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

Jehovah’s Witnesses: An Insider Perspective

Some Catholics, especially parents of young children, find <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/why-go-to-mass">Sunday Mass</a> attendance difficult. As a parent of young children, I get it.
But despite our parental hardships, we recognize that we have a moral duty to be there. The Catholic Church reflects this obligation in its Code of Canon Law: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass” (1247). The Sunday liturgy is mandatory, like showing up for work—and, just as skipping work can have serious consequences, so can skipping church. In fact, it is a mortal sin to miss Sunday Mass without good reason. For a Catholic, then, whether or not to attend on Sunday is no small decision.
But is the “Sunday obligation” too strict of an expectation upon Catholics?
<h2>Moral laws are like signposts</h2>
Moral laws are like signposts: they properly orient us, and once we have been properly oriented, we cease to notice them. The first time I traveled to Calgary, I needed to follow the signs; they told me where to go and thus imposed a direction upon me. That was a long time ago. Years later, I know how to get there without the aid of signs. I have been properly oriented. The signs are still there—they still hold their objective force—but I no longer notice them. They are unimposing.
Likewise, the Sunday obligation helps to orient us spiritually. It can be easy to forget that Sunday marks the beginning of our week, not the end. In a sense, the Sunday Mass prepares us for the days ahead and sets the spiritual tone for the week, filling us with God’s word and grace so we might glorify the Lord with our lives. By starting our week with the Sunday liturgy, we publicly profess with our whole being that we are sons and daughters of God and members of his Church. We are God’s first. Without him we are nothing.
That is why Jesus can say, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Furthermore, the first and greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:38). Our unique love for God (and his for us!) is specially consummated when we receive the Eucharist at Mass.
A Catholic is permitted to be absent from Sunday Mass in light of serious circumstances such as illness. But it is not licit to skip for trivial reasons. We might be tempted to do this, nonetheless, because Mass is not always an engaging way to spend Sunday morning. Many of us lead dynamic lives. We are used to the continual stimulation of caffeine and conversation. We are not used to the slowness or the silence of the liturgy. We are not used to the language of the Bible readings and the prayers. Even for a devout Catholic, it can be difficult to slow down and settle into a day of rest—and especially into a solemn hour of prayer and worship.
We can’t grasp the intrinsic value of the Mass until we understand that its aim is not to stimulate like a form of entertainment; its aim is to sanctify. Although the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” according to the Catechism, it is not uncommon for a Catholic—through no fault of his own—to feel almost nothing when he receives it (1324). Since the grace received in the Eucharist is not a physical or emotional sensation, but a spiritual reality, it tends to leave the senses unmoved. For this reason, a Catholic’s experience of Sunday Mass can be deceptively dry and may leave him feeling as if nothing special has gone on at all. This does not necessarily reflect a defect in the liturgy or the believer. Rather, it moves the Catholic to a deeper mental conviction of things not seen: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29).
The Mass presents an essential challenge to Catholics—in its slow and leisurely rhythm, in its moments of deep silence, in its demands of faith. Two grave dangers to the human soul are a lack of contemplation and lack of love. A human being cannot have enduring happiness without these two things. The Mass fosters both.
<h2>To remember the Sabbath and keep it holy was not optional for the first-century Jew.</h2>
To remember the Sabbath and keep it holy was not optional for the first-century Jew. To fail to do so was a violation of the third commandment and a grave sin (Num. 15:32-36). Christians replaced the Sabbath, the last day of the week, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/should-christians-keep-the-sabbath-or-celebrate-the-lords-day">with a new day of rest that they called the Lord’s Day</a>, the first day of the week. The essential moral prescription of the third commandment nonetheless remained: man ought to set apart a full day each week for rest and worship. “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them,” Jesus said (Matt. 5:17).
Why Sunday? We are told in the Gospels that Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1), and ever since the time of the apostles Christians have congregated on Sunday to worship God and receive the Eucharist together as one body in Christ (Acts 20:7). To compound this, it is primarily in the act of receiving the Sunday Eucharist—the real body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ—that the members of the Church unite themselves to their Lord and one another. Hence, St. Paul writes, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17).
Every Sunday, “the whole Christ” is reunited in and through the Holy Eucharist. Moreover, our choice to participate is salvific: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Theologian Colin Donovan reminds us that “in the Mass it is Christ himself who worships the Father, joining our worship to his. In no other way is it possible to adequately give thanks (eucharistia) to God . . . than by uniting our offerings to that of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-the-eucharist-is-the-source-and-summit-of-christianity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jesus Christ</a> himself.” Christ does with us in the Mass what we cannot do alone: make a perfect offering to the Father.
The key to understanding why <a href="https://www.catholic.com/tract/catholic-answers-guide-for-getting-to-mass" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catholics must attend Sunday Mass</a> lies above all in the essence of the Mass itself. Our duty to be willing participants is not rooted in how it makes us feel, but in what it is. As the sacred meeting place of God and man, the Mass reorients our lives towards God, reunites us with him in love, and thereby communicates the grace of salvation to our souls. In the long run, there can be nothing more productive than that.

Even in Summer, You Must Go to Sunday Mass

If I was previously married and couldn’t get annulled and as a result and could never receive the Eucharist, why would I become Catholic?

Where in the Protestant bible does it talk about purgatory?

I’m interested in Catholicism, but I follow sola scriptura very strictly.

Why did the Catholic Church change the calendar that now disagrees with the Orthodox?

I’m thinking about leaving Catholicism because the Church discriminates against homosexuals from being admitted into seminary to become priests?

&#8220;Can I become Catholic without an annulment?&#8221; This episode addresses the complexities of joining the Church, especially for those with previous marriages. Additionally, we explore questions about purgatory in the Protestant Bible, the implications of sola scriptura, and the reasons behind the Catholic Church&#8217;s calendar changes. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these important topics.
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Can I Become Catholic Without an Annulment? – Why  Aren’t You Catholic?

Who gets to say what a religion is, and why do &#8220;World Religions&#8221; classes so often fail in their approach to Christian Faith? Joe Heschmeyer, author of The Early Church Was the Catholic Church, explores the politics around the word &#8220;religion.&#8221;

Twisting the Definition of “Religion”

In this episode Trent shares some highlights from the live Q+A panel at the Catholic Answers 2021 Conference.

Highlights from our 2021 Conference Q+A Panel

Is there a restricted number of religious orders that can be formed? What do the initials mean after the names of religious?

In the book of Acts Paul confronts Peter regarding Peter’s refusal to eat with gentile believers. If the Pope makes a similar error today, who confronts him and how is it done?

What kind of initiatives do we need a bishop’s permission for?

Mark 9:29 says these kind are driven out by prayer and fasting. I have heard that the “and fasting” part is a scribal entry. How can we know that Jesus actually said this?

What prayer do you say, or any prayer when you see crosses on the side of the highway

Are there spiritual dangers of apologetics? If so, what are they?

Hi this is Jeff from Huntingdon, TN. We know that God does not judge a person that is mentally unstable the same as others. What about people that have personalities, environmental situations and inclinations that could be considered almost impossible ...

