Manage Account

<div>Is the apostolic pardon the same as the anointing of the sick?</div><div>
The anointing of the sick is the sacrament given to those who are seriously ill.
The Apostolic Pardon is blessing with an indulgence that happens at the conclusion of the anointing of the sick if the recipient is in danger of death. The usual process is confession then anointing of the sick, and it is concluded with the Apostolic Pardon. While confession forgives the eternal punishment for sin, the indulgence attached to the Apostolic Pardon forgives temporal punishment due to sin.
The words of the blessing said by the priest for the Apostolic Pardon are:
<blockquote>&#8220;Through the holy mysteries of our redemption may almighty God release you from all punishments in this life and in the life to come. May he open to you the gates of paradise and welcome you to everlasting joy.&#8221;
or
&#8220;By the authority which the Apostolic See has given me, I grant you a full pardon and the remission of all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.&#8221;</blockquote>
</div>

The Apostolic Pardon

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Why Christians MUST convert SAVAGES!

The problem with "Bible Alone" Christianity... #biblicalinterpretation

<div>Can a non-Catholic Gospel singer sing at Mass?</div><div>In the Church’s <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_25031993_principles-and-norms-on-ecumenism_en.html">Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism</a>, this issue isn’t directly addressed. But based on the Directory’s provisions for non-Catholic readers at Mass, we think an inference can be made for a non-Catholic cantor or other singer:
<blockquote>The reading of Scripture during a Eucharistic celebration in the Catholic Church is to be done by members of that Church. On exceptional occasions and for a just cause, the Bishop of the diocese may permit a member of another Church or ecclesial Community to take on the task of reader (no. 133).</blockquote>
For similar reasons, including ecumenical ones, a bishop may allow—including through power deputed to his parish priests—a non-Catholic’s singing in such circumstances.
</div>

May a Non-Catholic Sing at Mass?

Why Did God Create Judas?

