drift toward, you know, I think you probably understand what I&#8217;m saying.
Joe: I do. I actually did an episode on Shameless Popery five months ago called &#8220;Why Liberal Catholicism Is Dying.&#8221; Just looking at the numbers, and you had a generation, really about two generations ago, that thought that the way forward for the Church was to become much more like mainline Protestantism. And then mainline Protestantism largely died, collapsed terribly. And similarly, people who followed that model of Catholicism died out. The people stopped going to church.
And you can see it in the numbers. So if you interview priests who were ordained back in the 60s, about 2/3 of them describe themselves as theologically and politically progressive. Today, that number for newly ordained priests is maybe 1%. So the future of the Church in terms of clergy, in terms of the governance and leadership of the Church, is very clearly not with, let&#8217;s water everything down and make everything super liberal.
Particularly here in the US you see that in such a marked and pronounced way that there is a real thirst for orthodoxy, reverence, and tradition. And so you still have some older clergy, including some older bishops, who would maybe like to see the Church go in a different direction, but they&#8217;re powerless to accomplish that. They can do a certain amount of, I would just say, frankly, a certain amount of damage, but they can&#8217;t change the direction that the Church is going in because they simply, they failed to raise up another generation of priests.
There were no young men who wanted to follow them into that model of Church. The young people who bought what they were selling simply ceased to call themselves Catholic. And so it led to an exodus from the Church. While those who stayed around, many of them, frankly, became priests or became devout Catholics in spite of weak and bad leadership, not because of it.
Now, those are perhaps harsh words, but I think those numbers are. That assessment is clearly borne out in the data, in the numbers. You see that in a pretty undeniable sort of way, whatever your own leanings might be. So I don&#8217;t think you have to worry that 20 years from now, 50 years from now, whatever, the Church is going to resemble liberal Protestantism. There might be some people who harbor that idea. There was certainly a whiff of that revolution in the air in the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s, and it just never materialized. It never happened.
And I think the reason it never happened has a lot to do with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Cy: I want to come back to you. What do you think about that, Paul?
Caller: Yeah, well, you know, the numbers he gives are encouraging, you know, and it&#8217;s like I say, for me, it&#8217;s. It&#8217;s not, you know, I&#8217;m not a skeptic by nature necessarily, but, you know, there&#8217;s a lot at stake here.
Caller: You know, because I&#8217;m in the Deep South and, you know, the modern thing, but Catholic, you know, so we&#8217;ve. Yeah. So for me. For me, you know, I mean, I&#8217;m going to lose all my friends and, you know, my family&#8217;s going to think I&#8217;m nuts and all of this, which is okay. But, you know, I don&#8217;t want to, you know, I want to make sure that I can have confidence, you know, that I&#8217;m, you know, I&#8217;m not stepping into something that&#8217;s.
Cy: Yeah, something that will support your weight once you get there.
Joe: Yeah. I think that&#8217;s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. And I would just say take heart. Know that this sacrifice, you&#8217;re being willing to place all of your relationships at the altar and choose Jesus, no matter the cost, is something that Christ will richly reward. He&#8217;s promised that abundantly.
And additionally, there are good resources for you. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;re familiar yet with the Coming Home Network, but there&#8217;s some fantastic people over there that in many cases are themselves former Protestant clergy who have created a support network for people in very much your situation.
Cy: Are you familiar with them, Paul?
Caller: I am. I actually went to the clergy convert retreat back in May.
Cy: Oh, wonderful. But I also want to send you Steve Weidenkopf&#8217;s book. Steve Weidenkopf, a wonderful Catholic historian, wrote a book for us here at Catholic Answers Press called *Light from Darkness: Nine Times the Catholic Church Was in Turmoil and Came Out Stronger Than Before*. You know, of course, this is, at the root of this, is that the Catholic Church has been in crisis certainly since about the year 2002, but more likely you would say since the early 1970s, when the whole world went into a crisis following the utter stupidity of the 1960s.
So it&#8217;s a long, simmering crisis. But I do think that one of the things that I hope you take from Joe is that we&#8217;re getting on the other side of that crisis, it looks like. Not that we&#8217;re at the beginning of it. And I can tell you, as a child of the 60s, if you think we&#8217;re crazy now. You should have seen us in the 70s. You should have gone to the folk mass and seen what was going on.
Joe: Just be thankful you didn&#8217;t have to do that.
Cy: So I&#8217;ll tell you what, if you&#8217;ll hang on the line, we&#8217;ll send you those books. And I hope we&#8217;ll talk to you again. If you&#8217;re in touch with the Coming Home Network, you are in touch with the right people. They are good people. And God bless you, Brother Paul. Thank you so much.

Why This Pastor Hasn’t Become Catholic

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

Remembering a Spellbinding Catholic Artist

Many Protestants object to the Catholic Church by claiming it never believed, in previous times, certain articles of faith that it professes to believe now. They claim this because the Church only authoritatively declared these articles as dogma centuries or millennia later.
Catholics <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-assumption-of-mary-in-history">usually respond</a> that the Magisterium (teaching authority of the Church) most often declares something to be dogma in precise formulations after the matter in question is contradicted by heretics.
This is not a modern Catholic apologist cop-out. It is precisely the same answer given by St. Augustine.
He (<a href="https://eternalchristendom.com/becoming-catholic/quote-archive-development-of-doctrine/">and other Church Fathers</a>) explains that God uses heretics to rouse the Church’s mind to better understand the Faith and Scripture. This is based on St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “for there must be heresies among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor. 11:19).
When such things occur, God raises up great Catholic teachers, whose teachings are often authoritatively recognized by the Church to be good and true. Indeed, this is precisely <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/scripture-couldnt-settle-all-early-church-disputes">what happened at the Council of Jerusalem</a> in Acts 15—heretics were disturbing the mind of the Church (“unsettling your minds,” as verse 24 says), and the Church responded with an authoritative pronouncement after discussing the matter, invoking both their own authority and God’s.
This is not a sixteenth-century argument, nor a fifth-century argument, and definitely not a nineteenth-century argument (as some allege, attributing this idea of “doctrinal development” to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/truth-and-conscience-with-the-churchs-newest-saint">St. John Henry Newman</a>). It has been happening for 2,000 years in the Catholic Church. It is how God uses even his enemies to benefit his Church.
Here is a fascinating and illuminating quote from St. Augustine on this topic (<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801055.htm">Exposition of Psalm 55</a>, §21):
<blockquote>Therefore many men that could understand and expound the Scriptures very excellently, were hidden among the people of God: but they did not declare the solution of difficult questions, when no reviler again urged them.
For was the Trinity perfectly treated of before the Arians snarled thereat? Was repentance perfectly treated of before the Novatians opposed? So not perfectly of Baptism was it treated, before re-baptizers removed outside contradicted; nor of the very oneness of Christ were the doctrines clearly stated which have been stated, save after that this separation began to press upon the weak: in order that they that knew how to treat of and solve these questions (lest the weak should perish vexed with the questions of the ungodly), by their discourses and disputations should bring out unto open day the dark things of the Law…</blockquote>

Doctrinal Development: An Ancient Reality

When does human life actually begin?