Questions from Society 315

In this episode Trent turns the tables on those who say Catholicism preaches a false Gospel.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiiHMFoI4II">What Is the Gospel? | The Jimmy Akin Podcast</a>
<a href="https://shop.catholic.com/the-drama-of-salvation-paperback">The Drama of Salvation by Jimmy Akin</a>
<a href="https://shop.catholic.com/salvation-is-from-the-catholic-church/">Salvation Is From the Catholic Church by Trent Horn</a>
Transcription:
Trent:
As a Catholic, it&#8217;s not hard to find other Christians who say my religion teaches a false gospel, and so it isn&#8217;t even Christian. Thankfully, most Protestants don&#8217;t make these unpleasant claims, which is why I call them pleasant Protestants. Their unpleasant counterparts, however, say Catholicism is not Christian because it teaches a false gospel, but unpleasant Protestants shoot themselves in the foot because they can&#8217;t consistently and biblically answer this question. What is the gospel? The word gospel comes from the Greek word Eugelion, literally good news. But in almost every case, the word is used in scripture without any explanation of what the good news is. Matthew refers to the good news of the kingdom or the good news being preached. Mark describes Jesus speaking of the good news or the good news of God. Luke shows Jesus preaching good news for the poor, and these passages also point back to verses in Isaiah proclaiming the good news of God&#8217;s victory over his enemies.
We know the gospel was preached during Christ&#8217;s earthly ministry, but what was initially preached was not a message about Christ&#8217;s death, his resurrection, or how he would redeem humanity from sin. At this point, the gospel was just the good news that God&#8217;s kingdom was entering the world and things would finally be set right. After Christ&#8217;s resurrection, we find some passages in Paul&#8217;s letters that are closer to a definition of the gospel as we know it today. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. In one Corinthians 15, Paul says, &#8220;Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preach to you the gospel, the good news, which you received, in which you stand, by which you were saved if you hold it fast, unless you believed in vain.&#8221; Paul then describes this good news through what many scholars identify as an early creed that was formulated just a few years after Christ&#8217;s crucifixion.
It says, &#8220;Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose three days later, and appeared to numerous people, including Paul. Notice though that there&#8217;s no description of the gospel being about our individual salvation from damnnable sin, even though that is how the gospel is often summarized. Instead, as my colleague Jimmy Akin points out &#8230;
CLIP:
The core of the gospel beginning with texts in the Old Testament is that the time for God&#8217;s kingdom has arrived and all opposing powers will be overthrown. The elaboration of the gospel is that God&#8217;s kingdom will be implemented through his son. And a happy consequence of that fact is that we can be saved through his son. The New Testament&#8217;s understanding is not about us as individuals and how we can benefit. The gospel is just not about us. Instead, the good news is about what God and his son are doing in the world, what they&#8217;re doing to their enemies like the devil and the pagan world order and how we can benefit his individuals, how we can get on board with God&#8217;s plan is a consequence of the gospel, but it&#8217;s not the essence of the good news.
Trent:
For an extended treatment of the question, what is the gospel? See Jimmy&#8217;s full video link below. So at minimum, we can say the gospel is the good news of God&#8217;s kingdom entering the world that saves God&#8217;s people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why Paul says it is in Christ that we have the good news of our salvation. But these verses about the gospel never say the good news is about salvation through faith alone or grace alone or any other doctrinal formula. The gospel is just the salvation that comes through God&#8217;s power being implemented in his kingdom through his son. Since Catholicism affirms this truth, that means the Catholic church is not preaching a false gospel. The glossary of the catechism of the Catholic church defines the gospel as the good news of God&#8217;s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
It is this gospel or good news that the apostles and the church following them are to proclaim to the entire world. People who say Catholicism teaches a false gospel usually arrive at this conclusion through two mistaken lines of thought. First, they assume the gospel is identical to all essential doctrines of the faith. But as we&#8217;ve seen, the Bible never defines the gospel in this way. The Trinity and Jesus&#8217; messianic status are essential doctrines of Christianity, but scripture never says that these truths are part of the gospel or the good news. Second, these critics assume essential doctrines for their denomination must also be essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and so those doctrines must be part of the gospel as well. Consider this sermon from the late Vadi Bacham.
CLIP:
And God imputes our sinfulness to him and he nails our sinfulness to the tree and Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification. And there&#8217;s another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us. That&#8217;s the gospel that we preach.
Trent:
But as Protestant Theologian Randall Rouser notes, this articulation of the gospel doesn&#8217;t come from the Bible. Instead, it comes from reformed theological traditions about things like the double imputation of sin and Christ righteousness. Bacham seems to have conflated his summary of the Calvinist plan of salvation with the gospel. So Rouser says-
CLIP:
But it&#8217;s not the gospel. It&#8217;s an interpretation of the gospel. The Greek danger, when people like Bacham conflate their theoretical understanding of the gospel with the gospel is, first of all, now they end up changing the gospel because now the gospel becomes essentially about proclaiming reformed theology.
Trent:
And Rauser says this approach leads to people like Bacham treating Christians who disagree with him on doctrines like the specific nature of the atonement as being less Christian than him or not even Christian at all. For example, when many people are asked to summarize the gospel in one Bible verse, they&#8217;ll often point to John 3:16, where John says, &#8220;For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Even though many Protestants say the gospel of John is sufficient to proclaim the gospel, the word gospel is not in John&#8217;s gospel. At best, this verse serves as a loose summary of the plan of salvation that flows from what the gospel is, but this verse is at least the start of a much better answer to the question, what is the gospel than what the late John MacArthur said in the following clip when he was asked to summarize the gospel in a single verse.
CLIP:
Greatest gospel verse in the Bible. Second Corinthians 5:21. He made him who knew no sin. Sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived his life. That&#8217;s the great doctrine of substitution, and on that doctrine turned the whole reformation of the church, that is the heart of the gospel. And what you get is complete forgiveness covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. When he looks at the cross, he sees you. When he looks at you, he sees Christ.
Trent:
So MacArthur said the heart of the gospel is his particular reformed interpretation of two Corinthians 5:21. This involves our sins being imputed to Christ so that God sees us on the cross and so he consequently punishes us while punishing Christ. And now God only sees Christ when he looks at us and so he rewards us with eternal life. But once again, the Bible does not say this is the gospel. Even though Eugelian is used nine times in two Corinthians, even if the passage was teaching the doctrine MacArthur thinks it&#8217;s teaching, that doesn&#8217;t make it part of the gospel. Protestants know the gospel is not identical to everything the New Testament teaches because each of the major Protestant denominations differ on what they think the New Testament teaches, but they do not anathematize every other Protestant as preaching a false gospel just because they have mistaken theology.
Well, classical Protestants don&#8217;t do this, but some evangelicals venture into this rhetoric as can be seen in this exchange between Redeem Zoomer and Ryan from needgod.net.
CLIP:
Because I think Luther was someone who did think baptism was required for salvation.
So would you say Luther is preaching a false gospel then?
If that&#8217;s what he sincerely believed, then yeah, he would be preaching a false gospel on that basis.
Trent:
Returning to MacArthur&#8217;s answer, if the heart of the gospel was a particular reformed understanding of two Corinthians 5:21, then followers of John Wesley, i.e. Many Methodists, who believe in an imparted righteousness rather than an imputed righteousness would have a false gospel. The same is true for any Christian who denies the doctrine of double imputation and believes Seton Corinthians 5:21 teaches something else. This includes believing the verse as a reference to just the incarnation or Christ coming in the form of sinful flesh, as Romans eight three says. The verse could also mean Christ became sin in the sense that Christ became a sacrificial sin offering on our behalf. Since the Hebrew word for sin is the same word for sin offering. Ironically, in another interview later in his life, MacArthur warned about expanding the concept of the gospel to include doctrines that are not a part of the good news.
CLIP:
It&#8217;s very easy to pile stuff on top of the gospel and then even eliminate the real gospel, but it has to do with the best news that anyone will ever hear, and that is you can escape eternal punishment, spend eternity in heaven.
Trent:
But we also have to be careful to not radically underdefine the gospel because it has essential elements a Christian cannot reject. In Galatians one, Paul chastises the Galatians for deserting the faith for a different gospel, which isn&#8217;t real good news, but a perversion of the true gospel. For example, Islam teaches a false gospel because its good news about salvation rejects Christ&#8217;s death and resurrection, which we&#8217;ve seen are fundamental parts of the gospel. Likewise, claiming that circumcision is necessary for salvation, as some Galatians had done, constituted a false gospel. That&#8217;s because the circumcision requirement basically said to be a Christian, you have to become a Jew first, but the good news is that through the son, God&#8217;s kingdom would be universal and not belong only to one group of people. Hence, this is why while Paul chastises other theological errors in his letters, he reserves the charge of having another gospel or a false gospel for doctrines that contradict the core message of the gospel.
So to summarize, pleasant Protestants can answer the question, what is the gospel by agreeing with Catholics and letting the Bible speak for itself. The gospel is the good news of God&#8217;s kingdom being implemented through the death and resurrection of his son. Unpleasant Protestants who say Catholics preach a false unbiblical gospel themselves rely on an unbiblical definition of the gospel in order to make that argument, which becomes obvious when you ask them where the Bible specifically says the gospel, Yugelian, is identical to their pet doctrines. However, the Christian faith, even the essential doctrines of the Christian faith involve much more than the message of the gospel. Even pleasant Protestants who believe Catholicism preaches the gospel still have to wrestle with a difficult question. Which doctrines are essential to the Christian faith and how do we know they are essential? Many Protestants believe scripture is perspicuous or that it clearly reveals the essential doctrines Christians must believe.
The Westminster confession says those things which are &#8220;necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other that not only the learned, but the unlearned in a due use of the ordinary means may attain undo a sufficient understanding of them. But isn&#8217;t it necessary for salvation to know if the largest Christian denomination in the world, Catholicism, preaches a true gospel or a false gospel? Even learned Protestants using ordinary means do not have agreement on this question, as can be seen in debates between Protestants on the question of whether Catholics are Christian or if they have a false gospel. Ironically, this provides evidence that God&#8217;s authority structure for the church is not grounded in something like solo scriptura, but a living teaching office or a magisterium capable of settling disputes definitively through authoritative, universal, and infallible teachings.
Finally, I hope this episode will encourage Catholics to be able to give an elevator pitch answer to the question, what is the gospel? Many Protestants will not take you seriously if you are unable to answer this question. So as one Peter 3:15 says, always be ready to give a reason or an answer for the hope within, but with gentleness and reverence. For more on this issue, I recommend my colleague Jimmy Akin&#8217;s book, The Drama of Salvation, and my new book, Salvation is from the Catholic Church available at the links below. And if you want to meet me and over 30 other Catholic creators this spring, then register for our April 11th evangelism conference hosted right here in Dallas. Tickets are available at conferenceoftrent.com. Over half of them have been sold already, so be sure to get yours today. And if you enjoy our content and wanted to grow and expand, please support us at trenthornpodcast.com.
Thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.

The Question “Unpleasant Protestants” Can’t Answer

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DAY 48
CHALLENGE
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“The Catholic practice of praying for the dead is unbiblical.”
DEFENSE
The practice is not just Catholic and it is biblical.
First, it isn’t only Catholics who pray for the dead. Except in the Protestant community, prayer for the dead is universal among Christians. Further, prayer for the dead has been practiced by Jews since before the time of Christ and continues to be practiced by them today.
In Scripture, Judah Maccabee and his men were retrieving the bodies of fallen comrades when they discovered the men who had fallen were wearing pagan amulets, and so “they turned to prayer, beseech- ing that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out” (2 Macc. 12:42).
Protestants may not regard this passage as Scripture, but Catholics do, and it is thus legitimate for them to appeal to it. Whether one regards it as Scripture or not, it constitutes evidence of prayer for the dead among Jews before the time of Christ, and Jews continue to pray for the dead today, particularly using a prayer known as the Mourner’s Kaddish.
The New Testament also contains a plausible instance of prayer for the dead. After praying for the household of a man named Onesiphorus, Paul goes on to pray “may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day” (2 Tim. 1:18). Paul twice mentions “the household of Onesiphorus” (2 Tim. 1:16, 4:19), but does not greet him with the rest of his household and speaks of him only in the past tense. Many scholars have concluded that Onesiphorus had passed away and thus Paul was praying for the departed.
Many Protestants, too, spontaneously ask God to bless their departed loved ones. Thus the Protestant apologist C.S. Lewis writes: “Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. . . . At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?” (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, 107).
It is a natural human impulse to pray for our loved ones, even when they have passed from this life.
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Praying for the Dead

Apologist Karlo Broussard responds to a common atheist critique of the God of the Bible, that he is a narcissist whose ego makes him hungry for the worship of his creatures. Does the Bible really give us such a creepy Lord? And even if he is not creepy, why does he insist on worship?
THE ARTICLE:
<a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-egotistical-for-god-to-demand-your-love">https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-it-egotistical-for-god-to-demand-your-love</a>

Is God an Egomaniac Narcissist?

How important is consolation during prayer in Mass?

How do you respond to the claim that If the devil can portray himself as an angel of light, then the devil can potentially be present himself as Mary in apparitions?

Does the bible support sprinkling of water in baptism?

Why don’t we quickly baptize people like protestants instead of making people go through a whole class and dragging it out?

Why does Catholic worship re-present the cross as a sacrifice when the passover wasn’t a sin offering?

Is Jesus’ prayer for unity in Jn 17 meant to be now or unity when he returns?

Critique my argument for the Immaculate Conception: If Joseph was worried about Mary committing adultery he would not have to quietly divorce her. He was protecting her because he knew the truth.