In the secular historical attack, Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) is the symbol of European greed and genocidal imperialism. In reality, Columbus was a man of his time—a devout Catholic with an interest in evangelization, motivated by religious and personal goals.
During his lifetime, Columbus’s achievements were criticized and downplayed, and he waned in the public memory until preparations to celebrate the quadricentennial of his first voyage were undertaken in the United States. Irish and Italian Catholic immigrants embraced him and revived his memory, but the man and his motivations became lost in a political, societal, and cultural conflict, anchored by the secular historical attack, which culminated in slandering him as deliberately genocidal—a harbinger of destruction, enslavement, and death upon the happy and prosperous people of the Americas.
Russell Means, a leader of the American Indian Movement, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=columbus+and+the+crisis+of+the+west&amp;adgrpid=1332608666263490&amp;hvadid=83288113859176&amp;hvbmt=be&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvlocint=60677&amp;hvlocphy=91361&amp;hvnetw=o&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvtargid=kwd-83288407877894%3Aloc-190&amp;hydadcr=3441_10851927&amp;mcid=2ae0518a79573e20b6ce0f4981cf8661&amp;tag=mh0b-20&amp;ref=pd_sl_1ax2uzc724_e">characterized this sentiment</a> with his opinion on the explorer: “Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent” (40). Other critics liken Columbus’s voyage to opening <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crusaders-Epic-History-Wars-Lands/dp/0525428313">a new front in the Crusades</a> as that movement to the east became impossible with the rise of the Ottoman Turks.
In the United States, the vitriol directed against Columbus produces annual protests every October with the observance of Columbus Day. A growing movement wants to abolish Columbus Day as a federal holiday, and several cities already celebrate instead “Indigenous Peoples Day.” Columbus has become a Catholic symbol of the modern Western world’s obsession with a sanctimonious, victimhood-focused narratives rooted in anti-Catholic bias.
The real story of Christopher Columbus and his voyages to the New World begins in Portugal, with the actions of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). Henry studied ocean currents and wind movement to improve navigation for sailing ships and sent Portuguese vessels and sailors down the West African coast, seeking a trade route to India. He also invented the caravel, a light ship that was perfect for long-distance, uncharted exploration.
Henry and his sailors inaugurated the great age of explorers finding new lands and creating shipping lanes for the import and export of goods, including consumables never before seen in Europe. Their efforts also created intense competition among the sailing nations of Europe, each striving to outdo the others in finding new and more efficient trade routes.
It was into this world of innovation, exploration, and economic competition that Columbus was born. A native of the Italian city-state of Genoa, Columbus became a sailor at the age of fourteen. He learned the nautical trade sailing on Genoese merchant vessels and became an accomplished navigator.
Finally, in May 1486, he secured a royal audience with King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Spain. The queen was intrigued by Columbus’s proposal to seek the east by going west. The explorer requested a patent of nobility, the titles of admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy and governor of all discovered lands, and ten percent in dividends of all future trade for his daring trip. Isabel agreed, and queen and sailor signed an agreement in April 1492.
Columbus embarked from Spain on August 3, 1492, with ninety men on three ships: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. The crew comprised mostly Spanish sailors, with no soldiers, illustrating that the voyage was bent on not conquest, but exploration.
After thirty-three days at sea, Columbus’s flotilla spotted land (the Bahamas), which he claimed in the name of the Spanish monarchs. Columbus’s modern-day detractors view that as a sign of imperial conquest. It was not; it was simply a sign to other European nations that they could not establish trading posts on the Spanish possession.
On this first voyage, Columbus also reached the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. He stayed four months in the New World and arrived home on March 15, 1493. The Santa María ran aground on Hispaniola, so Columbus was forced to leave forty-two men behind. He ordered the Spaniards to treat the indigenous people well and especially to respect the women, but he discovered on his second voyage that his order had not been heeded.
Columbus made four voyages to the New World, and each brought its own discoveries and adventures. Columbus left on his second voyage in September 1493 with a fleet of seventeen ships and 1,200 crewmen, including five missionaries. The third voyage was the most difficult for Columbus, as he was arrested on charges of mismanagement of the Spanish trading enterprise in the New World and sent back to Spain in chains (though he was later exonerated). Columbus’s fourth and final voyage took place in 1502-1504, with his son Fernando among the crew. The crossing of the Atlantic was the fastest ever: sixteen days. The expedition visited Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica and was marooned for a time on Jamaica.