<div>I recently became an extraordinary minister and found myself reflexively bowing my head slightly each time I said "the Blood of Christ." Is this inappropriate? </div><div>I know that you are doing so out of reverence for the Lord, so I would hesitate to use the word inappropriate. However, I would not recommend doing so. Outside of the fact that it is not called for in the rubrics, any bowing of the head could result in an unintentional bowing of the body or shoulders, thus causing a tipping of the chalice in your hands and possibly spilling the Precious Blood. While that may seem an unlikely chain of causation, it is possible and therefore not worth the risk of adding unnecessary gestures.
</div>

Bowing Head While Distributing Communion

Philosopher Edward Feser joins Cy to discuss his new book, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment. Feser points out that Catholic doctrine has not changed, and argues that there are positive reasons not to abandon the death penalty.

A Catholic Case for Capital Punishment

Jimmy Akin explains the cultural and practical factors that have lead to the Catholic Church&#8217;s preference for baptism by immersion, while clarifying that both pouring and immersion are valid modes of administering the sacrament.
Transcript:
Host: Anonymous, listening—or, watching on YouTube Live, you are on with Jimmy Akin, what’s your question?
Caller: Hi! I had a question—oh, can you hear me?
Host: We can, yes.
Jimmy: Yes, you’re on the air, what’s your question?
Caller: Okay, sorry, I was just wondering about baptism. I’ve just been, like…in the Catholic Orthodox church which I’m a part of, we have, like, the standard baptism by immersion, and then if there’s any need to do it otherwise, if there’s any reason to make an exception, we’ll go by the exception. So what I was just wondering is, just curiosity as to why, like, the Catholic Church, like the standard is pouring instead of immersion.
Jimmy: Um, it’s just culture. That’s the fundamental answer. The Catholic Church recognizes that both immersion and pouring are valid modes of baptism; that’s something that’s been recognized since the first century, because we have at least the mode of pouring mentioned as a valid mode in a document known as the Didache, which dates back to the first century. So the validity of both modes is something that has been recognized widely down through history.
However, presumably because it can be a little awkward to immerse a baby, and baptism is normally performed with babies, or most frequently performed with babies, in the Latin rite of the Church, it ended up being the less common mode. However, the Church does acknowledge that immersion is a more expressive way of symbolizing the action of God in baptism and the washing away of our sins. So if you look in the Church’s current documents, there’s even kind of a little preference for immersion where it’s possible and appropriate, but for historical-cultural reasons, it is not the most common form of administration of baptism, and it tends to go to the fact that it’s a little harder to immerse a baby than it is an adult.
Now, that’s not to say you can’t immerse a baby; in fact, my understanding is that in many branches of Christianity—and it may be this way in the Coptic Orthodox church—but in many branches of Christianity, babies are immersed. And so it’s certainly possible, it just may cause a little more ruckus than it would just pouring—although, even pouring can cause a little bit of a ruckus with a baby.
Caller: Thanks, yeah and we do immerse babies as well. I was just curious about the difference and why that was the case, so thank you!
Jimmy: No problem, basically just a cultural difference just cause of how things evolved.

Why Does the Catholic Church Pour Instead of Immerse for Baptisms?

Are you being lied to by astrology?

Egypt's 10 Plagues Were God Smiting Demons...

Would St. Paul recognize the doctrine of transubstantiation?

Where can reliable resources be found regarding changes to the liturgy post-Vatican II?

What is the historical context and Church justification regarding the Inquisition?

Is there any truth to the claim that the Catholic Church is hiding or suppressing 14 books of the Bible? Clarification needed on the Bible as a Catholic book.

During the Transfiguration, when Moses talks with Jesus, is that an example of necromancy?

Where can more patristic information about the Immaculate Conception be found?

Why is the NAB Bible used as the basis for liturgy in the U.S.? What would be required to change to a different translation?

If Satan or a demon tricks a group into worshipping him, is that group worshipping the same God as Christians?

Is it acceptable in the Latin/Roman Rite to pray in a prostration style similar to Eastern Orthodox practice?

What is the Catholic understanding of Justification compared to the Protestant doctrine of Faith alone?

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, listeners gain clear and insightful answers on key Catholic teachings and questions. Topics include whether St. Paul would recognize the doctrine of transubstantiation, reliable resources on liturgical changes since Vatican II, and the historical context of the Inquisition. The episode also clarifies misconceptions about the Bible and addresses claims of suppressed books. Discussion covers patristic sources on the Immaculate Conception, the nature of the Transfiguration, and why the NAB Bible is used in U.S. liturgy. Additionally, listeners learn about the Catholic view of justification versus Protestant faith alone, the acceptability of prostration in Latin Rite prayer, and the theological implications of worshipping a deceiving spirit.
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Understanding Transubstantiation, Vatican II Liturgy Changes, and the Inquisition Explained

Can you solve a Rubix cube in 3 seconds? Run a marathon in less than two-hours? Or spin over 200 hula-hoops at once? In this free-for-all-Friday Trent shares a recent videos series from WIRED magazine that showcases the extraordinary individuals who are pushing the limits of human ability.

5 Almost Impossible Human Limits

Mark Brumley gives advice to a caller in a <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/civil-marriage">civil marriage</a> who is coming back to the faith and wants to know what she must do before <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/who-can-receive-communion">receiving Communion</a>.
Transcript:
Host: We go to Maria in San Jose, California, listening on Immaculate Heart Radio, Maria, what&#8217;s your question for Mark Brumley?
Caller: I&#8217;m wondering, so I was married recently, a civil marriage, I was raised in the Catholic Church and fell away from it for a really long time, and then just actually recently this year I started listening to Catholic radio, and started coming back towards my faith, now with Lent I&#8217;m trying to really participate more in the faith again. But I was wondering, is it possible, if I was to go to Confession, my husband&#8217;s not Catholic, so is it possible after going to Confession to receive Communion and the Sacraments in a civil marriage, or do I have to get my marriage blessed in the Catholic Church before I could receive the Sacraments?
Mark: Let me ask a question just out of curiosity, I don&#8217;t mean to pry: is your husband baptized?
Caller: Yes he is. He was baptized in the Presbyterian Church.
Mark: Okay, so you guys were civilly married. Alright, well, here&#8217;s what I propose. First of all, have you talked to your pastor about this?
Caller: Not really, actually. Like I said, it&#8217;s just been kind of new, coming back into the Church, and today with open forum, it was just on my heart to call in and ask this question.
Mark: Great. So Catholics, as part of the Catholic Church, the community of the Catholic Church, Catholics are required&#8211;exceptions can be made to this&#8211;but they&#8217;re required to have their marriage witnessed by a priest or a deacon, under ordinary circumstances. And this gets to the validity of the marriage from the perspective of the Church, how the Church understands marriage.
So in a situation you&#8217;re describing, it would be the case that you should consult with, certainly, your pastor about regularizing that marital situation. Your husband doesn&#8217;t have to be a Catholic in order for that to occur, but when both you and your husband are baptized, in a certain sense that makes it easier to do. So that&#8217;s what you should do, you should talk to him about, talk to your pastor, about sort of regularizing or normalizing&#8211;sometimes people say &#8220;Get it blessed by the Church,&#8221; but&#8211;that marital situation. That&#8217;s the first point.
Second point: your instinct is sound when you say &#8220;Should I go to confession,&#8221; because we want to make sure that when we go to communion, things that we&#8217;ve done, if they&#8217;ve been at odds with the teaching of Jesus, even if we&#8217;ve done them unknowingly, we knew we did did them but we didn&#8217;t really fully realize that they were wrong, we still want to make sure that how we&#8217;re living our lives, and the things that we profess and we believe, when we identify ourselves as Catholic and we want to participate in the Eucharist, which is the Sacrament that, you know, most visibly says we are fully one with the faith of the Church, we want to make sure that there&#8217;s a consistency between how we&#8217;re living and what we&#8217;re saying by receiving Communion.
And that consistency doesn&#8217;t just mean &#8220;I know I did something wrong and I&#8217;m repenting of it, I&#8217;m going to Confession.&#8221; That&#8217;s really important to do that, but even if, you know, some of our beliefs are the choices that we make in life, even if we kind of really didn&#8217;t realize that they were problematic and now we do, and maybe we weren&#8217;t blameworthy for that because we didn&#8217;t realize they were wrong, we still want to kind of come to terms with that and make sure that, you know, we are professing the faith of the Church and living the faith of the Church as disciples of Jesus as the Catholic Church understands that.
And that&#8217;s really important to sort of navigate that with your pastor, and so I would say, you know, certainly before you go to Communion, because Communion is saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m all in, Jesus,&#8221; as the Catholic Church understands &#8220;all in,&#8221; you&#8217;re going to want to make sure that that, you know, you could honestly say that, and, you know, you don&#8217;t want to&#8230;none of us wants to&#8211;we want to be people of consistency, where what we say and how we&#8217;re living is as consistent as we can be. So that&#8217;s why I would recommend talking to your pastor.
Caller: Okay perfect, thank you so much.