Catholic Answers to Protestant Questions

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DAY 43
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CHALLENGE
“The Catholic use of statues of saints is idolatry.”
DEFENSE
Idolatry involves worshipping a statue as a god. That&#8217;s not what Catholics do with statues.
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Statues of saints do not represent gods. They represent human beings or angels united with God in heaven.
Even the least learned practicing Catholics are aware that statues of saints are not gods, and neither are the saints they represent. If you point to a statue of the Virgin Mary and ask, “Is this a goddess?” or “Is the Virgin Mary a goddess?” you should receive the answer “no” in both cases. If this is the case for the Virgin Mary, the same will be true of any saint.
As long as one is not confusing a statue with a god, it is not an idol, and the commandment against idolatry is not violated.
This was true in the Bible. At various points, God commanded the Israelites to make statues and images for religious use. For example, in the book of Numbers the Israelites were suffering from a plague of poisonous snakes, and God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole so that those bitten by the snakes could gaze upon the bronze serpent and live (Num. 21:6–9). The act of looking at a statue has no natural power to heal, so this was a religious use. It was only when, centuries later, people began to regard the statue as a god that it was being used as an idol and so was destroyed (2 Kings 18:4).
God also commanded that his temple, which represented heaven, be filled with images of the inhabitants of heaven. Thus he originally ordered that craftsmen work images of cherubim (a kind of angel) into curtains of the Tent of Meeting (Exod. 26:1). Later, carvings of cherubim were made on the walls and doors of the temple (1 Kings 6:29–35).
Statues were also made. The lid of the Ark of the Covenant included two statues of cherubim that spread their wings toward each other (Exod. 25:18–20), and the temple included giant, fifteen-foot tall statues of cherubim in the holy of holies (1 Kings 6:23–28).
Since the Ascension of Christ, the saints have joined the angels in heaven (CCC 1023), making images of them in church appropriate as well.
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Statues of Saints

The Catholic Church Makes Sense of the Bible

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@vladhungrygen has a radical misunderstanding of what grace actually is.

Unmasking the Horrors of IVF

Everywhere you will find misconceptions about the Church&#8217;s role in slavery. Even most Catholics do not know the truth about what the Church did, and did not do, regarding slavery.
Best-selling author Paul Kengor joins us to share some of the surprising true story.

The Catholic Church and Slavery

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DAY 260
CHALLENGE
“The Catholic Faith is homophobic. It hates and fears gay people.”
DEFENSE
The Church recognizes everyone, including those with same- sex attraction, as people God loves and for whom Christ died.
Sometimes homosexual activists accuse those who disagree with them of “hate.” Or they may accuse others of irrational fear—of being “homophobic.” Although some individuals may hate or fear homosexuals, these allegations are used indiscriminately to attack those who disagree and to shut down rational discussion. However, merely disagreeing with homosexuality does not involve either hate or fear.
Homosexual behavior is a distortion of the way human sexuality is meant to work, but it is far from alone. There are many other distortions, including pornography, prostitution, and adultery. People with same-sex attraction are suffering a particular form of temptation, but everyone suffers temptation. We are all tempted to do things we should not, and we must all be clear-eyed about this fact and resist temptation.
People who have same-sex attraction have the same inherent dignity as other human beings, and they must be treated with respect—so much respect that we offer them both the truth about human sin and the hope for dealing with it that is found in Jesus Christ.
For people with same-sex attraction, as for people with every other temptation, we must be “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). The Catechism states:
The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection (CCC 2358–59).
TIP
For assistance dealing with same-sex attraction, see the support group Courage International (www.CourageRC.org).
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Compassion for Those with Same-Sex Attraction

<div>Is Mary the mother of all?</div><div><blockquote>When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, 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 into his home. (Jn. 19:26-27)</blockquote>
There is a theory that the author of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/who-wrote-johns-gospel">Gospel of John</a> does not name the beloved disciple because he wants the individual to be the idealized example of the perfect disciple of <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/jesus-christ">Jesus</a>.  Though he was most certainly a real historical person, if he was named then his actions throughout the Gospel would seem to belong wholly to another person and not necessarily someone whose shoes we are called to walk in.  By giving him a simple title the author invites us to want to be a &#8220;beloved disciple.&#8221;
As such it would appear that the Gospel teaches us that the disciples of Jesus are to embrace <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/mary-the-blessed-virgin">Mary</a> as our own mother and that she will embrace us as her own sons and daughters.
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Is Mary the Mother of All?

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DAY 187
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CHALLENGE
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“The Gospels were written long after the fact. They aren’t historically reliable.”
DEFENSE
On the contrary, the details in the Gospels show they are very reliable.
In John, when Jesus is about to miraculously feed the five thousand, he asks Philip where it would be possible to buy bread (John 6:5–6). This is surprising since Philip was not a major apostle.
However, John also records that Philip was from Bethsaida—the town from which Peter and Andrew originally hailed (John 1:44, 12:21). The feeding of the five thousand occurred in a desolate place near the town of Bethsaida (Luke 9:10–13). That would explain why Jesus might ask Philip where bread could be bought, but since Peter and Andrew also came from Bethsaida, and since they were among the most prominent apostles, we would expect him to ask them.
The matter is clarified in Mark, which indicates Peter and Andrew were now living in the village of Capernaum (Mark 1:21–29). They no longer lived in Bethsaida and would not have up-to-date knowledge of where bread could be bought. Jesus thus asked Philip.
It is striking that each fact is mentioned in only one of the Gospels:
<ul>
<li>Only John mentions that Jesus asked Philip where to buy bread.</li>
<li>Only John mentions that Philip was from Bethsaida.</li>
<li>Only Luke mentions that the feeding of the five thousand took place near Bethsaida.</li>
<li>Only Mark mentions that Peter and Andrew were now living in Capernaum.
Yet when careful attention is paid to the details of each Gospel, a coherent picture emerges of why Jesus asked a lesser apostle like Philip where bread could be bought.
This is not the kind of situation that would arise if the evangelists were making up details at random. The Gospels are all too short for chance to explain the matter. Neither does the situation reflect a col- lusion of authors, for the relevant details are mentioned only in passing and nothing is ever made of them.
This indicates that the evangelists are accurately recording historical details, whose integrity is shown when their accounts are compared.
TIP
See John James Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings Both of the Old and New Testament—An Argument of Their Veracity.</li>
</ul>
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Details in the Gospels

The Convenient Morality of the Protestant Reformers

Episode 85: Year B &#8211; 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday of Catholic Word, we focus on one detail from the Gospel reading for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, taken from Mark 6:1-6—namely, the mention of Jesus’ brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, along with his “sisters.” Obviously, the topic of concern is the Catholic belief of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
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Readings: <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070724.cfm">Click Here</a>
</div>
</div>
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Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! <a href="https://shop.catholic.com/catholic-answers-merchandise/?q=sunday">Click Here</a>
</div>
</div>

Jesus’ Siblings and Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

How do we figure out the canon? Are the books self attesting. Why does the Holy Spirit give infallibility to the Church but the Holy Spirit does not give infallibility to individuals?

I’m entering into the Church and recently met my bishop. Are traditions like kissing the bishop’s ring still necessary? Why or why not?

How do I explain the Catholic approach to James 2 to Protestants?

What are our areas of disagreement apart from Sola Scriptura?

What does it mean when it says all scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16-17?

&#8220;How do I explain James 2 to Protestants?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the Catholic understanding of faith and works, while also addressing how we determine the canon of Scripture and the role of tradition in the Church. Other topics include the significance of traditions like kissing the bishop&#8217;s ring and the implications of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 for interpreting Scripture.
<a href="https://wvw.catholic.com/radioclub?email">Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter</a>
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit <a href="https://www.catholic.com/speakers">Catholicanswersspeakers.com</a>

How Do I Explain James 2 to Protestants? Canon and Tradition

Ah, Christmastime! A season of holly, hot chocolate, and . . . lies?
If you can&#8217;t find a picturesque roaring fire to warm you in this bleak midwinter, you can always catch some heat from the debates that flare up this time of year over Santa Claus. Some say the Santa Claus tradition is a fun diversion for kids. Others insist that the custom is not worth the deception it entails.
In this Christmas edition of Both Sides Now, you&#8217;ll get each take. Should Catholic families include Santa Claus in their traditions? Yes or no?
<a href="#mike">Click here for YES!</a>
<a href="#drew">Click here for NO!</a>

Santa Claus for Catholics: Yes or No?

Trent Horn answers an atheist caller on Catholic Answers Live who claims there are no good reasons to believe that God exists?

Are there any good reasons to believe in God?

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In this episode Trent reviews Steven Crowder’s claims that Pope Francis is a communist because of what the pontiff said at a “Vax Live” event.
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Steven Crowder vs. Pope Francis

Can a Catholic assent to blowing up entire cities? What about when to do so will save perhaps millions of lives? Catholic Answers President Chris Check joins us as we consider again America&#8217;s use of Atomic weapons to end a long, bitter war with Japan.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Catholic Faith