Most modern accounts of Columbus’s voyages mistake his motives by focusing narrowly on the “what”—usually pecuniary or political—rather than on the “why” behind his expeditions. Columbus embraced the Catholic worldview of his age. In a letter to King Fernando and Queen Isabel in December 1492, Columbus <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Columbus-Quest-Jerusalem-Religion-Voyages/dp/1439102376">encouraged the monarchs</a> to “spend all the profits of this my enterprise on the conquest of Jerusalem” (vii). And so his primary motive was to find gold . . . but to finance a crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims and fulfill the conditions he believed were necessary for the Second Coming of Christ!<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
Columbus considered himself a “Christ-bearer” like his namesake, St. Christopher, and believed that the evangelization of all peoples was a condition for Jesus’ return. His first words to the people of Hispaniola illustrated his focus <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Renewal-Catholic-Reformation/dp/168595247X">on evangelization</a>: “The monarchs of Castile have sent us not to subjugate you, but to teach you the true religion” (27). The explorer recognized that the native peoples of the New World required catechesis and was angered by the chief missionary who accompanied his second voyage, who believed that baptism with no further instruction was sufficient for the new converts. In a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), Columbus asked the pontiff to send missionaries to the indigenous peoples of the New World so they could accept Christ. Columbus desired the evangelization efforts in the New World to continue after his death, and he established an evangelization fund in his will to finance missionary efforts to the lands he discovered.
Columbus’s interactions with the indigenous peoples of the New World generate significant interest among modern people and are the foundation of much myth-making from the secular historical attack. Contrary to the popular myth, Columbus initially treated many of the native peoples with great respect and friendship. He was impressed by their “generosity, intelligence, and ingenuity” (see <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Columbus-Quest-Jerusalem-Religion-Voyages/dp/1439102376">Delaney</a>, 97). He recorded in his diary that “in the world there are no better people or a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest speech in the world and [they are] gentle and always laughing” (107).
Columbus demanded that his men exchange gifts with the natives they encountered and not just take what they wanted. He enforced this policy rigorously: on his third voyage in August 1500, he hanged men who disobeyed him by harming the native people.
The secular historical attack posits that Columbus sailed to the New World intent on the enslavement of the native peoples. That myth is widely believed and difficult to eradicate despite the evidence in the historical record.
Columbus had no plan to enslave native peoples when he began his expeditions, but circumstances during the second and third voyages drove him to implement harsh measures, “including enslavement of Indians captured in military actions when there seemed no other way to restore order. But this was not a policy intended to establish a regime of slavery” (see <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=columbus+and+the+crisis+of+the+west&amp;adgrpid=1332608666263490&amp;hvadid=83288113859176&amp;hvbmt=be&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvlocint=60677&amp;hvlocphy=91361&amp;hvnetw=o&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvtargid=kwd-83288407877894%3Aloc-190&amp;hydadcr=3441_10851927&amp;mcid=2ae0518a79573e20b6ce0f4981cf8661&amp;tag=mh0b-20&amp;ref=pd_sl_1ax2uzc724_e">Royal</a>, 66).
Columbus’s views concerning the native peoples changed over the course of his multiple voyages based on his interaction with the various tribes and with unruly Spanish settlers. He was a brilliant sailor, navigator, and fearless explorer, but he was not an able administrator. He was not a violent man, but he utilized violence at times when his poor leadership led to preventable crises. His intentions were good, as his contemporaries, including <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-church-and-the-native-americans">Bartolomé de las Casas</a>, who knew him, maintained, but he made critical errors in judgment from which the indigenous peoples suffered.
Columbus and his actions in the New World are not immune to legitimate criticism, but the use of this daring explorer, who fundamentally altered world history, as a Catholic target to attack the Church and Western history is a travesty of justice. There is no doubt that Columbus was a complex man, and his actions in the New World reflected the complexities of his experiences and the time in which he lived. He is neither the saint nor the genocidal fanatic portrayed by different groups with their own agendas in the modern world.
Read more on the Catholic black sheep of history in <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/canceled-twelve-catholic-heroes-that-history-turned-into-villains/?searchid=10400412&amp;search_query=canceled">Canceled</a>, available for sale in the Catholic Answers shop.