When Does Marriage Convalidation Need to Precede Communion?

<div>Does judgment come immediately after death or at Christ’s Second Coming?</div><div>Our particular judgment comes right after we die (CCC 1101-22). The general or Last Judgment will come at the end of the world (CCC 1038-41).
</div>

When Does Our Particular Judgment Come?

If you spend enough time on the Catholic internet, you might start to hear the name &#8220;<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/some-thoughts-on-q">Source Q</a>&#8221; or just &#8220;Q&#8221; floating around. What is this mysterious letter? What is its relation to the gospels? Is it even real at all? Jimmy Akin answers these questions on Catholic Answers Live.

What is Source Q?

Patrick Coffin’s Final Show

<div>What is the difference between a demon and a devil?</div><div>A demon is any of the many angels that fell from heaven. The devil is a specific one of the fallen angels. The devil is a term used to refer to the one who is considered the leader or chief of the fallen angels. The devil is also known as Satan or Lucifer. Sometimes the plural (devils) is used interchangeably with demons, but when used in the singular, it refers only to the chief fallen angel.
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Are Demon and Devil the Same?

There is a convention among some Christians to declare themselves “heretics” pre-emptively. After all, the word heretic comes from the Greek word “to choose.” They imagine a faith untainted by the manipulation of religious authorities, who supposedly demand mindless adherence to arbitrary dogma. They make up their own minds. If these free-thinkers choose to say the Nicene Creed, for example, they really mean it. If not, that’s fine, too.
Traditionalists hold a different line. To them, belief is no mindless assent to a set of objective propositions, nor is it merely a prejudiced rejection of unorthodoxy. Rather, the choice in favor of God and the commitment to be obedient to his revealed commands are an act of grace, reflecting our acceptance of God’s love and our desire to live in communion with him. Evangelizing, therefore, is not only a matter of sound arguments and the anticipation of objections, but an invitation to an encounter with reality.
Heretic, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, explores the complexity of why and how we choose to believe in a way we rarely see in Hollywood movies. The film stars Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton. These two Mormon missionaries encounter their worst nightmare in Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant, who has found yet another superb villain to play in the second half of his career. Significantly, both Thatcher and East are real-life former Mormons, and their nuanced performances convey a refreshing sincerity.
In Heretic, the choice of religion is no joke, and no mere thought experiment.
For example, Barnes and Paxton have seen and are not bothered by the parody musical The Book of Mormon. Likewise, the pair experience indignities in the town where they have been assigned, but they are constant in their encouragement of each other and their commitment to the mission. They dream of their future husbands, and they are honest about their shortcomings. But then they meet Reed, whose goal is not only to flex his intellectual muscles and destroy all their arguments, but to terrorize them personally. In fact, he wants to supplant their god violently.
Mr. Reed, whose name may be an homage to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/wanna-place-a-bet-on-god">Pascal’s</a> “thinking reed,” at first seems too good to be true for a pair young of women keeping a score card of conversion. He is well informed and inquisitive, and he appears to be on the right track about man’s desire for God. Soon, however, the tables turn, and Reed becomes a missionary to them, explaining his own cynical perspective on the major religions. First, with dastardly charm, he propounds the hackneyed trope of a common origin for many sacred stories. Then he moves on to a sinister theory of religious thievery that he dubs “iteration,” and finally he shifts gears to a Matrix-like metaphysics in which the real world is obscured by religion.
It’s an apologetical mess. And when Reed attempts to conclude his presentation with an act of wonder-working, Sister Barnes suspects a conjuring trick instead of a divine miracle.
Heretic contains several gruesome scenes that many viewers will find objectionable. The real terror, however, lies in the darkness at the heart of Reed’s faith. The age-old question of the martyrs is at the forefront: would you die for what you believe in? The film reminds us that the sinner assumes God’s authority in both small and big ways and makes sacrifices in gratitude. In contrast, the psychopath has no doubt of his own authority and apologizes for nothing. He is the ultimate heretic.
Heretic is a change of pace for the horror genre. It is like a stage play, with long scenes full of rich dialogue about the things that matter most. Moreover, for the first time ever in my movie-watching life, I was both surprised and reassured by a line in the credits: “No generative AI was used in the making of this film.” Film magic is deliberately put to one side in this unusual examination of the question hanging in the air since Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate: what is truth? In this way, unlike a masterful religious horror movie like The Exorcist, Heretic is not a spectacle of good versus evil, but a heady presentation of competing visions of reality.
Nonetheless, Heretic is a modest achievement that will not be remembered alongside the great religious dramas. No big spoilers here, but no one will leave the theater believing that any religious system, including Catholicism, could explain the universe. Rather, it is a suspenseful and intelligent film, but it does not offer the kind of spiritual depth or potential for extended contemplation that a classic like The Exorcist offers.
For anyone looking for a small dose of theological reflection packaged in a good scare, however, buying a ticket to Heretic is a worthwhile choice.

Will Heretic Change Your Mind?

Does a Catholic Need a Gun?

How True is Paschal’s Wager?