Recently on <a href="https://www.catholic.com/audio/cal/open-forum-1096">Catholic Answers Live</a>, a caller asked me about whether there are morally licit means for a married couple to avoid pregnancy while still engaging in sexual intercourse. I explained that sterilization and contraception are a no-go, and that natural family planning (NFP)—a method that takes advantage of knowing the fertile and infertile periods of a woman’s menstrual cycle—is the only morally licit way to achieve such a goal.
But <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/120i1bx/nfp_seems_like_a_mental_gymnastics_approach_to/">some</a>, even within Catholic circles, might counter that using NFP to avoid pregnancy is nothing more than Catholic contraception because the couple is not “open to life.” Not to intend conception (e.g., “we don’t want to conceive right now”) when engaging in the conjugal act, so it’s argued, renders natural family planning no more morally permissible than sterilization, coitus interruptus (the sin of Onan—see Gen. 38:9-10), or artificial contraception.
From my experience (I’m <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6452">not</a> the only one), this objection causes great concern for Catholic couples who discern that they’re legitimately ill equipped to have a child at a particular time. Therefore, I think it’s worth thinking through.
There are <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/catholic-contraception">different approaches</a> that we could take. I will focus on only one here: Show that the logical implications of the claim are unreasonable. If a claim’s logical implications are unreasonable, then the claim itself is unreasonable and thereby worthy of rejection.
So what are the implications?
Here’s one: It’s never morally licit for a married couple to have sex unless they want (intend) to conceive a child. 
According to the claim, the married couple, in a given sexual act, are not “open to life.” In other words, their wills are not intending conception when they engage in the conjugal act.
But this schema applies to other scenarios as well—not just the case of a married couple using NFP to avoid pregnancy. Consider, for example, a married woman who is pregnant, a period during which nature makes conception impossible. Given the physical demands of gestating a child, it’s unlikely she would desire or want to conceive another child, or multiple children, while carrying her present child in the womb, even if, per impossibile, nature would allow for such a thing.
We can also imagine a married woman approaching the age where she can no longer naturally conceive, and her body is no longer in a condition to handle the physical burdens of carrying a child (perhaps sixty to seventy years of age). Given her physical frailty, it’s reasonable that she would no longer desire or want (intend) to conceive a child at her age.
Must we say the married women in the above examples have to avoid sexual intercourse with their husbands because they’re not wanting conception, or being “open to life”? The principle that we’re considering here demands a “yes.” They must abstain to remain morally upright, because the principle states that a married couple cannot enter the marital act unless they want (intend) to conceive a child.
I think most people would intuitively recognize that such an implication of the anti-NFP objection is unreasonable. But sometimes intuition isn’t enough. So let’s go a bit farther.
Suppose the above implication is true. This would seem to entail nature placing an unreasonable burden on married couples.
We mentioned above that nature sees to it in different ways that a woman is not fertile at times when she wouldn’t want to conceive a child. It could be because she’s pregnant, which involves a heavy physical burden, or it could be because of her age and physical frailty. These are all due to nature’s design.
Nature also sees to it that human beings have an intense drive to engage in the sexual act. Now, if it were sinful for a married couple to engage in the marital act when conception is not possible and the woman is not physically in a condition to desire conception, like in the above cases brought about by nature’s design, then nature would be placing an unreasonable burden on spouses—giving them the intense drive for sex but not allowing them to satisfy the drive for the majority of their married life.
There’s not a lot of time for sex within this moral schema when we consider that the woman would be pregnant for most of her childbearing years (and thus not able to conceive and not in a physical condition to desire conception) and naturally infertile after such a period (and thus not able to conceive and not in a physical condition to desire conception). Unless we want to say that nature places such a burden on married couples, which is unreasonable, we should reject the idea that NFP, at least in principle, is immoral.
I say “at least in principle” because it’s possible that a couple could avoid pregnancy via NFP for selfish reasons. But the locus of immorality wouldn’t be the use of NFP; it would be the selfishness of the couple.
There’s yet another implication in the anti-NFP objection: We can’t desire (intend) nature’s design for the lack of conception in a particular sexual act. 
We mentioned above that nature sees to it in several different ways that a woman is not always fertile. It could be due to the specific time of her menstrual cycle. It could be because she’s pregnant, or it could be because of her age. These are all due to nature’s design. So nature sees to it that sexual intercourse during these periods will not achieve conception.
Now, if a married couple couldn’t morally engage in the marital act without desiring or wanting (intending) conception—i.e., being “open to life,” then we must say a couple cannot morally desire this order of nature.
But that seems unreasonable. If we can’t desire (intend) to follow this natural order, then which other natural order can’t we desire to follow? (Nature’s order for sex to be an expression of unitive love?)
Also, why would nature give couples a path to avoid conception in a particular sexual act and at the same time forbid them from walking down such a path? This view creates an irresolvable tension within nature, which in turn entails a lack of wisdom on the part of nature’s Creator.
Given that the logical implications of the objection considered here are unreasonable, we are thereby justified in concluding that the objection itself is unreasonable, and therefore worthy of rejection.
Although we can applaud Catholics who oppose NFP because they’re prioritizing being “open to life,” we can’t applaud their understanding of “open to life,” given that their moral logic entails unreasonable implications. They might have a Catholic will. But with this issue, there is a need to channel a Catholic intellect.

The ‘Natural’ in ‘Natural Family Planning’

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DAY 1
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CHALLENGE
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”I consider myself spiritual rather than religious. Why isn’t that enough?”
DEFENSE
Because God loves you and wants even better things for you.
When people say they are spiritual rather than religious, they frequently mean that, although they don’t practice a specific religion, they recognize there is more to the world than matter; that it has a spiritual dimension. This is good! But it doesn’t go very far. Wouldn’t it be nice to know more about the world’s spiritual dimension? In every field, having more knowledge is better, and it makes sense to ask if we can learn more about the world’s spiritual dimension.
From a Christian perspective, we can learn more. God loves us and wants us to know him—not just have feelings or guesses. When he created the universe, God left evidence allowing us to learn certain things about him: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20).
He also left evidence in the human heart: “With [man’s] openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material, can have its origin only in God” (CCC 33).
Further, God has entered history, communicating with us through his prophets and, most importantly, through his Son, Jesus.
Apologetics examines and presents the evidence showing God has communicated with us, and its ultimate purpose is to help us discover God and the joy and happiness he wants us to have. “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for” (CCC 27).
Or, as St. Augustine put it: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions 1:1:1).
TIP
A good book on the evidence for faith is the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli.
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Spiritual or Religious?

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DAY 222
CHALLENGE
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“The Catholic Church is wrong to say we’re justified by faith and works.”
DEFENSE
The Church doesn’t use “by faith and works” as an overall summary of how we are justified.
It’s not to be denied that some individual Catholics do this, but that’s not the same thing as the Magisterium of the Church doing it:
<ul>
<li>The Church’s most authoritative and key historical document on justification is the Council of Trent’s Decree on Justification, and the phrase “justified by faith and works” never appears in it.</li>
<li>The Church’s most important and authoritative presentation of the faith as a whole is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the relevant phrase doesn’t appear in it either.</li>
<li>The Church’s most important and detailed contemporary discussion of justification is the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, together with the Church’s official response and the annex (all available online), and the phrase appears in none of these.</li>
<li>The phrase appears nowhere on the Vatican website (Vatican.va).That the Church does not use the phrase “justified by faith and works” is indication that the discussion has been misframed by both individual Catholics and individual Protestants. The reported phrases simply aren’t used in the Church’s official documents.
So what does the Church say? How does it handle the famous passage saying “man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24)? It’s dealt with in chapter 10 of Trent’s Decree on Justification, which discusses the increase in righteousness Christians experience after their initial justification. According to Trent, after we first come to God and are forgiven, we continue to grow in righteousness (justification) by cooperating with God’s grace and performing good works (Eph. 2:10). It’s with respect to this ongoing justification that the Church holds good
works have a role to play (see also Days 312 and 354).
With respect to initial justification, “none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification” (Decree on Justification 8). Good works therefore flow from, but
do not cause, our initial justification. 
It’s misleading for Catholics to say we’re justified by “faith and
works,” because to Protestant ears this will mean we need good works to be forgiven, which we don’t.</li>
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Justification by Faith and Works

Arminianism: Calvinism’s BIGGEST Competitor!

How do I find peace when things like the Latin Mass I prefer going to is being restricted?

I have peace by only listening to Catholic radio and not the news of the world.

I’ve taught confirmation for a long time now, but now I’m being told that I don’t teach enough love. How do I find peace while I’m being told I’m not teaching the faith right?

I agree with you, Pray, don’t worry and serve other people.

How do we maintain peace when fellow Christians are suffering persecution all across the world?

The Peace of Jesus

Responding to Scandal in Catholic Apologetics (Voice of Reason)

How can I approach my atheist spouse concerning the existence of God?

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DAY 204
CHALLENGE
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&#8220;Catholic teaching on justification is false. Paul says, &#8216;For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast&#8217; (Eph. 2:8–9).&#8221;
DEFENSE
This passage does not disagree with Catholic teaching.
Catholics agree we are saved through faith and by grace: “Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God” (CCC 1996).
Neither salvation nor faith is our own doing. Both are products of God’s grace: “The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man” (CCC 2022). “Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion” (CCC 2010).
The statement that our salvation “is not of works, lest any man should boast” has often been taken to mean we can’t earn our salvation. This is true, as the Church acknowledges: “With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator” (CCC 2007).
Although we can’t earn salvation, this probably isn’t what Paul is asserting here. Normally when he refers to “works” in a context like this, he means a specific kind of works: those done to obey the Jewish Law (circumcision, keeping kosher, and so on). His repeated statements that salvation isn’t by these kind of works was meant to counter the belief of some first-century Christians that you needed to be a Jew in order to be saved (see Day 63).
That is probably what Paul means here. Thus in the next verse he praises “good works” as part of the Christian life, in preference to the “works” he says do not save us (Eph. 2:10). He then discusses how Gentiles are saved together with Jews, in spite of their uncircumcision (Eph. 2:11–12), and how Jesus has abolished the Law and its commandments so both Jews and Gentiles might be united in one body (Eph. 2:13–16).
TIP
See also the answer for Day 278.
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Not Because of Works

The feast of Saint Joseph

I’m not Catholic because I don’t understand purgatory and indulgences and how they relate to salvation.

My father was one of 13 and all the boy’s middle name was Joseph.

I am Catholic but 3 women in my life are SSPX and are very convincing. Why should I not join?

I’m an Anglo-Catholic. I’m not convinced of Papal Infallibility.