The Truth About Christopher Columbus

<div>If the Church declares someone a saint, how can we know with absolute certainty that he or she is in heaven?</div><div>While the Church has never formally defined canonization as an act of infallibility, the definitive and therefore infallible nature of this teaching is rooted in its necessary connection with the dogma of the communion of saints, which is professed in the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/apostles-creed">Apostles&#8217; Creed</a> and also—in summary form—within the Nicene Creed&#8217;s profession of &#8220;the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.&#8221; As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) provides,
<blockquote>The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a3.htm#I">CCC 2036</a>, emphasis added).</blockquote>
St. Thomas Aquinas elaborates:
<blockquote>Since the honor we pay the saints is in a certain sense a profession of faith, i.e., a belief in the glory of the saints, we must piously believe that in this matter also the judgment of the Church is not liable to error (Quodlib. IX, a. 16).</blockquote>
Because the Pope is formally decreeing that all Christians are to believe that a certain person is in heaven, and thus can be prayerfully invoked in a fruitful manner, the certitude of his decree also flows from the pope&#8217;s divinely given charism of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility">papal infallibility</a>.
</div>

Are Canonizations Infallible?

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FAKE versions don’t kill the real thing!

Do Pets Go To Heaven? Jimmy Akin and host Cy Kellett tackle this question in light of records of near death experience.
Transcript:
Caller: We just lost our cat. And I told my son that you have an argument that pets go to heaven. So if you could give your argument that good pets go to heaven, we would really appreciate it.
Jimmy: Okay, so I should introduce a clarification, which is I don&#8217;t claim. Okay, so first of all, this idea that you hear that animals don&#8217;t have an afterlife is not church teaching. That is a theological speculation that is based on Aristotelian physics or metaphysics.
Physics in this case. And I, in episode 203, which is where I discuss this more fully of *Mysterious World*, which you can get to by going to Mysterious FM203, I go through the arguments for animals not having an afterlife and I conclude they don&#8217;t work. I think they&#8217;re bad arguments.
So I&#8217;m not convinced by that. I would say that I don&#8217;t propose they go to heaven. I don&#8217;t know whether they go to heaven or not. Heaven is full spiritual union with God. But I do think there is evidence that they have an afterlife and that at least some animals do, and that it may be a positive afterlife, even if it isn&#8217;t the kind of full union with God, you know, where you have this intellectual vision of God known as the beatific vision that humans can get.
I don&#8217;t know what animals get, but I do have evidence that they may well have an afterlife and that it may be a positive afterlife. Whether it would or would not count as heaven is a separate question.
So there are a number of lines of evidence, and I&#8217;m going to propose at least three lines of evidence that we have in favor of some animals having an afterlife.
One, and I&#8217;ve already mentioned the first one, which is that when humans have near-death experiences, they not only see like their departed relatives in the afterlife while they&#8217;re temporarily clinically dead, they also see animals.
And I did it. And I talk about this in episode 203 of *Mysterious World*. I did a search of a major database of near-death experiences. It has like more than 5,000 near-death experiences in it. And I found by searching on terms like, you know, cat, dog, rabbit, horse, pet animal, things like that, that as many as a quarter of the near-death experience reports that the database contained might have references to animals in them.
Now, I can&#8217;t say it&#8217;s exactly a quarter because what I didn&#8217;t do is read all 5,000 of the reports, but I did find that many. I did find like a quarter of that number that mentioned animals in some way. The actual percentage may be lower than a quarter because you might have one that has the word animal in it and pet in it and dog in it. And so that would look like three hits when really it would count as one if you actually read them.
But this is still a very common thing in human near-death experiences. So that&#8217;s piece of evidence number one.
Piece of evidence number two is a sub-case of piece of evidence number one. There is a kind of experience, and this occurs both in deathbed visions and it occurs in near-death experiences. It&#8217;s what&#8217;s called a peak in Darien experience.
And that&#8217;s P, E, A K, like a mountain peak. This is based on a literary allusion to a poem about a mountain peak in Darien Province, Panama. And I won&#8217;t go through exactly what the allusion involves, but basically the term has become attached to a kind of experience where you see someone in the afterlife, or you see. Basically you see someone in the afterlife that you did not previously know was dead.