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DAY 188
CHALLENGE
“We don’t have evidence Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus.”
DEFENSE
The New Testament indicates that Mary did remain a virgin.
One passage that suggests this occurs during the Crucifixion, where we read, “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26–27).
If Mary had other children, then Jesus would never have entrusted her care to an outsider. It would have been insulting to her children. Jesus’ action is best explained by Mary remaining a virgin and having no other children.
Even more strikingly, when the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will give birth, she asks a very significant question: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34, NABRE).
The passage can also be literally translated from Greek as “How will this be, for I know not man.” This relies on the biblical idiom of “knowing” as being sexually intimate with (as in, “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain”; Gen. 4:1).
The fact that Mary asks the question indicates that she knows that, in the ordinary course of nature, sexual intercourse is required for a woman to have a baby. Yet she asks the angel how she will become pregnant in spite of this.
Further, Luke has already established that Mary was a virgin be- trothed to Joseph (Luke 1:27). If Mary were planning a normal marriage with Joseph, it would have been immediately clear how she would become pregnant: After they began cohabiting, they would have marital relations, and she would become pregnant with the son the angel spoke of. The fact that she asks this question suggests that she is not planning on a normal marriage. Instead, she is planning a marriage that does not involve sexual intercourse.
TIP
The second-century Protoevangelium of James states that Mary was consecrated as a virgin as a child and that she was then married to Joseph, an elderly widower who already had a family and thus could be a suitable guardian for a consecrated virgin.
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Biblical Evidence for Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

Science Can't Explain This Image

A caller asked how to respond to the claim that both Catholics and Protestants rely on fallible interpretations of scripture &#8211; Protestants on their personal interpretation of scripture and Catholics on theirs. John Martignoni lays out the key differences between Catholic and Protestant approaches to scripture interpretation.
Transcript:
Thank you for taking my call. I was listening to you earlier talk about asking Protestants how can you be sure you&#8217;re interpreting scripture correctly and I could easily see someone coming back and saying well You believe your church is infallible, but every time your magisterium comes out with a new, you know It document to clarify teaching. It&#8217;s a big controversy in the church about how to interpret this. What&#8217;s the meaning? Let&#8217;s pick apart the wording and the phrasing and get the context and they&#8217;ll say well, that&#8217;s exactly what we do with the scriptures So my question is how do we respond to a Protestant who comes back at us and says Well, I can only be just as sure that I&#8217;m interpreting the infallible scriptures correctly as you can be sure that you&#8217;re interpreting your infallible magisterium correctly
Okay, this is and this is a response you will get eventually because it&#8217;s the only response That makes even partial sense to the question of are you an infallible interpreter of scripture that a Catholic can and should always Ask each and every Protestant that they dialogue with but here&#8217;s the thing number one by saying that They&#8217;re basically conceding your point Okay, so just keep that in mind and that&#8217;s the first thing you can say you say well, so what you&#8217;re saying is
Your interpretations of scripture could be wrong because you&#8217;re not infallible But you&#8217;re saying we&#8217;re in the same position, but at least let&#8217;s start off by agreeing That you&#8217;re not an infallible interpreter of scripture. Okay, so make that point number two Make the point that well the difference between the two is that as a Catholic I Have people who can actually explain what it is. They&#8217;re saying as
a Protestant I read the Bible and the Bible cannot talk to me if I have a question What is the Bible saying, you know, what is Paul saying here in Romans 11 or Romans 9 or what? You know, I mean the Bible itself tells us there are parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand
So can I ask the Bible a question and have it answer me? No, I can&#8217;t so the Bible cannot explain itself
The Pope can explain himself The Pope when he issues a document we can look at it and like I said, there might be yeah, there might be controversy But the fact of the matter is is That there has been no doctrine, you know people are saying oh the Pope for example with the document about the blessing of same-sex couples
Well, yeah big controversy number one if you read the document Every blessing example in there is a blessing of an individual. So there&#8217;s that number two The document itself says this is a pastoral matter. It&#8217;s not doctrine So we have 2,000 years of history We&#8217;re not a single doctrine has been contradicted by a later teaching All the doctrines we have all fall in order so number one, so there&#8217;s that no contradictions in our doctrine over 2,000 years there may be contradictions in people&#8217;s Misunderstandings of this doctrine or that doctrine, but if there is what seems to be a contradiction Contradiction then someone is getting it wrong There&#8217;s a misunderstanding and you know misinterpreted and what do you do? Well, you look at the history What&#8217;s the history? Where&#8217;s the authority? But going back to the again the difference between Protestant and Catholic number one the Bible cannot respond to your questions Oh, yeah, you can look at a different verse here or there, but you still have to interpret that I Have a bishop a priest a pope who can and does respond to questions Secondly, you can&#8217;t say
We can&#8217;t be infallible in any of our knowledge I can infallibly teach that two plus two equals four I&#8217;m infallible in teaching that and if I go to math class and they tell me the derivative of X-squared is 2x
That&#8217;s infallibly taught
So there is knowledge we can have that is infallible knowledge we can teach it infallibly and The teachings of the doctrinal and moral teachings of the church fall under that yeah again People may contradict what we say. We may have Catholics who say well No, women should be priests or well a contraception should be acceptable You always go back to what the church actually teaches and has taught It&#8217;s easy to find easy to discern look into catechism looking at papal encyclical. So Huge difference between the two but at the end of it if that none of that convinces the Protestant Just tell them say okay So under your system
You&#8217;re saying Jesus left us
With the only way to decide Excuse me, the only way to decide What is true and false doctrine for Christians? even doctrine concerning our salvation
The only way to decide is your fallible opinion versus my fallible opinion and the one who makes the best argument Whether they&#8217;re right or not, but the best argument wins the day Is that how you think Jesus left us or did he leave us with an authoritative church to decide such matters?
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How Is Interpreting Church Teaching Different from Interpreting Scripture?

One of the biggest “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill">red pills</a>” behind my conversion was realizing that the vast majority of Protestants (including myself) had virtually the same theology of history as the Latter-day Saints church (the Mormons), and we didn’t even realize it. I found the consequences of this to be extremely disturbing.
<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/the-restoration/the-great-apostasy?lang=eng">The LDS church teaches</a> that after the death of the last apostle, the authority of the priesthood and the keys was lost. As a result, Christians fell into deeper and deeper error, and the true faith was lost. They call this the “<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/in-search-of-the-great-apostasy">Great Apostasy</a>.”
Many Protestants—often prevented from realizing it by historical ignorance—believe basically the same thing. This was one of the most sobering conclusions I came to in my final days as a Protestant, and it helped lead to my conversion.
Here’s why.
To have any religion whatsoever, you must, at minimum, have three doctrines:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How you join the religion (initiation)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How the members of the religion govern themselves, who has authority, etc. (government)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How the religion worships whatever deity/deities it acknowledges</li>
</ol>
Without these three, it’s arguably impossible to claim you even have a religion.
On these three matters, the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/who-were-the-church-fathers">Church Fathers</a>—the Christian leaders of whom we have any record from the earliest days of the Church through roughly the first millennium—are UNANIMOUS.
They UNANIMOUSLY believed in:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-necessity-of-baptism">baptismal regeneration</a> (how we become Christians),</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/apostolic-succession">apostolic succession</a> (how the Church is governed), and</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-sacrifice-of-the-mass">the sacrifice of the Eucharist</a> (how Christians worship).</li>
</ol>
Giving as much credit as possible, Anglicans and (some) Lutherans are the two biggest sects who believe in items one AND two. However, even if we say ALL of them believed in both (which is not true), together, they constitute only about twenty percent of worldwide Protestantism.
All Protestants reject item three (some Anglicans and Lutherans will quibble with this, but that’s for another article).
Thus, the vast majority of Protestants reject all three of these fundamental Christian doctrines upon which the ancient Church was unanimous and which are absolutely essential to having a religion of any kind whatsoever.
That means the vast majority of Protestants (including myself at one time) must necessarily believe—whether they realize it or not—that from the very first generation after the apostles forward, all Christians got it wrong on how we become Christians, how the Church is governed, and how Christians worship. In other words, they must believe that Christians got the essence of their religion wrong, that it got worse and worse through time, and that this began right after the death of the last apostle, since every Church Father of which we have any record is squarely opposed to Protestantism on these three fundamental doctrines.
While these Protestants do not claim to believe this is what happened, this is nonetheless the necessary conclusion if their doctrines are true, making their theology of history virtually identical with that of the LDS Church.
This is absurd for various reasons, but here is where it gets very disturbing.
If this is true—that the fundamentals of Christianity were essentially lost from the first post-Apostolic generation, but have been available in one form or another for the 500 years since the Reformation—then this conclusion necessarily follows: what God in the flesh established in the first century was weaker than what men like Luther, Calvin, and others re-established in the sixteenth century.
I made the same objection to Mormon missionaries who visited me for several weeks. “If your religion is true,” I said, “then what Christ himself established was weaker than what Joseph Smith re-established.”
As disturbing as I found this conclusion about the nature of my own Protestantism, it was nonetheless true in light of the facts of history.
I realized I had been deceived by a religious system that had surreptitiously claimed to achieve something greater than even the apostles.
I explore this subject in greater detail in <a href="https://www.joshuatcharles.com/blog/2023/8/18/becoming-catholic-38-protestantisms-mormonism-problem">this article</a>.