&#8220;Why aren&#8217;t you Catholic?&#8221; This question opens a discussion on the complexities of faith, including the roles of purgatory and indulgences in salvation. Other topics include the significance of the feast of Saint Joseph and the challenges faced by those considering the SSPX. The conversation also touches on perspectives from Anglo-Catholics regarding papal infallibility.
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Why Arent You Catholic? Purgatory, Indulgences, Salvation

In this episode Trent shares an excerpt from a recent conversation he had with a Protestant about Catholic authority.
Full Conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hET6FoFfWH4
Transcription:
Trent:
Hey guys, I wanted to share with you today an excerpt of a recent conversation I had on Catholicism with Lucas of Methodist Ministries. He&#8217;s got an awesome channel and he was gracious enough to invite me on to talk about the church. So I&#8217;m going to share this conversation with you. If you want to watch the full conversation, click the link in the description below. And if you want to help us to have more conversations like that here in our studio to bring guests out, to talk with them about Catholicism, about Christianity, about important moral issues, please go and support us@trenthornpodcast.com. And one final note, I&#8217;m dressed a bit more casual in this conversation because my family was dealing with the flu, so I just kind of sauntered in hoodie and t-shirt to have the conversation. So I&#8217;m just not as formal as I normally am. But with that said, here&#8217;s my conversation with Methodist Ministries about the Catholic church.
Lucas:
And so when I look at Roman Catholics, when I hear their arguments of why they believe this, but I think functionally they know that they have to be judging this by the scriptures where it&#8217;s like, for instance, and not to throw the Pope under the bus because I know you&#8217;re a Roman Catholic, but when he says stuff like
Trent:
He&#8217;s jumped there a few times himself. So
Lucas:
On that note, it&#8217;s almost he didn&#8217;t even push
Trent:
Him, even if I was a Roman. So
Lucas:
Even if I was Roman Catholic, Trent, I would still be raising my eyebrow and I would be doing it with the scriptures in the back of my mind knowing, wait a minute, Jesus says, on the way the truth of life, no one comes to the Father but by me.
Trent:
And
Lucas:
So functionally, I&#8217;m acting as if the scriptures are primary, and I&#8217;m judging what he said by the standard. I&#8217;m finding it conflicting. So I&#8217;m finding it, even if I got under that is like I would still maintain this functional solo script Protestantism with very ingrained, and I couldn&#8217;t ever imagine as a Christian not living like that.
Trent:
Well, I think what&#8217;s important here is that as a Catholic, I use scripture as a standard in determining things. So I mean, if the Pope says something that contradicts the Bible, the pope&#8217;s wrong, the Pope, when he speaks, like I said before about levels of authority, when the church speaks and teaches believers, it has ranges of authority, the church might just give a recommendation to the world, a prudential judgment saying, Hey, this would probably be a good thing for leaders of the world to do to promote the common good of society. Now, that&#8217;s not even a doctrine that could just be saying, Hey, there&#8217;s poverty and here&#8217;s something you should think about when it comes to international debt. That&#8217;s not a part of the deposit of faith. But the Holy Spirit guides the pastors of the church and they can use their own prudence and judgment to provide wisdom for believers, and we can accept it or not and we should just give it due consideration.
Or the church teaches on doctrine saying, well, this is a corollary of the deposit of faith. This is what the church teaches on. This issue is developed and understood, and sometimes the church teaches infallibly, this is dogma. You have to believe this on pain of sin. Then similarly, when the Pope speaks, the Pope could just be giving his opinion on something, speaking off the cuff, he could be giving a teaching, but even in these cases, he could be wrong. He could make a mistake. There are popes that have been in error before and have had to be corrected. The only time the Pope is protected from error is when he formally binds the church to a dogma, when he makes an infallible declaration about something. So I think that&#8217;s why here if the Pope says about something you say, yeah, that was on a great take for example.
So for me, when I&#8217;m looking at it, I might say, yeah, I have scripture and tradition to say, all right, what&#8217;s going and what the church has taught and currently teaches because like I say, what does the church teach right now? So I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything wrong with saying, judging what any pastor says based on scripture, as I said before, it&#8217;s fine to say, Hey, does this contradict scripture? If it does, we got a problem here. But it&#8217;s the corollary of saying, oh, it&#8217;s got to also be explicitly found there. So I would say you&#8217;re right that if you&#8217;re just saying, Hey, this contradicts scripture, if it truly does, that would just mean that the Pope is speaking in a way where he could be fallible. But if he&#8217;s speaking infallibly, there&#8217;s no way it could contradict scripture because the Holy Spirit will guarantee that just as the Holy Spirit guarantees, the scriptures will not contradict each other.
Lucas:
And that&#8217;s why I fall back on too, where all Protestants and Catholics, I know even the EOS or Eastern Orthodox will uses argument too, where it comes down to how do you know what the Bible is or the candidate of scripture? And when you look at it too, everybody at the end of the day, another big factor, we&#8217;re all making a historical appeal and then relying on the Holy Spirit. But that would also to me though, be another reason why I&#8217;m a Protestant. Because if I accepted the Roman Catholic Church was infallible, and if I asked Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, why do they believe that
Trent:
Would make a historical argument?
Lucas:
No, actually they make a biblical argument because they say the Holy Spirit. And then I ask them, well, you only know the Bible because of the magisterium. And so it seems to be circular where it&#8217;s like, well, the real question then would be how do you know your magisterium is infallible? And then again, it falls back on the Bible, but then you only know the Bible because of the magisterium. So it is just like a circle to me. So I&#8217;m finding once more there has to be a Protestantism principle here.
Trent:
Well, you&#8217;re correct that if you say, I believe in the Catholic church because the Bible supports the Catholic church, and if you say, I believe in the Bible because it was defined or promulgated, promulgated and later in foully defined by the Catholic church, that would be a circular argument Catholic because of Bible, Bible because of Catholic. That&#8217;s a circular.
Lucas:
I don&#8217;t think I explain that right.
Trent:
No. If that is the argument, then it is a circular bad argument that you&#8217;re correct there. Carl Keating, he was the founder of Catholic Answers way back in the eighties, so back in the olden times. And so he wrote a book called Catholicism and Fundamentalism. In that book, he says, correct, that&#8217;s a circular argument. The Catholic argument is more of a spiral argument similar to the Eastern Orthodox argument. The Eastern Orthodox who are at least thoughtful would do this too. It&#8217;s a spiral. So you would not go Bible to Catholic than Catholic to Bible. And this was actually the argument that I took to being Catholic. It was, okay, God exists. Did God reveal himself? Let me look at history. In all of history, it seems like there&#8217;s one promising candidate of God revealing himself. That&#8217;d be the person of Jesus Christ. Here are a set of historical documents that chronicle his life from those purely human historical documents.
I can come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and he rose from the dead and he established a church. So these historical documents, he came, he died, he rose from the dead. He established a church built on the apostles. Alrighty, does this church still exist? How has Christ&#8217;s message been given to people to believe in him? So I go to the fathers, I go to the early Christian sources, and from them the evidence supports that this revelation has been given through scripture, through the word of God in a written form, scripture, the word of God in unwritten form, sacred tradition, and also in the teaching authority of the successors of the apostles who would be the bishops. That is where this revelation is safeguarded. And all of the bishops have their union with one another through the union. They have to the successor of St.
Peter that the church at Rome has a special authority amongst all of the other churches in Christendom because the Sea of Rome is a successor of Peter who is the leader of the apostles. And from that I can see, okay, then I can see, okay, this is the church that God has given and it&#8217;s imbued with his authority. And this church is also authoritatively taught about which writings are scripture and which are not to be able to settle that question. So for me, it&#8217;s more spiral. It&#8217;s starting with, okay, I believe in Catholicism because of historical documents, some of which are biblical, some of which are not. First Clement, the Diday, Ignatius of Antioch. So it&#8217;s the early Christian witness that brings me to the Catholic church. And the Catholic church helps to delineate what elements of this early Christian witness are the inspired word of God and which of the church fathers and which are ecclesial writers that turn into heretics later, like church. So I guess that&#8217;s where I would look at it. And so for me, I would pick Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but Catholicism first, then orthodoxy over Protestant, not
Lucas:
Oriental, not Coptic, Eastern
Trent:
Pick. I would pick them after Eastern Orthodoxy because there I&#8217;m also drawing from the tradition of things like the Council of Calden and the Caledonian Christology that has been embraced by the church. Yeah,
Lucas:
That makes sense.
Trent:
Although even there we&#8217;ve made a lot of progress and it&#8217;s a lot of semantics with the Oriental, you can
Lucas:
Make a lot of Eastern Orthodox happy by saying this probably.
Trent:
Now there&#8217;s some Eastern Orthodox, what&#8217;s funny, there&#8217;s some that are everybody who is not their particular follow their guy on this one mountain in Greece, and if you don&#8217;t listen to that guy, you&#8217;re going to hell. And then you&#8217;ve got a lot of the patriarchs you want to sprinkle for baptism. Sure, why not? It&#8217;s not a big deal. Yeah,
Lucas:
They&#8217;re very funny online
Trent:
Too. Yes, online Catholics, online Orthodox, not really. It seemed I deal with obnoxious. There&#8217;s obnoxious online Protestants.
Lucas:
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.
Trent:
Whereas there&#8217;s regular Protestants would just be meet me as a Catholic and be like, oh, praise the Lord, father God, thank you so much. That Trent&#8217;s here. My name&#8217;s Caleb. I&#8217;m so glad you&#8217;re at our church. He would just be a normal, I&#8217;m sorry, I had to those stereotypes in there of praising Father God and the guy&#8217;s name is Caleb, but I always had a talk and I said, imagine a Protestant comes to me, I don&#8217;t know his name, it&#8217;s Caleb. And then a guy came up later
Lucas:
In skinny jeans, by the way. What? Right in skinny
Trent:
Jeans. Totally. And then the guy came up after my talk and he said, I&#8217;m Protestant, I really liked your talk, and yes, my name is also Caleb. It was the best. So yeah, just going back there. So for me it&#8217;s like, okay, how do I get across a gap from early historical documents, Jesus&#8217;s Lord to these books are the inspired word of God, they&#8217;re an infallible rule of faith. Are they the only rule or the other things that could be an infallible rule like the Council of Nsea, these ecumenical councils, do they have authority just because they agree with scripture or do they have authority because all the bishops of the world got together and taught this? So for me, it&#8217;s about getting across the gap from the historical evidence that of the God man two, one of three authority structures. And I personally, I find it&#8217;s a very solid bridge to get to Catholicism and orthodoxy and more solid to get to Catholicism. But it&#8217;s more like the bridge to Protestantism is, there&#8217;s a game that I bought for my kids that I played as a kid called Forbidden Temple, where that you have to get the guys across and it just,
Lucas:
Oh,
Trent:
It&#8217;s a suspension bridge, and if you land, you press the ILE down and it shakes the bridge. I remember that. It&#8217;s a much shakier bridge for me to get to Protestantism. So for me, when it comes to evidence, I don&#8217;t think you need to have a knockdown drag out argument for Catholicism. It&#8217;s kind of like that joke. It&#8217;s like if a bear is chasing after you, how do you get away from him? The answer is you just have to run faster than the other guy who&#8217;s with you.
So it&#8217;s like even if I say, okay, the preponderance of evidence for Catholicism, it gives me a 50% confidence level. Okay, well if Protestantism is only 20%, then it&#8217;s like I&#8217;m going to go with Catholicism as long as it&#8217;s higher and there&#8217;s a forced option, it&#8217;s going to one of these three. There&#8217;s not some weird hidden one out there that&#8217;s been hidden for 2000 years, or it came back in 1830 or something. I look at it and I think that makes it more manageable for people. And honestly I think it&#8217;s similar if I&#8217;m talking to an atheist saying like, Hey, look, you don&#8217;t have to have a hundred percent confidence in Christianity, just that you have more confidence in Christianity than any other alternative view.
Lucas:
I guess that&#8217;s a good way to put it from your point of view, the spiral. Because for me, I do recognize that I&#8217;m viewing it literally where my first principle is going to be the scriptures, and that&#8217;s why I would even bring up that objection as I did with how do you know your Bible or your authority is infallible or maybe not infallible a hundred percent, but even normative in many regards. So really, as you know, we&#8217;re just expressing the ongoing debate between Protestants and Catholics, Roman
Trent:
Catholic. So for me though, the place that I started is not just, I&#8217;m going to start with scripture. I&#8217;m going to start, okay, the only infallible authority I am aware of is Jesus Christ. Well, to start, there&#8217;s an amorphous God and then becoming a Christian, Jesus Christ is the only infallible authority I am aware of now, and I know he is because I&#8217;ve looked at historical evidence. So when I said historical argument, it&#8217;s the Bible, but also any early Christian witness that tells me about who Jesus is, okay, then it&#8217;s like, all right, Jesus is the infallible authority. Could there be other infallible authorities? So Protestants say, yeah, Jesus and scripture. Okay, could there be others beyond that? And so that&#8217;s where my line of inquiry starts to go. Thank you guys so much for watching, and remember, if you want to watch the full conversation, click the link in the description below. Thank you all so much, and I hope you have a very blessed day.