For example, an early peak in Darien experience that got recorded about 100 years ago, you had this woman who had just given birth to a child, and she had this heart condition, and the birth was too much of a strain on her system. And so she was in the process of dying.
And they&#8217;d been afraid during her pregnancy that she might not even survive to give birth. So they had her in this maternity hospital and they were rigorously screening what information she was exposed to. But then as she&#8217;s in the process of dying, she starts having a deathbed vision and she&#8217;s like, oh, here&#8217;s my father, and he looks very happy and he&#8217;s welcoming me into the afterlife and oh, hey, what&#8217;s my sister Vita doing here too?
Because as far as the woman knew, her sister Vita was alive. But in fact, her sister Vita had died three weeks earlier. And they had asked the matron of the maternity hospital, is it safe to tell her with her heart condition that her sister Vita has passed on? And the matron said, no, don&#8217;t mention that to her.
And they even had the woman&#8217;s husband screen the woman&#8217;s mail to avoid anyone accidentally mentioning that Vita had died, because they thought that could trigger a cardiac event and she might not survive to give birth to the baby.
So as she&#8217;s having the near-death experience, she sees her father, which would be expected because everybody knew he had passed on. But then she sees someone that she didn&#8217;t know had passed on, namely her sister Vita. And that&#8217;s an example of a peak in Darien experience.
If you see someone in either a deathbed vision or a near-death experience that you did not previously know was dead, and then it turns out it&#8217;s true that they&#8217;re dead, that&#8217;s a peak in Darien experience.
So here&#8217;s the thing. Peak in Darien experiences happen with animals. So someone will be having a near-death experience or a deathbed vision and they&#8217;ll say, oh, here&#8217;s my grandmother and she&#8217;s holding my cat. And the person knew previously the grandmother had died, but they didn&#8217;t know that their cat had died. And it turns out to be true.
So they just like they saw their grandmother in the afterlife, they saw their cat in the afterlife. And in this case, what makes this different than the first type of evidence I mentioned is that it&#8217;s verifiable their cat had died while they were in the hospital and they didn&#8217;t know that.
So this would be, you know, preternatural evidence that they&#8217;re having a real experience that they&#8217;re really learning about their cat being in the afterlife because they had no natural way of knowing that. So it would be a preternatural experience.
Then there&#8217;s the third form of evidence that I would point to, which is that we have so. And again, this parallels other things with humans. Humans very frequently, it tends not to be talked about in our culture, but humans very frequently have experiences that are what are known as after-death communications.
And this is after-death communications are where you have like lost somebody who is close to you and then after they&#8217;re dead they show up again. And they can show up in a number of different ways. I also have *Mysterious World* episodes about after-death communications. So you can check those out for more info.
But like 40 to 50% of the population globally has at least one after-death communication at some point in their lives. Okay, well, turns out it happens with animals too. There are animal after-death communications.
I haven&#8217;t yet done a *Mysterious World* about those, but I have in the last couple of years there have been some research papers done on this, and I will be doing an animal after-death communications episode in the near future. But you can hear about the other stuff that I talked about, for example, by going to Mysterious FM203.
So the three pieces of evidence I pointed to here, and I could name others, but the three pieces of evidence I pointed to here are, number one, people having near-death experiences report seeing animals in the afterlife.
Piece of evidence number two, people have peak in Darien experiences involving animals that they&#8217;ve known which are then verifiable. And piece of evidence number three, people have after-death communications, particularly from animals that they&#8217;ve known.
So those would be the three pieces of evidence I would mention. Also, and this is something you might be interested in, but I just recently did an episode on animal end-of-life experiences.
So if you go to, and I can get the number for you for that pretty quick I think. Yeah, it&#8217;s episode 366. So if you go to Mysterious FM 366, you can learn about the kinds of end-of-life experiences that animals frequently have and see if you think your animal, your cat may have had any of the experiences that have otherwise been reported.
Cy: Annie, thank you. Thanks very much.
Jimmy Very sorry to learn that you lost your cat. That&#8217;s always sad.
Cy: Thank you for the call, Annie. Mike&#8217;s in Pennsylvania watching on YouTube. Mike, welcome. Go ahead with your question.