The Protestant-Mormon Problem

In this episode Trent reveals four things Catholics need to stop saying to Protestants.
Transcription:
I watch a lot of interactions between Catholics and Protestants on social media and I’ve noticed 4 things Catholics often say to Protestants that they really shouldn’t. So let’s take a look at what not to say:
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li2">“Protestant churches are always ugly, Catholic churches are always beautiful” </li>
</ol>
Recently I came across this meme showing a simple church allegedly being the “most ornate” Protestant church and a beautiful Catholic church being the “least ornate” Catholic church. And when I hear that I say, “what kind of incense have you been smoking?”
Most Catholic churches I’ve attended are bland or beige as Bishop Barron might say. They aren’t hideous, but they aren’t memorable either. They are just the product of uninspired architectural trends in the 1970’s. And you don’t get to ignore them because you just really want to dunk on Protestant architecture. In fact, the atrocious example of church architecture I used in my episode on why liberals love ugly art was the Catholic Newman Center at UC-Berkeley.
Now it’s true, a lot of Protestant churches are also bland, but there are Protestant churches that have beautiful architectural designs that inspire genuine awe in those who see them. There’s the episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine built to rival St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, The Hallgrímskirkja in, Iceland, and St. Matthew’s Lutheran church in Charleston. 
Finally, the Catholic church in this meme is the San Augustine church in the Philippines. It’s a 400 year old church in a country where 80 percent of the population is Catholic. In contrast, the simple Protestant church in the meme is one in Algeria church in Algeria where the population is 99% Muslim. Christians have very limited religious freedom in the country and has recently closed churches for allegedly not being registered with the government. According to this article, “Youssef Ourahmane, the leader of a Protestant church in Algeria, has denounced the closure of his church which has been around for more than 20 years. Last November, local authorities closed the church, claiming it had been used to “illegally print Gospels and publications intended for evangelism”.
Unless you have the benefit of a basilica that already existed when Algeria was a French colony, you’re going to have trouble building an ornate Christian church in the city today. But I’d rather praise these protestants for risking their freedom to spread the Gospel and then dialogue with them about the nature of the church than just take potshots at the simple way they express their worship of God.
It&#8217;s fair to point out problems in major elements of Protestant architecture, like how some Protestants will engage in altar calls even though there is no altar in their church for people to approach. But saying Protestant churches are ugly is like saying Protestant churches are just rock concerts or TED talks. That’s true for some of them, but there are also banal Catholic churches with cringey liturgies. And as I noted in my episode on the Protestant worship problem, there are some Protestant churches that have retained at last the appearance of classical liturgies and the problem is with the deeper theology of the Eucharist and the role of the liturgy.
Let’s talk about that, instead of trying to pick out the speck in a Protestants eye while ignoring the beige 1970’s plank of wood in our own Catholic eyes.
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li2">Sola scriptura has split the church into 33,000 Protestant denominations</li>
</ol>
It is true that making the Bible the only infallible rule of faith and rebuking the idea of a universal, living magisterium had gravely damaged the body of Christ and allowed serious theological errors to spread. But Catholics shouldn’t be hyperbolic when pointing this out and it is hyperbolic to say that this has resulted in 33,000 different Protestant denominations.
This figure comes from the World Christian Encyclopedia by Barrett, Kurian and Johnson. It says:
A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country; i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious group or community of believers . . . As defined here, world Christianity consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300 major ecclesiastical traditions, composed of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries
This definition includes not just Protestants but also Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. It says there are 9000 Protestant denominations and 22,000 independents. But the number is only this high if you say the Baptist church of Mexico is a different denomination of the Baptist church of Guatemala, even though they probably believe the same doctrines. We know the encyclopedia makes this kind of error because it falsely claims that there are 242 different denominations of Catholicism, but that doesn’t mean there are 242 separate denominations with conflicting belief systems.
The truth is, we have no idea how many Protestant denominations exist because there are so many independent Protestant and evangelical churches in strip malls and house churches. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter. For example, it doesn’t take tens of thousands of heresies to throw Christendom into chaos. A few dozen would do the trick. Likewise, even if there were only a few dozen different Protestant denominations, properly speaking, that would still be far more than the one universal Church our Lord desired when he prayed to the Father, “keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
Ultimately, the number of Christian denominations isn’t the issue. A Protestant could say that the Byzantine or Syro-Malabar Catholic churches are separate denominations but they only differ in legitimate customs, not essential doctrines. The real problem, which I’ve addressed on this channel numerous times, is that Protestantism leads to divisions in the body of Christ between churches on the very dogmas God wants us to know so that we can truly know him and have eternal life.
Let’s focus on that, rather than on quibbling about exactly how many Protestant denominations exist.
Before I get to number 3, a runner up would be, “Don’t support the Counsel of Trent if you are not Catholic.” We have many Catholic supporters, but we also have non-Catholics who support our work defending God’s existence, Christ’s resurrection, and basic moral truths like the wrongness of abortion. If you want to help us equip anyone of good will, Catholic Protestant or otherwise, then please subscribe to the channel and support us financially at trenthornpodcast.com For as little as 5 dollars a month of 50 dollars a year you get access to bonus content and keep the Counsel of Trent sponsor-free. Check it out at trenthornpodcast.com.
Alright, number 3:
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li2">Martin Luther and John Calvin were depraved</li>
</ol>
Protestants don’t treat Martin Luther and John Calvin as infallible orators or mini-popes. I know Calvinists who proudly say Calvin would have them burned at the stake for some of their theological developments. Just as it isn’t helpful for a Protestant to harp on the immorality of some medieval popes when he’s trying to reach a Catholic, it doesn’t help Catholics trying to reach Protestants for us to harp on the alleged immoralities of Calvin and Luther. Even if the allegations were true, they don’t prove anything substantial.
Luther and Calvin did have their fair share of culpable faults like any person. But some Catholics take the low road and spread propaganda against them which just isn’t helpful. All it does it make Catholics look ignorant some of which I’ve addressed in a previous episode I’ll link to in the description below.
For example, some Catholics say John Calvin was actually gay and Martin Luther visited prostitutes. Concerning Calvin, these Catholics say he was convicted of sodomy when he was 18 years old in his hometown of Noyon France. However, the source of the rumor, Jerome Bolsec, previously debated Calvin on predestination and had a bitter grudge against him.  R Scott Clark, a professor of Church history at Westminster Seminary, points out that when Calvin was 18 he was studying law at the university of Orleans 150 miles away from Noyon and the town registry doesn’t record this particular crime. Plus, if this had happened, then the scandal of the arrest would have prevented Calvin from completing his studies at Orleans or his degree at Bourges a few years later. So this is an urban legend.
When it comes to Luther and the prostitutes, this probably comes from Patrick O Hare’s book The Facts About Luther, a 1916 work that is extremely critical of Luther and extremely lacking in research. It says of Luther “The evidences of his depravity are so overwhelming and convincing that they are forced to the conclusion that this shameless advocate of brazen prostitution could not be and was not a ‘messenger of the all Holy God.’”