Are Catholic Arguments Circular? (with Methodist Ministries)

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&#8220;Is infant baptism necessary and what does the Bible say?&#8221; This episode explores the significance of baptism, addressing questions like where infant baptism is found in Scripture and what it means for babies in terms of salvation. Additionally, we delve into the Protestant perspective on baptism as a saving sacrament and the role of emergency baptisms.
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Is Infant Baptism Necessary and What Does the Bible Say?

Episode 151: 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
In today’s episode, we focus on five details found within the readings for this upcoming 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. The first detail is found in the first reading, taken from 2 Kings 5:14-17, and it relates to the topic of Baptism. The second and third details come from the second reading, taken from 2 Timothy 2:8-13. The related topics are Jesus’ resurrection, and the doctrine of eternal security (‘once saved, always saved’). Finally, the two details in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 17:11-19, relate to the Sacrament of Confession and Jesus’ Messiahship.

Evidence Against Once Saved Always Saved And Jesus as Messiah

<div>Your Catholic deuterocanonical books in your Old Testament cannot be canonical because they are never quoted in the New Testament.
</div><div>To exclude these books for this reason is <a href="https://www.catholic.com/qa/didnt-the-catholic-church-add-to-the-bible">inconsistent</a>. The books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Zephaniah, Nahum, Ezra, Nehemiah, Obadiah, and Esther are not quoted either. Yet no Protestant has a problem with including them in their canon.
And while it is true that there are no direct quotations of the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-deuterocanonicals">deuterocanonical books</a> in the New Testament, there are many allusions to them. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but by way of a few examples:
<blockquote>Sirach 28:2: “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice, then when you pray your own sins will be forgiven.”
Matthew 6:14-15: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”
Tobit 4:16 (15): “See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another” (Douay).
Matthew 7:12: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”
Wisdom 7:26: “For [wisdom] is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.”
Hebrews 1:3: “[The Son] is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word.”
Wisdom 9:13: “For what man knows God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
Romans 11:34: “For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?”</blockquote>
</div>

Catholic deuterocanonical books are never quoted in the New Testament

In this excerpt from his rebuttal to Josh at the Servus Christi YouTube channel, Trent answers objections to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and how the Mass represents but doesn’t re-sacrifice Jesus Christ.

Answering “Servus Christi” on the Eucharist

7 False Catholic Teachings (REBUTTED)

Is it really okay for Catholics to go door to door sharing the faith? We talk with Father John Guzaldo, pastor of St. Louis Parish in Waco, Texas about the door to door ministry he and his parishioners have started.

Door to Door Catholicism

In this special Flannel Panel, Cy Kellett, Joe Heschmeyer, and Chris Check respond to major media coverage following the death of Pope Francis. From NPR and CNN to The New Yorker, the panel breaks down how secular outlets have portrayed the Pope’s life and legacy—and what they often leave out. Join us for a thoughtful Catholic perspective on the headlines, the spin, and the deeper truth about Pope Francis.
Transcript:
So she had a couple reports today on National Public Radio, but here&#8217;s her kind of summing up the papacy. And I just want to. And I admit I picked what I found the most cringeworthy part of her reporting.
Francis cleaned up Vatican finances, long tainted by corruption. He created a kitchen cabinet of nine cardinals to help reform a dysfunctional bureaucracy. After exhibiting at first what some Vatican observers deemed a blind spot toward clerical pedophilia, Francis appealed to the faithful to help root out what he called the culture of death and convened an extraordinary sex abuse summit at the Vatican. And after the two conservative papacies of John Paul and Benedict focused on the primacy of church doctrine, Francis announced a year-long jubilee on the primacy of mercy.
All right, any thoughts on that reporting?
I think the jury&#8217;s out on his record of the three things that she gives him credit for.
Oh, okay. All right. That&#8217;s all right.
Cleaning up Vatican finances.
Certainly the jury is out on that. There&#8217;s a ways to go that may not even.
It&#8217;s a tricky. Yes, that&#8217;s a tough one. That&#8217;s a hard nut to crack.
Yeah, it&#8217;s a hard. Right, right.
Yes. It points to the broader secular media narrative of there were a bunch of problems in the church because the conservatives just wanted power, but then we got someone we like better and so he cleaned everything up.
And, and it&#8217;s not rooted in reality and it&#8217;s not fair to either Pope Francis or Benedict or John Paul II. There were real problems. There are real problems. I think it would be fair to say all three of those men tried in different ways to tackle and they.
All left some of those problems in.
Financial and other scandals in the Vatican. But it wasn&#8217;t like any of them just said, ah, well, we&#8217;re just going to worry about church doctrine and not worry about whether people are actually living in accordance with the gospel. That doesn&#8217;t even make sense as a critique.
I think this is something Silvia Pagioli wishes Pope Francis did to set aside doctrine and talk about love and mercy.
Yeah, it seems like a wish more than a reflection of reality. That&#8217;s true. Well, the other thing about it is I have a problem with saying you could focus or making a kind of juxtaposition. You could focus on doctrine or you could focus on mercy, because the central doctrine of the Church is mercy. That&#8217;s what the whole thing is about. That the Lord loved us so much that he came down from heaven, became one of us, died on a cross to save.
Like that&#8217;s the doctrine is a doctrinal statement.
So, right. When people use doctrine in this pejorative way and it&#8217;s. I think, let&#8217;s just be clear, she&#8217;s opining. And it&#8217;s in a pejorative way. She means the doctrines they don&#8217;t like. She doesn&#8217;t actually think doctrine is bad. I don&#8217;t think she actually has an opinion on doctrine as such.
Right.
t&#8217;s like when certain Protestants say tradition and they just mean the traditions they reject, you know, the. It&#8217;s teachings. If you accept that it&#8217;s tradition, if you don&#8217;t.
In the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis was at pains to make it easier for people to go to confession.
Yeah.
Plenty of indulgences.
Yes, yes, exactly. He restored faculties to all the priests of the Pius X Society so that they could hear confessions. And he&#8217;s extended it since then. He, in the Year of Mercy, Joe will know the correct canonical term here. But he made it so abortions did not have to be absolved by the ordinaries.
There are certain reserved categories of grave sins. And so he made it easier for ordinary priests to forgive the sin of abortion in the confessional, which is great. It&#8217;s a great manifestation of mercy. You want to show the severity of the crime, but you also want to make it easy for those who are repentant. And someone in the confessional doesn&#8217;t probably need to be reminded of the severity of the crime. They needed to be reminded of the mercy of God. None of that is juxtaposing doctrine with mercy. This is the living out of doctrine.
Right? Yeah. Like confession itself is doctrinal. Like, what&#8217;s the point of confession if you don&#8217;t believe the doctrine of the Church?
Yeah, right.
Like, why are you going to go to a therapist? Well, I mean, I guess confession&#8217;s cheaper. You can save some money that way.
All right, well, here&#8217;s Dana Bash over at CNN. Again, I am wholly condemnatory of the reporting. I really do think there was a lot of very kind, considerate and fair reporting. But there are these certain tropes that are interesting. So let&#8217;s hear Dana Bash at CNN framing the issue.
His death leaves the world&#8217;s more than a billion Catholics without a spiritual shepherd. And it leaves the Church to choose which road it will travel. The same more inclusive one walked by a once-in-a-century pontiff, or the road of tradition and conservatism demanded by his rivals.
Yeah.
Wow, that&#8217;s pretty stark.
So this is the kind of thing that I was alluding to at the start of the hour. And it&#8217;s this notion that the Church is a political institution, and as a political institution, it has factions within it. Now, there are among the faithful, factions, but this is not Jesus&#8217; desire that there be factions. But the difficulty here is understanding the Church in political terms and not in the terms of an institution founded by Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls, which is what the Church is. And I actually believe that the lady at CNN and most of the media, they just don&#8217;t get that. They don&#8217;t get it. They&#8217;re not aware of it. They haven&#8217;t experienced. They have no lived experience, as people like to say today, of, for example, the sacramental mercy of Jesus Christ.
Right, right. And again, this juxtaposition of tradition. In this case, you could be one of those hidebound people who wants tradition, or you could be one of these people that wants openness.
Once in a.
Yeah, and maybe he. Is a once-in-a-century pope. That&#8217;s fine if you want to say that. But the tradition of the Church is a tradition of openness to the entire world. That&#8217;s not an innovation. That&#8217;s an insult to Pope Francis to.
Say that it is. I actually kind of wonder. I think the framing of it has me wondering, like, well, who is the 19th-century Pope Francis in this telling? Maybe the 20th-century one.
Pope Leo. It&#8217;s gotta be Pope Leo.
Yeah, we&#8217;d be Leo.
Yeah, yeah.
Pius IX maybe.
So Pius IX thought, until he became a tradition.
The first. Yeah, it&#8217;s early Pius. The N. I was into him before everyone else was into him. I like the early Pius.
The N or the revolutionaries soured them. Yes.
Yeah. So it would be kind of funny to go back through it and see, like, who would Dana Bash call the once-in-a-century figure in each century. But I think it&#8217;s. It is such a bad way of viewing what is going on in the Church because you&#8217;re looking at, you know, as Chris said, there can be a political dimension. There can be all of the infighting and all of the less glamorous parts of the faith. But if that&#8217;s all you see, that is such a cynical, shallow understanding.
And worse, I guess I would say this. I think the way mainstream media tends to even cover politics is pathetic because it rarely rises to the actual substance or the merits. And it&#8217;s just team R and team D and are the red guys going to win or are the blue guys going to win? And it&#8217;s a horse trading and it&#8217;s all of this stuff without a deep, like, political philosophy, and take that critique, multiply it 10,000 times over for anyone trying to talk about the Catholic Church without bothering to find out, what does the Catholic Church teach? Why is it controversial within the Catholic Church? And most importantly, is it true? You know, wouldn&#8217;t it, like, if you&#8217;re not trying to do that, then I don&#8217;t know what it is you&#8217;re trying to do.
It would be fantastic if there were an organization that devoted its energies every day to explaining what the Catholic Church teaches and why she teaches us, even on Easter break.
This is a great idea. And had, for example, a daily radio program where you could call with any question Dana that you have.
Yeah, right.
And, oh, not only that, she did, like, if. And again, CNN. They were very nice to us in the last year. They weren&#8217;t mean to us.
They did a nice report on us, but the. Like. We could help you with this. You could ask us how it works in the Church.
I mean, a lot of it isn&#8217;t malice, but it is a shocking level of ignorance. You know, if I&#8217;ve said this before, but you look at the way they talk about the Eucharist is just the bread and wine, and it would be like if a sports reporter was covering baseball and they called it baskets. It doesn&#8217;t matter what else you&#8217;ve written. You&#8217;ve lost all credibility because you don&#8217;t know the basics.
And we would never accept that for sports reporting, but for some reason, we tend to accept it for religious reporting.
I just want to read one thing from the New Yorker magazine because you know that they&#8217;re going to be good. Ed Kilgore writing in New Yorker magazine today. But while Francis exhibited the intellectual curiosity characteristic of the Jesuit religious order to which he belonged and emphasized the loving spirit, he bent but did not break doctrinal orthodoxy. Those who hoped he would pave a path to ordination of women, full acceptance of gay and divorced Catholics, an end to clerical celibacy, or a reversal of church teachings on abortion or contraception were regularly disappointed.
I mean, that&#8217;s actually a decent take.
It&#8217;s true.
Yeah, they were. Why were they thinking there&#8217;s a delusional character to liberal Catholicism? And I say liberal, and I really mean heretical or, you know, like the kind of Catholicism that says, maybe next year all these church teachings are gonna go away? And you just say, how many years have they been selling you that? It&#8217;s never happened.
But why? Do you ever ask yourself, like, why does the New Yorker magazine care whether the church has clerical celibacy or not? This is something I don&#8217;t understand. Why would they see it as progress? If the Catholic Church would say there&#8217;s no more celibacy for priests, why do they need to.
I mean, I would offer two explanations. One, there can be a sort of mania among certain secular liberals that any sexual self-control is sexual repression and it&#8217;s going to make you do some horrible thing like you&#8217;re going to be violent.
And this is completely baseless. That&#8217;s not how human personality works.
Yes, exactly. But that leads to, I think the second reason, which is there can be a sort of guilt. You look, I sometimes struggle to diet and when I see someone who&#8217;s got their life in order and they do some weird trendy diet, I&#8217;m like, give me a break. That can&#8217;t work. Even if it looks like it&#8217;s clearly working for them, I kind of want it not to be true. That&#8217;s not a good part of myself. I&#8217;m not bragging about that, but just like, come on, could that really.
And I have to think there&#8217;s something similar going on when they&#8217;re living lives of sexual brokenness. And here we are doing what to them probably looks like a fad diet of sexual self-control. And then it&#8217;s like, oh wait, by every immeasurable.
Yeah, yeah. Catholics are happier than everybody else.
Less out of control.
And this is something they&#8217;re really pleased with. And celibacy even works like this. That&#8217;s so mind boggling. And so you want to pathologize it so you don&#8217;t have to take it seriously.
It&#8217;s the compliment that the world pays to the Catholic Church because the world wants her approbation.
Will you both. We started with a Hail Mary prayed for the Holy Father. Would you both join me as we pray our Father for the repose of the soul of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