Do Pets Go To Heaven?

Many argue the story of the good thief on the cross disproves Purgatory&#8217;s existence. But was Purgatory always rejected by Protestants? Dr. Karlo Broussard explores the surprising history of the doctrine and reveals why the good thief might not be the slam dunk some believe.
Transcript:
Questions I often get from Protestant converts are obviously about saints intercession, but another big one is purgatory.
They tend to really struggle with the belief of purgatory.
One thing they usually bring up is the thief on the cross to reinforce that, &#8220;Oh, there&#8217;s no purgatory.&#8221; But I was just wondering, when did the belief in purgatory kind of end? Was it with the Reformation?
That&#8217;s a good question. So with regard to the ending of the belief in purgatory, Martin Luther initially believed in purgatory. So for example, in his 95 Theses in 1517, he wrote, &#8220;The Pope does very well when he grants for a mission to souls and purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.&#8221; So there you have implied in there an affirmation of purgatory elsewhere in 1521, he would write the existence of a purgatory I&#8217;ve never denied. Yet in 1537, he calls purgatory a specter of the devil. And so there you have evidence of Luther rejecting the doctrine of purgatory, and many would follow suit after that. As far as the specific argument that Luther would give to reject purgatory, I&#8217;m not quite sure I would have to do more research on that to see which specific articles he uses, arguments he utilizes, and whether it maps on with contemporary arguments that Protestants will give, such as the good thief on the cross, or maybe 2 Corinthians 5-8, where some will interpret that passage to reveal that heaven is given to the saved immediately after death. With regard to the good thief on the cross, I actually wrote an article at catholic.com, and it&#8217;s entitled, &#8220;The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctrine.&#8221; I think that&#8217;s the title of it, yeah, &#8220;The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctions.&#8221; And they&#8217;re in ideal with this idea that the good thief reveals purgatory is not necessary, and it&#8217;s based upon our Lord saying, &#8220;Today you will be with me in paradise.&#8221; I also deal with this objection in my book, &#8220;Purgatory is for Real,&#8221; but you can get a snippet of that for free at catholic.com with that article. And our response there, Michael, is that even, first of all, it&#8217;s not quite certain that whenever our Lord says, &#8220;Today you will be with me in paradise,&#8221; he&#8217;s referring to heaven. It&#8217;s most likely he&#8217;s referring to Sheol, or the righteous abode of the dead before the ascension of Christ, where the Old Testament righteous souls received a beatific vision. So Jesus literally would have been telling him, &#8220;You&#8217;re going to be with me in this righteous abode of the dead,&#8221; or &#8220;Abraham&#8217;s bosom,&#8221; not heaven. And that would in no way exclude purgatory. The good thief may have to have undergone a final purification immediately after death before entering into Abraham&#8217;s bosom. But let&#8217;s say, Michael, even if Jesus were promising the good thief heaven on that day such that the good thief did not need purgatory, that fits with the Catholic understanding because the Catholic Church does not teach that purgatory is absolutely necessary for everyone. The Catholic Church actually teaches it&#8217;s possible for someone to die with such a fervent degree of charity where no final purification would be needed after death such that the soul could immediately enter into the presence of God in the beatific vision. So it&#8217;s possible that that could have been the good thief. The good thief could have fit that bill, so to speak, and met that description such that he would not need purgatory. So depending upon how we interpret what our Lord is telling the good thief on the cross, neither interpretation excludes or refutes the doctrine of purgatory. And so that&#8217;s a sketch of what I say in more detail in my book, Purgatory is for Real, and then also in that article, The Good Thief Isn&#8217;t Good for Protestant Doctions.
Hey, thanks for watching. If you like this Catholic Answer, be sure to like, subscribe, and check out our live streams Monday through Friday, 3 to 5 p.m. Pacific. Or find the episode after on YouTube, your favorite podcast platform, or our Catholic Answers app.

When Did People Stop Believing in Purgatory?

Luke 1:43, where Elizabeth proclaims Mary as the “Mother of my Lord,” is usually the go-to biblical text for defending Mary “Mother of God.” But did you know there’s another text that we can appeal to?
It’s Galatians 4:4. There, Paul writes, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” The key is that God’s Son is said to be born of a woman.
There are two things to unpack here.
First, assuming we accept early conciliar Christology, like that of the Council of Nicaea, God’s Son, the Word, is divine, and thus is properly called “God.”
Second, any woman who gives birth to a person is a mother to the person to whom she gives birth.
With these two things in place, we can reason as follows:
P1:  Any woman who gives birth to a person is a mother to the person to whom she gives birth.
P2:  Mary gave birth to God’s Son (per Gal. 4:4).
C1:  Therefore, Mary is the mother of God’s Son.
P3:  God’s Son is divine, and thus is properly called “God.”
C2:  Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
With the argument laid out like this, it becomes clear what a person has to deny if he wants to deny Mary as the Mother of God. Such a person would have to deny either premise one, a mother is someone who gives birth to a person; premise two, Mary did not give birth to God’s Son; or premise three, God’s Son is not Divine.
Common sense tells us that we can’t deny premise one. The very definition of a biological mother is someone who gives birth to a person. Mothers don’t give birth to anything else, like a nature or a body. The subject that is birthed is a person.
No Christian can deny premise two without denying an essential truth of the Bible, a truth that Paul makes explicit: “God sent his Son, born of a woman.”
Finally, no Christian can deny the divinity of God’s Son, the Word, lest he cease being a Christian. Recall John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
With a little help of reason to bring to light certain hidden premises, Galatians 4:4 provides a biblical basis for belief that Mary is the Mother of God, thereby providing another arrow in the quiver for hitting the target for this Marian dogma.