But that’s wrong. Luther was famous for demanding brothels be closed down and he contradicted Augustine and Aquinas who tolerated legal prostitution in order to prevent uncontrolled lust from spreading.
Other people take Luther quotes out of context to make him sound as bad as possible. This includes quotes like this one: “Be a sinner and sin boldly . . . No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day.”
This makes it sound like Luther thought a Christian could never lose his salvation, which isn’t true. Luther said that baptism “throws away unbelief” but through sin people could fall away into unbelief and . . . soil themselves again in filth.” Instead, this was a personal letter to his friend Phillip Melanchthon of which Luther biographer Eric Metaxas says,
“Luther was hardly saying that Melanchthon should try to sin, as many have misinterpreted quotation, but that he should forget about trying not to sin, because in the end this was not possible.  He must understand that in all that we do, we will doubtless sin—because we are sinners—but if your faith is in Christ, who has already defeated sin and paid for our sins on the cross, we are redeemed.”
This hyperbolic language to underscore the depths of God’s mercy. Now, there are deficiencies in Luther’s soteriology that can be rightly critiqued, but it isn’t fair to focus on a person’s rhetoric to the exclusion of the substance of his view. Doing that is no different than Protestants thinking they can debunk Catholic Mariology by just complaining about grandiose language in something like The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori or a random Tweet they saw that was over the top in its description of Mary.
If we as Catholics would want Protestants to engage the substance of our Faith, then we must be willing to do the same with what they believe.
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li2">Protestants don’t believe in repentance or Church history</li>
</ol>
There are some Protestants who blatantly ignore Church history or think good works have absolutely nothing to do with salvation.
For example, free grace theologians like Robert Wilkin believe that repentance and good works are not necessary for salvation, even as merely signs one is saved. Other Protestants like John MacArthur reject this view and say repentance is necessary but that it’s not a work that earns salvation. Repentance is just the natural consequence of accepting Jesus as Lord. That’s why this view among Protestants has been called Lordship salvation.
Only a few Protestants embrace an antinomian heresy that says we can be degenerate people and still be saved. But in reaction to that heresy, some Catholics have imposed a kind of Pelagianism or legalism that makes works necessary even for initial salvation.
For example, some people, including Catholics, have criticized fitness Nala, a former pornographer turned Christian, for not giving away the large amounts of money she made producing pornography.
Some went so far as to say that Nala’s claim she doesn’t have to give the money away to be saved shows Protestantism is wrong and that you do have to do good works to be saved.
Now, I’m not going to comment on Nala’s current work as an influencer and some of the controversial things she’s said. My point is just that Catholicism teaches that you do not have to do good works, including giving up money you earned from evils like prostitution or performing abortion, in order to be saved.
When we are baptized, and I’m assuming Nala’s baptism was valid, the eternal and temporal punishment for our sins is removed from our souls. You don’t have to do anything to make up for past sins after you’ve received baptism because baptism washes away all sin and its effects. What baptism, as well as absolution in the sacrament of confession, does not do is give us a license to commit new sins.
For example, if you were a car thief and then converted and received baptism or went to confession, you would still have to return the cars you stole. You don’t have to do that to make your baptism valid, since no future act has any baring on the validity of baptism. Instead, your baptism doesn’t communicate forgiveness of sins committed after baptism. And every day you keep the stolen cars entails a new sin of theft that was not remitted in baptism. Similarly, if you genuinely express sorrow in confession for car theft but you change your mind later and don’t return the cars, then you have committed the sin of theft all over again and are no longer in a state of grace.
This is why Zacchaeus told Jesus he would return money to anyone he defrauded and this shows he genuinely converted.
However, if you made money doing something wrong instead of taking what rightfully belonged to others, such as if you were dealing drugs, or making pornography, or committing abortions, you wouldn’t have to give away the money you made in order to be forgiven of your sins because keeping the money would not be a continuation of the sin of theft.
It would be saintly and heroic for you to give the money away, but it wouldn’t be necessary for your salvation because you aren’t morally required to return the money to those who freely gave it to you when they purchased an evil thing from you.
St. Thomas Aquinas covers this in the Summa in the section on the question, “Whether one may give alms out of ill-gotten goods?” Aquinas says there are three ways to get money when you shouldn’t. If money is simply stolen he says, “a man may not give alms [of it] since he is bound to restore them.” In the second case, if someone gives you stolen money that can’t be lawfully returned, then the money should be given to the poor. Aquinas then says there is a third case of bad money. He writes:
a thing is ill-gotten, not because the taking was unlawful, but because it is the outcome of something unlawful, as in the case of a woman&#8217;s profits from whoredom. This is filthy lucre properly so called, because the practice of whoredom is filthy and against the Law of God, yet the woman does not act unjustly or unlawfully in taking the money. Consequently it is lawful to keep and to give in alms what is thus acquired by an unlawful action.
So, to give another example, if you were an abortionist who became Catholic and your house and car were paid with blood money, you would not be bound to give those things away in order to remain in a state of grace. You might feel God is personally calling you to make that sacrifice and you’re free to make a heroic witness through such a sacrifice, but salvation is a free gift of God and putting extra burdens on people in order for them to be saved contradicts the Gospel. So let’s not give Protestants who claim Catholics are ignorant of the Gospel any unnecessary ammunition for that false charge against us.
And when it comes to Church history a lot of Catholics like to quote Cardinal Henry Newman who said, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” I think this really comes off as triumphalist to many Protestants and ignorant of how some Protestants have engaged the Church fathers.
It is true that Protestant apologists from two generations ago didn’t care much about the Fathers. They ended up getting steamrolled in debates with Karl Keating and Patrick Madrid. But now you have Protestant apologists who bring the fathers to bare as you can see in my responses to James White and Gavin Ortlund on the Fathers on several issues.
Although in many cases modern Protestants who cite the fathers often just follow what 19th century Protestant theologians said about them like Philipp Schaff and others, many of whom came from the Anglican tradition. So I would say Newman’s aphorism is more accurately rendered, “To be deep in history is to cease to be non-denominational” or “To be deep in history is to cease to be Evangelical”.
From their, you can engage Protestants who try to follow in the Reformer’s footsteps in trying to reclaim the Church fathers for themselves. John Calvin even said in a 1539 letter to Cardinal Sadoleto: “You know, Sadoleto, . . . not only that our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours, but that all we have attempted has been to renew the ancient form of the Church.”
I don’t believe that’s true, but Catholics should at least acknowledge when Protestants try to harmonize their doctrine with historical Christian witness and then graciously point out the flaws in this kind of historical revisionism.
So let’s raise the level of discourse between Catholics and Protestants, which is why we have redesigned this studio to have in person dialogues on these important issues. And if you want to help us have these dialogues please support us at trenthornpodcast.com which will allow us to bring in all kinds of non-Catholic guests to have good conversations and avoid the five bad things you shouldn’t say to Protestants.
So thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.