How the Media Distorts the Life of Pope Francis | Flannel Panel

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent shares about his real most awkward interview and his favorite satirical awkward interview.

FFAF: Awkward and “Awkward” Interviews

<div>How can I understand 1 Timothy 2:8-15? It appears on the surface to be against women.</div><div>One should not misread St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, the verses that typically raise the most concern in the longer passage of 1 Timothy 2:8-15. As a leader in the early Church, Paul is not issuing a categorical ban on women in teaching ministry. He is specifically prohibiting them from the teaching and governing ministry exclusively reserved to the ordained clergy (1 Cor. 14:34-35). That would mean, for example, as it does to the present day, that women cannot give homilies at Mass, a teaching function reserved to bishops, priests, and deacons.
St. Paul clearly affirms elsewhere the equal dignity of men and woman in Christ (Gal. 3:28), as well as that women can pray and prophesy otherwise within Christian worship (1 Cor. 11:5). Paul adds that women provide an important service in teaching the faith in word and deed in other contexts (Titus 2:3-4).
For more information on the role of women in both the early Church and contemporary times, please see the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19761015_inter-insigniores_en.html">Inter Insigniores (On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood)</a>.
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Is 1 Timothy 2:8-15 Anti-Woman?

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In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, we tackle some of the most thought-provoking and practical questions about the Catholic faith. Topics include tips for bringing toddlers to Mass, a deep dive into Exodus 21:7-11, and the moral implications of marrying for an inheritance. We also explore why so much of world history has unfolded outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church, whether Catholics and Muslims worship the same God, and how to reconcile evolution with the Genesis account. This episode is packed with Catholic apologetics, biblical insight, and guidance for living out your faith in everyday situations. Whether you&#8217;re a parent, a student of Scripture, or just seeking clarity, this episode offers something for every Catholic thinker and believer.
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Exodus 21:7-11, Toddlers at Mass, Islam, Evolution, and World History

<div>Is the concept of universal salvation a heresy?</div><div>If by &#8220;universal salvation&#8221; you mean that everyone who ever committed a mortal sin perfectly repents before death and is purified in Purgatory and ultimately arrives in heaven then no, it is not heresy. The Church teaches that all who die in an unrepentant state of mortal sin go to hell for eternity. The Church teaches that hell is real and is eternal but does not teach that any particular person has truly died in a state of unrepentant mortal sin because that is impossible to know.
<blockquote>God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want &#8220;any to perish, but all to come to repentance&#8221; (CCC 1037)</blockquote>
If by that phrase you mean that hell is only temporary or that all souls go to heaven regardless of what they did in life and whether they repent then that is indeed heresy. This heresy goes by several names: universal reconciliation, universal salvation, or Christian universalism.
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Is the Concept of Universal Salvation a Heresy?

What Can Pope Leo Do About AI?

The Renewed Interest In Catholic Pilgrimages

As artificial intelligence reshapes society, what role should the Catholic Church—and the new pope—play? We explore potential responses Pope Leo XIV might take to address AI&#8217;s moral and spiritual implications.
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Will Pope Leo Shape the Church’s Response to AI? | Flannel Panel

While I was watching <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/catholics-versus-a-protestant-coronation">the coronations</a> of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, I was thinking about St. Joan of Arc. My hometown, Wichita, Kansas, is a sister city of Orleans, France. The City of Wichita was planning a ceremony at her statue in front of one of our public libraries in honor of the celebration of her great liberation of Orleans from the English siege on May 8, 1429. And I was anticipating a Shakespeare reading group the next Saturday. We were going to read aloud, by assigned parts, Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part One, in which “Jeanne la Pucelle” is a character—not her most favorable dramatic representation.
As I was watching the coronation ritual, with its oaths and prayers and its almost Catholic order of service, I reflected on the English Reformation and how Henry VIII’s crucial break from Rome and its aftermath influenced so much of what was on the screen. The Kyrie (sung in Welsh), the Gloria (using the sixteenth-century Recusant Catholic William Byrd’s setting—in Latin—from his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_zq-q28FXA">Mass for Four Voices</a>), the Sanctus, the Agnus Dei, the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/veni-creator-spiritus">Veni Creator Spiritus</a>, and the Te Deum Laudamus—all are leftovers from when England was Mary’s Dowry and a Catholic country, united with the vicar of Christ in Rome.
Against that Catholic patrimony, of course, were the King’s oaths to uphold the Reformed Protestant religion, the teachings of the Church of England, the rights of the bishops and clergy, and most of all the Protestant succession to the throne of England, which means that no Catholic may become king or queen regnant. (Since a 2015 amendment, a successor may be married to a Catholic and retain his place in line.) Thinking again about Saint Joan of Arc and centuries of English coronations between the Act of Settlement in 1701 and the accession of King George V, Charles III’s great-grandfather, I recalled the anti-Catholic oath several monarchs had taken, in which they swore “that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.”
We must remember that Saint Joan of Arc was captured by the Duke of Burgundy, one of King Charles VII’s rivals in France, and sold to the English in 1430. Rouen in Normandy was the English stronghold in France, and there she was taken for trial with an ecclesiastical court favorable to the English. When I participated in the reading of Henry VI, Part One the next weekend, I read the role of Sir William Lucy, who confronts Joan over the deaths of the heroic Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and his son John. In that scene and whenever she appears against the English in the play, she is cruel, contemptuous, and crude. To the French, she is their heroine, even when they encounter setbacks, giving them not just hope, but excellent military advice; she is courageous and confident, already hailed as a new patron saint: “No longer on Saint Dennis will we cry / But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint” (Act 1, Scene 6, 28-29).
Mark Twain, on the other hand, thought “she was pure from all spot or baseness,” that there was “no blemish in that rounded and beautiful character,” and that “she is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced” (from the Appendix to the Ignatius Press edition of Twain’s novel, pp. 451-452).
Twain would not recognize Shakespeare’s Joan in the fifth Act. When the English are about to capture her in Act 5, Scene 3, she consorts with Fiends for her safety, not St. Catherine, St. Margaret, or St. Michael the Archangel. In Act 5, Scene 4, when she faces being burned alive at the stake, she denies her father; she lies, connives, and pretends that she’s pregnant by first one, then another, then another; she is without any of the virtues that her Missourian admirer saw.
Whether William Shakespeare, or Thomas Nashe, or some other contributor to the play wrote those scenes—Henry VI, Part One is one of those plays critics think Shakespeare only contributed to, not wrote entirely by himself—he would be shocked that Jeanne la Pucelle has a statue in an Anglican Cathedral.
There is a legend that Henry Beaufort, the cardinal bishop of Gloucester, questioned Joan at her trial for heresy—a famous historical <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Joan_of_Arc#/media/File:Joan_of_arc_interrogation.jpg">painting</a> by Paul Delaroche depicts the scene—but the trial record does not include him in her questioning or condemnation. He may have witnessed her execution on May 30, 1431, and in the Anglican Cathedral of Winchester, a statue of Saint Joan of Arc stands across the aisle from Beaufort’s tomb. According to a May 14, 2015 <a href="https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/12947685.an-icon-betrayed-how-the-bishop-of-winchester-helped-joan-of-arc-to-her-death/">article</a> in the Hampshire Chronicle by Duncan Geddes, it was dedicated “by the Dean of Winchester in 1923, three years after her canonization [by Pope Benedict XV in St. Peter’s Basilica] and nearly five centuries after her death.” A leaflet published at the time calls it “slight act of reparation,” demonstrating that “we in England join in the admiration and reverence for her with the great nation which, in her days, was our gallant enemy, but which has now become our trusted friend and heroic ally.”
Not only that, but Joan is a saint on the Church of England’s liturgical calendar, on the day of her execution, May 30, as a visionary (not of Fiends, but of saints!).
For France, England’s erstwhile enemy, Joan of Arc was victorious even after her death. The English were driven out by 1453, with only Calais in their control, later lost during the reign of Mary I. If Joan had not rallied the French to defeat the English in the fifteenth century, the English Reformation of the sixteenth century might have occurred there too.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us!