When Paul Does Your Homework for You

Tim Staples discusses how he would explain and defend <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/canon-law">Canon Law</a> to Protestants, and dispels the common misconception that it is meant to &#8220;add to the Bible.&#8221;
Transcript:
Host: Alexandria, who&#8217;s watching on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/catholiccom">YouTube Live</a>—hi Alexandria—asks the following, Tim: &#8220;How would you explain, or begin to introduce Canon Law to a Protestant?&#8221;
Tim: Great question. I know from my own experience, in fact Cy and I were talking off air here just a minute ago, but to me, as a young Baptist, and as a Pentecostal, Canon Law was that evil, dark book that these Catholics created to add to the Bible. &#8220;See, the Bible&#8217;s not enough! You gotta have&#8230;&#8217;Canon Law.'&#8221;
Actually, the way I like to explain it to folks is—I can tell you, from being a former Protestant youth minister, at my&#8230;we would call it an ecclesial community, but in our community, we had what&#8217;s called Church bylaws. The Assemblies of God has bylaws. Every organization, I don&#8217;t care if it&#8217;s a company, if it&#8217;s a business, you know what, even families, often you&#8217;ll find—we have in my house, we have a poster, up in the rec room, that says, &#8220;Staples Household Ten Commandments.&#8221;
Host: Oh really?
Tim: Including things like, &#8220;NO WHINING.&#8221; Okay, things like that.
Host: Oh, come on!
Tim: And just in case my kids are watching right now, NO WHINING! Alright? But anyway, the Code of Canon Law is just that. In a nutshell, it governs what we do as Catholics. And remember, and you discover this as a Protestant minister as well, you know, Scripture does not provide everything. Jesus doesn&#8217;t give us all the rules. Even around baptism, okay, yeah, you baptize with water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Is that it? What else do you do? Are there any other—yes. There&#8217;s all sorts of things that you have to govern. You have to create a liturgy around this.
Now my Protestant friends would say, &#8220;Well wait a minute, liturgy, we don&#8217;t believe in liturgy.&#8221; Yes you do! Your whole church—I can tell you, when I was a minister, how many songs we were gonna sing&#8211;although sometimes we would &#8220;let the Holy Ghost move.&#8221; We&#8217;d sing an extra couple songs, right? But you had the worship, then you had pastor get up and preach, then you had altar call, then you had more music, you know, the dismissal—in fact, you have to have rules governing everything that you do. As human beings, we need it.
The Code of Canon Law is such a blessing to the Church, however, because it&#8217;s not done just by a group of guys who get together and say, &#8220;Hey, this is what we think.&#8221; But Canon Law is something that grew organically for centuries, out of the practice—out of—it comes out of Scripture, no doubt. Cause when you look at, for example, the section on the Sacraments, a lot of that comes right out of Sacred Scripture, when it comes to form and matter of what the Sacraments are. But when it comes to the rules and such surrounding the Sacraments, that develops organically over the centuries, and you need these rules in order to have a coherent practice of the faith.
So anyway, that&#8217;s a good way to get started in helping people understand, this is not some dark thing that adds to, you know, the revelation that God gave us in the first century, we have—no, it&#8217;s not that. But it helps us to be able to formulate what we believe as well as what we do in the Church.
Host: Thanks very much Alexandria, and everybody else watching on YouTube.

What is Canon Law?

<div>What is liturgical prayer?</div><div><blockquote>The word &#8220;liturgy&#8221; originally meant a &#8220;public work&#8221; or a &#8220;service in the name of/on behalf of the people.&#8221; In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in &#8220;the work of God.&#8221; Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church. (Catechism, 1069)</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/liturgy">Liturgy</a> is the public prayer and worship of the Church.  Liturgical prayers are prayers set by the Church for a particular liturgy (e.g. Mass, confession, baptism, the Divine Office, etc).  They differ from private prayers in that they are not the intention of any one person or group but are the prayers of the Church as a whole.  As such they should not be altered by the presider since they do not belong to him.
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What Is Liturgical Prayer?

A man from Turkey, raised Muslim, calls in to Catholic Answers Live to ask how he can become Catholic and practice the Catholic faith without putting himself in danger. Karlo Broussard and Jimmy Akin explain how he can be a faithful, practicing Catholic in a dangerously anti-Catholic environment.