4 Things Catholics Need to STOP Saying to Protestants

Trent Horn discusses whether someone whose spouse civilly divorces him must stay celibate for the rest of his life, emphasizing the full weight and import of what a marriage really means.
Transcript:
Host: Trent, we now go to Anonymous in Columbus, Ohio listening on 820 AM. Anonymous, you are on with Trent Horn, what do you object to in Catholic morality?
Caller: Greetings. If a Catholic couple marries and gets a civil divorce, and one of the partners marries, the other partner in the valid marriage is expected to be celibate until either their partner dies or comes back to them, is that correct?
Trent: Well Anonymous, what the Church teaches is essentially what Jesus taught in the Gospels when Jesus was asked about divorce. And what Jesus said was this: he said in Mark chapter 10, he said that when man and woman are joined together as husband and wife, in Mark 10, he says the two shall become one, so they are no longer two but one. Mark 10:9, he says, &#8220;What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder,&#8221; and then Jesus reiterates and says, &#8220;Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.&#8221;
So the Church teaches what Jesus taught, that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and woman, and if one partner in a marriage initiates divorce and leaves, that marriage is still valid, they&#8217;re still married, even if they&#8217;re civilly divorced, because no one can dissolve that marriage&#8211;let man not put asunder what God has joined. Only death can dissolve that, if it is a valid marriage between two people, especially in Christian circumstances, two baptized Christians. So remarriage would constitute adultery in that case, provided that the previous marriage was valid.
So that would be the Church&#8217;s teaching&#8230;was that just&#8211;you just had a question about this, or did you have a personal&#8211;
Caller: No, my question wasn&#8217;t on the divorce part, my question was on the partner that remains. The other partner is not expected to enter into a conjugal relationship with anyone else, unless his or her spouse dies, is that correct?
Trent: If they have a valid marriage&#8211;
Caller: Yes, they have a valid marriage. So they remain celibate for the rest of their life?
Trent: For their life or the life of the other spouse, they would be&#8211;by celibate, celibate&#8217;s not the same thing as engaging in sexual relations&#8211;that&#8217;s being incontinent&#8211;but they would not be permitted to marry, because they are still married to that other person even though they&#8217;ve undergone a civil divorce. And I want to continue the the conversation with you, Anonymous. I know this is a hard teaching for people to accept. I fully appreciate that, and I&#8217;m encouraged to have a conversation more about that. Do you feel, now that you have clarification, this is a teaching you don&#8217;t accept? Is that where you&#8217;re coming from?
Caller: Well, if the person has sex, is the other person, you know, didn&#8217;t marry again, has sex are they committing adultery?
Trent: Yes, they would be. Well&#8211;yes, they would, and also they would be having, yeah, they were having sex outside of marriage, whether it&#8217;s with a new spouse or just with somebody else. Yes, that&#8217;s what Jesus taught, yes.
Caller: Okay. Well&#8230;..you know, I just think that that&#8230; I&#8217;ve seen, I&#8217;ve experienced a friend of mine who went through that, and he was basically psychologically devastated. The divorce happened at 30, 31 years old&#8211;when he was 31, and he never really&#8230;I would think a lot of people who knew him, never recover from that. Because he was a devout Catholic, his family was devout, and he never could deal with the fact that he would be, seriously, you know, he would enter his sin and he could not be with anyone else, and that was for the rest of life.
Trent: Because his wife his wife divorced him?
Caller: And she remarried. She was not coming back. So he&#8217;s expected, as a young man, not to ever be with anyone else for the rest of his life as a Catholic?
Trent: But it&#8217;s interesting, though, when he entered into the marriage with her, he promised and understood he would never be with anyone else but her, right?
Caller: Correct.
Trent: Okay. So I mean, he already was of the mindset, &#8220;I&#8217;ll never be with anyone else but my wife,&#8221; but now a circumstance has arisen where he cannot be with his wife because his wife has left him. And what I would say, Anonymous, is that there&#8217;s not an easy answer I can give to situations like these, except that in this life, through things like sin, and even just being mortal and being in this life, God gives each of us different crosses to bear. And some of us He&#8217;s given very heavy crosses.
Take, for example, in marriage, there are cases where two people marry, and shortly after their marriage, one of them becomes sick or in an accident, suddenly becomes incapable of engaging in sexual relations anymore. This happens to people. And so, you know, and this is something, I&#8217;ve known other people who&#8211;their wives, you know, have complications from childbirth, and, you know, they are&#8211;they can have sexual relations, but they have to be very very very careful about it, and they engage in long periods of abstinence.
So we get different crosses that are placed on us in this life, and the question&#8217;s gonna be: What are we going to choose? Are we going to choose saying, &#8220;God, through this other person&#8217;s sin, my spouse has left me, they&#8217;ve hurt me and I am hurting,&#8221; are we going to choose, &#8220;I want to go my way and choose this sin. I have a right to because I was sinned against,&#8221; or will we say, &#8220;God, I&#8217;ve seen the ugliness of sin, I&#8217;m not going to answer sin with sin, I&#8217;m gonna answer it with grace, and I&#8217;m just, I&#8217;m asking for you to help me here.&#8221;
So do you see that I can&#8217;t give an easy answer, but I can give a short answer, which is, when we are sinned against, God calls us to respond with grace, not more sin. And he can give us the grace to do that. So do you at least see where I&#8217;m coming from, Anonymous?
Caller: I believe I can get an understanding with more study of what you mean.
Trent: Okay, well that&#8217;s a start. So definitely thank you for for calling on that, and keep that in mind, that for&#8211;I think it&#8217;s hard for people&#8230;in our day and age, we don&#8217;t think&#8211;it&#8217;s so tragic&#8211;we don&#8217;t think of marriage as being this lifelong bond that ONLY death can dissolve. We just don&#8217;t think of that, it&#8217;s just so hard. We live in a society where marriage is just basically a certificate and a fancy party in a white dress you say &#8220;Yes&#8221; to. And so that&#8211;if things &#8220;just aren&#8217;t working out,&#8221; we go somewhere else, but that was never God&#8217;s plan for marriage. What&#8217;s beautiful about God&#8217;s plan for marriage is that it&#8217;s sexually exclusive, lifelong, and two really become one, till death do them part, for their good and the good of any children that may proceed from their union.
So I&#8217;d also recommend a good book on marriage, might be &#8220;Good News About Sex and Marriage&#8221; by Christopher West, if you want to look at further study, but I am grateful that you called, and keep listening, and maybe we&#8217;ll have you back on another show as you read more if you have more questions.

Are You Expected to Remain Celibate After You Have a Civil Divorce?

Is Pope Francis not the real Pope? Has the office of the papacy been vacant since Vatican II because the Popes embraced heresy? In this episode, Trent sits down with Michael Lofton of Reason and Theology to examine sedevacantism and explore how to refute this unfortunate schism within the Church.