Shakespeare Takes a Swipe at Joan of Arc

In this free-for-all-Friday Trent sits down with Biblical bookworm to discuss &#8220;tactics&#8221; for evangelizing.

FFAF: “Tactics” for Evangelization (with Biblical Bookworm)

During the holy season of Advent, themes of “anticipation” and “expectation” capture the feeling of eagerness to celebrate Jesus’s birth at Christmas. Since the joy of awaiting her son is the original Advent, Mary’s pregnancy is a wonderful meditation to accompany this holy time of expectation.
Centuries of preparation by way of prefigurements and prophecies offer undeniable testimony to the holiness of the Incarnation. Yet the way of this fallen world often sees unendurable suffering intertwined with the greatest goods. Mary’s joy and suffering are similarly intertwined.
Jesus’ conception is a divine encounter between a virtuous Jewish maiden and Almighty God. Mary receives an angel on God’s behalf, who invites her to be the Mother of the Redeemer. When she accepts the proposal, immediately Mary is overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit. This crucial event will become a miracle for all time, yet the initial moment of the Incarnation is perfectly and profoundly protected in quiet, tender privacy between Mary and the origin of all creation.
Mary had been betrothed formally to Joseph in a betrothal ceremony known as kiddushin, after which she accepted God’s proposal to bear his Son. When Joseph realized that Mary was pregnant, he offered to release Mary from their betrothal before the ceremony of nisuin, as this chaste man knew he was not the child’s father. The reason Joseph offered to release Mary was that he recognized that Mary had been called to a holy function, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. She had become the new Ark.
As a Jewish man, Joseph knew that in Exodus, the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the Law, his word. To show the importance of the Law as the key to all happiness and eternal life, God instructs the Israelites specifically about how to carry the Tablets of the Law in an ark of the Covenant. The ark must be of acacia wood, with measurements of a given amount of cubits, covered in gold, with golden loops, and with gold-covered wooden acacia rods used for transportation. No one is allowed to touch the ark, and it abides in the Holy of Holies (37:1-25).
The ark is also a symbol for Mary. Mary becomes the personal ark, who contains within herself the living Word of God. Like the original Ark of the Covenant, Mary is the vessel whom God carefully prepares. She is immaculately conceived, allowing Jesus to draw life from a holy womb. Thus, Jesus’ own spotless human body may be a perfect human sacrifice, the lamb without blemish, to atone for Adam’s sin.
With profound admiration, Joseph considers himself unworthy to marry and take care of Mary. He would have known that Uzziah died when he dared to touch the ark (2 Sam. 6:7). Joseph understood that Mary was now set apart as a holy vessel. This is why the angel must tell Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:20). God wanted worthy Joseph to protect and care for her.
Because of her pregnancy, Mary anticipates both her own child’s arrival and the prophesied Messiah. Mary is poignantly at the center of the story of sin and redemption. Jesus’ arrival is certainly the most intricately woven, carefully crafted, lovingly nurtured, and profound story ever told.
Jesus Christ is furled within Mary’s womb. His tiny embryonic self is enfolded into a miniature particle of living, material immortality. God and man wrap up into one within her. All of salvation history relies on these few tiny cells, multiplying quietly within Mary.
For many mothers, the feeling of holding a life within is exciting, especially with a first child. Everything is new! A woman’s body stretches and grows in strange and uncomfortable ways. As with any new mother, surely Mary’s thoughts simultaneously expanded.
Likely, Mary thought about where the baby would sleep. She prepared blankets. She wove swaddling clothes. She may have thought about what the baby would look like, and how she and Joseph would educate him in the scriptures. Mary must have been anticipating the natural details that surround any human birth.
At the same time, Mary was also thinking about others. She visited her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth, who cried with joy, “Blessed am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me!” Joy is a fruit of the union of the divine in the earthly. Like David dancing before the ark, John leaped in his mother’s womb. Mary responded to Elizabeth, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior!”
The friendship between Mary and Elizabeth is a gift and a blessing. Friendship is an important source of strength when trials and difficulties arise. We draw strength and courage from our time with friends, sharing ourselves in conversation and activity with people we trust. Mary did not know what difficulties would lie ahead for her, but she was given three months to create memories she could draw upon when her troubles came. When evil intentions surrounded her son, Mary could hear Elizabeth in her memory saying that she had been “blessed” by Mary’s presence, which may have been a great consolation.
At the time, Caesar Augustus insisted that everyone return to their fatherland for a census, so Mary traveled from her home to Bethlehem. In her ninth month, she rode on a donkey, made intermittent stops, and stayed in an unfamiliar place to deliver her child. Amid her joy was also sadness, hardship, and suffering.
Surrounding the Infancy Narratives is intentional imagery foreshadowing Jesus’s eucharistic significance. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means the House of Bread, and manger derives from the French word manger (pronounced mon-ZHEY), meaning “to eat.” The wise men bring gold to signify that Jesus is a king, frankincense to suggest that he will be a sacrifice, and myrrh to point toward his death and burial, so that from the beginning, Jesus’ arrival points to his ultimate purpose as the sacred Redeemer.
In addition to the trials of her journey and giving birth in a manger, Mary had added suffering in that the earthly king of the Jews, Herod, wanted to kill her child. God’s providence protected Jesus, so that he would live to establish his church and become the redeeming sacrifice, but Mary must have lived among her peers knowing that because of her child, two years’ worth of male babies of her friends and relations had been killed.
Mary felt this deep sorrow, as well as the anguish of her friends as their young children were murdered. Those women may have hated Mary. In this, Mary experienced another temporal suffering.
I remember meditating on this when my oldest son was born in January. He was my first, and I loved walking through my first pregnancy with Mary as we neared Christmas—but when my baby arrived in January, I remember suddenly relating to the other women who were pregnant around the time of Mary, and thinking how angry I would have been when my own son was murdered on behalf of Jesus!
Suddenly, I understood one of the reasons why Mary’s heart would be pierced with seven sorrows, including the slaughtering of the Holy Innocents. Her grief and sadness must have been so deep. Mary had a heavy vocation! She had the joy of anticipating and seeing the face of God, yet, because of this, she also had the suffering that accompanied his undertaking in our fallen world.
Mary could remember Elizabeth saying that Jesus and she were “blessed,” and those words may have echoed in her ears again and again, as they do in us when we pray the Hail Mary. Like Mary, we too are called to be good to our friends, and our enemies, because our words of truth and encouragement may resound in times we do not expect and cannot foresee, but the memory of our words and actions may replay for others, and theirs for us.
In every epic, when the wrong people are in charge, a hero arises. The good news is that Jesus does triumph! His life, death, and resurrection conquer sin and the grave. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. With the angel Gabriel, we may exclaim, “Rejoice, O highly favored daughter!” (Luke 1:28).
This Christmas, while we wait to celebrate with gifts the birthday of Jesus, let us thank God for the many gifts he has given us. We are part of his divine epic, and we, like Mary, may anticipate the joyful day when we too will see the face of our Redeemer.

Mary at the Center of It All

Hebrews 10:14 says that Jesus’s single offering on the cross perfects those for all time who are being sanctified. Yet, Catholics go to Mass and leave still imperfect. So, how can the Mass be Jesus’ single offering if Catholics aren’t perfected when th...

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&#8220;How can the Mass be Jesus’ single offering and Purgatory?&#8221; This episode explores the relationship between the Mass and sanctification, addressing why Catholics may still feel imperfect after attending. Additionally, we delve into the doctrine of purgatory, the meaning of &#8216;the heaven and the new earth,&#8217; and the role of laypeople in distributing communion.
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How Can the Mass Be Jesus’ Single Offering and Purgatory?

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I’m not Catholic because of the divisions I see. It’s difficult to figure out which Church is true.

&#8220;Can non-Catholics be saved?&#8221; This episode explores the complexities of salvation and the Catholic faith, addressing questions like the role of Mariology, the fear of the Lord, and the implications of Vatican II. Tune in as we also discuss concerns about worship practices and the challenges of unity among different Christian denominations.
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&#8220;Responding to Attacks on the Papacy&#8221; This episode explores the role of the pope in the Catholic Church, addressing questions like the implications of priest celibacy in light of 1 Timothy 3 and the reasoning behind Timothy&#8217;s circumcision by Paul. Additionally, we delve into the Church&#8217;s stance on alcohol and its interpretation of love in Romans.
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Responding to Attacks on the Papacy – Why Aren’t You Catholic?

Many Protestants argue the pope was never meant to lead the Church long-term. We examine biblical and historical evidence for the papacy, Peter’s unique role, and how the Church has understood this office from the beginning.
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