Answering Sedevacantism (with Michael Lofton)

Length of time in purgatory. How do we know how long we’ll be in purgatory?

When you’re in purgatory do you get to meet your guardian angel?

What does Philippians 2:10 mean? Is ‘under the earth’ a reference to purgatory?

My father died 10 years ago. What happens to the indulgences I offer for him if no longer in purgatory and in heaven?

I’ve heard of Purgatory as described as hell but with the hope of heaven. Is this accurate?

I praise God, thank God and give my intentions for those in purgatory. I make a deal with those souls to pray for me when they get to heaven. Is this okay to do?

If God can save infants who are not baptized, then why does he extend this grace to everyone through purgatory?

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How long do souls stay in purgatory? Can they meet their guardian angel? Is it okay to ask them to pray for you? We explore Catholic teaching on purgatory—its duration, biblical references, and the mystery of hope beyond purification.
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What Really Happens in Purgatory? And All Questions Purgatory Related

There’s a popular <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/more-silly-atheist-memes-rebutted">atheist meme</a> that goes like this:

I agree that if I randomly believed in a god among 5,000 similar gods there would be little chance I was worshipping the true God.
But that’s not what Christians do when they worship God.
“God” is not just some super-powered being people happen to call a god. <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/defending-classical-theism">The true God</a> is the infinite act of being itself, unlimited in power, knowledge and goodness. God isn’t a being in the universe, God is the ground of being and so is infinite in all respects.
If God were just some limited, finite being, then atheists could rightfully ask, “Who created God?” But if God is the infinite foundation of all reality, then that explains why reality exists at all and shows God isn’t just one being among many. Asking “Who created God?” would be like asking what is pulling the locomotive on the train. The locomotive isn’t a train car and God isn’t one being among many.
The reason I don’t believe in Thor, Zeus, or Buddha (who isn’t a god in Buddhism, by the way), is that these are finite beings. I believe in “God” and these beings simply are not God no matter what anyone calls them. In their respective mythologies, these beings often come into existence, they change, they’re ignorant, they’re thwarted, and sometimes they do evil. Their existence in time shows they aren’t God because God made time. Finally, their potential to change (or be actualized) shows they are not God who is pure actuality itself.
I agree with ancient Greek and medieval Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophers that there is one infinite God. We may disagree about how God revealed himself to humanity, but we can agree that one infinite God who is pure actuality exists.
Moreover, atheists can’t say I must reject the God of the Bible because he sounds just like the gods of mythology. I interpret the Bible in accord with what reason tells me about God. So, if I know from reason that God can’t have a physical body as part of his divine nature (since God created all matter from nothing), then that means the Bible’s descriptions of the Father having a body must be non-literal, or examples of God using earthly images to communicate to humans (which is called a theophany).
Finally, this meme backfires on atheists.
Imagine you’re at a party and ninety-five out of 100 people there say they heard a loud sound outside, but they disagree on the nature of the sound, like whether it was low- or high-pitched. Would you agree there was at least a sound of some kind, or would you think the ninety-five people are deluded and the five people who didn’t hear any noise are on to something? Now, large groups of people can be wrong about things, but they are usually correct, which counts in favor of the view, shared by most of humanity, that (at the bare minimum) rejects a strictly material, atheistic view of the universe.
So which “god” do I believe in? I agree with ninety-five percent (give or take) of all people, past and present, that the universe is not a purely material and easily explicable reality. There is instead an “ultimate explanation” that cannot be a lower-case “god” since those raise just as many questions as they allegedly answer. Instead, I <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/argument-from-motion-for-gods-existence">follow reason</a> to believe in the one, true infinite God who became man and dwelt among us.

‘But Which God?’

<a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/patrick-saint">St. Patrick</a> was born in 385 into a high-ranking Roman Christian family in western Britain; he died in Ireland in 461, though some accounts put his death later. His grandfather was a priest, and his father, a deacon, was a prosperous nobleman and a local Roman official. The family’s native language was Latin.
Patrick writes that as youths he and his companions &#8220;turned away from God, did not keep his commandments, and did not obey our priests, who used to remind us of our salvation&#8221; (Conf. 1). His youth ended abruptly when, at age sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and sold into slavery, being assigned to work as a shepherd. This revolutionized his life. His faith and zeal for God were ignited, and he spent much time praying and fasting.
After six years, he escaped, led by private revelations along a safe route back to Britain. In another revelation, he was commissioned to serve as a missionary to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/ireland">Ireland</a>. To prepare, he traveled to France and spent two decades as a monk—studying, praying, and practicing penance.
He was ordained to the priesthood and in 432 was sent to Ireland to serve Palladius, who had been consecrated bishop by Pope Celestine. When Palladius died on a trip to Britain, Patrick was chosen as his successor and was consecrated bishop by Germanus, the papal representative overseeing the Irish mission.
Patrick experienced enormous success in converting the Irish, and three assistant bishops from France were sent to help him, among them Sechnall (AKA Secundinus). Within his generation, the Irish had been transformed by God’s grace into a Christian (and Catholic) people. In 441, Patrick went to Rome to seek approval of his ministry in Ireland, and the newly elected Pope Leo the Great confirmed Patrick’s full adherence to the Catholic faith.
This is significant, since today, some assert that Patrick was not even Catholic! The challenge is made mainly by Irish Americans who were brought up Protestant or who have abandoned the Church for Protestantism and wish to co-opt Patrick and represent him as a non-Catholic figure.
This is an impossible task, as Patrick was a Latin-speaking Roman noble, the grandson of a Catholic priest; he was a man who had repeated private revelations, practiced penance (a very Catholic thing), spent two decades as a monk, was ordained a priest, was sent to serve on the papal mission to Ireland, was ordained bishop by a papal representative, and had his fidelity to Catholic teaching specially confirmed by Pope Leo the Great (of whom the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon cried, &#8220;Peter has spoken through Leo!&#8221;). Patrick described himself as a Catholic, and a list of canons he drew up for the Church in Ireland commanded that any dispute not resolved on a local level was to be forwarded to Rome for decision.
The two writings of his that survive, his Confession and the Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, both attest to his Catholic faith.
The Letter—which Patrick wrote in a blazing fury after some of his newly baptized converts had been slaughtered during a raid by a British ruler—records his belief in the episcopacy, the ministerial priesthood, confirmation, the value of monks and nuns, purgatory, priestly absolution, and &#8220;doing hard penance&#8221; (the last two, he said, the murdering soldiers needed). His later Confession has a mild tone (not being a response to a massacre) and mentions many of the same Catholic distinctives, as well as fasting, loss of salvation, and Patrick’s private revelations.
Another important source for Patrick’s Catholicity is a Latin hymn written in praise of him by his assistant bishop, Sechnall, who records many of Patrick’s beliefs, among them the sacrifice of the Mass, merits, the fact the Church is built on Peter, and baptismal regeneration.
Any claims from the disgruntled that Patrick was not Catholic are just blarney.

St. Patrick Was Not a Protestant

What is a Plenary Indulgence?

Tim Staples gives advice on how we can fulfill God&#8217;s command to <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/fraternal-correction">admonish sinners and instruct the ignorant</a>, emphasizing the importance of praying for wisdom and maintaining the role of friendship.