Douthat’s Pope-Bashing Book Attacks Vatican II

Last updated on: August 19, 2020 at 12:17 pm By Dave Armstrong

Maike Hickson at One Peter Five, reviewed Ross Douthat’s book, To Change the Church on 5 March 2018. I want to focus on one aspect: how Douthat views Vatican II. To me this offers hard evidence that he is thinking like a reactionary in this key aspect (precisely as fellow pope-bashing author Phil Lawler has also expressed). The clincher and dead giveaway is Douthat’s raising the notion of Vatican II being deliberately “ambiguous.” That is absolutely classic reactionary thinking about the ecumenical... Read more

St. Paul’s Rebuke of St. Peter = Francis-Bashing?

Last updated on: August 19, 2020 at 11:47 am By Dave Armstrong

Catholic apologist Matt Fradd offered a show (on 6-8-20), where he interviewed my very good friend Steve Ray (whom I’ve known since 1982, long before both of us “poped”). It was entitled, “Is it Heretical to Question the Pope?” I offered a criticism in the combox, which I have now expanded in this post. ***** Of course, St. Paul was a fellow apostle and writer of much of the New Testament, and he criticized Pope Peter (Gal 2:11-14). This is... Read more

Women Have No Sexual Desire During Infertility?

Last updated on: August 18, 2020 at 1:29 pm By Dave Armstrong

+ Natural Family Planning (NFP) and Sexual Desire This was repeatedly claimed by a person I recently dialogued with (“Dialogue on NFP: Anti-Sex and Anti-Pleasure?”). He (pontificating at all of 20 years old) claimed: It’s no more different from robotic sex, and it’s quite artificial to do it. It’s tragic because sex is supposed to be loving and bonding and sex during infertile periods really don’t qualify as any of those two for most people. Who wants to have sex... Read more

Bishop Schneider: No Jesus Better than Hand-Communion

Last updated on: August 18, 2020 at 1:55 pm By Dave Armstrong

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Nobody can force us to receive the Body of Christ in a way that constitutes a risk of the loss of the fragments, and a decrease in reverence, as is the way of receiving Communion in the hand. . . . In these cases, it is better to make a Spiritual Communion, which fills the soul with special graces. (2-28-20: published at Rorate Caeli, which opposed Pope Francis from his first day in office, relying on a Holocaust... Read more

“Catholic Verses”: Review in “Homiletic & Pastoral Review”

Last updated on: August 17, 2020 at 6:50 pm By Dave Armstrong

[review from October 2005 by Michael J. Miller] Here is my introduction, written at the time on my blog, followed by the review: Michael J. Miller was kind enough to review my first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, in the May 2004 issue of this respected magazine. I just heard about that today (I always seem to be the last one to find out about these reviews — odd!). Now in the October 2005 issue, he has also favorably... Read more

President Trump Never Heard of Frederick Douglass?

Last updated on: August 17, 2020 at 11:24 am By Dave Armstrong

[originally 2-1-17 on Facebook] President Trump said, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.” If we do a Google search, liberals and otherwise anti-Trump zealots are engaging in verbal diarrhea all over the place, making utter fools of themselves, in claiming that this proves that Trump thinks Frederick Douglass is still alive or that he is utterly ignorant about who he was. Mother Jones pontificated:... Read more

Face Masks: Is Scientific Evidence Unanimous?

Last updated on: August 17, 2020 at 10:23 am By Dave Armstrong

[originally a Facebook post from 7-10-20] As usual, we are being told (it seems to be part and parcel of liberalism) that “all scientists” and “everyone” believe that all must wear masks in the current situation (except for small numbers outdoors, in one’s home, etc.). In the interest of fair and honest debate, that I have always tried to foster and encourage, I ran across an article that presents significant medical / scientific data arguing that face masks have little... Read more

God and “Natural Evil”: A Thought Experiment

Last updated on: August 16, 2020 at 10:35 am By Dave Armstrong

This is a portion of a 2002 article that was included (with additional Augustine and Aquinas quotations) in my book, Christian Worldview vs. Postmodernism (see the entire article). It deals with the problem of evil, which I, and I think, most Christian apologists and philosophers of religion, regard as the most serious objection to Christianity and God’s existence. ***** Critics object that the free will defense (FWD) doesn’t address natural evils (things such as disease, earthquakes, famine, falling off a mountain, etc.),... Read more

Mary’s Assumption: Patristic Analogy to Protestant Distinctives

Last updated on: August 16, 2020 at 9:20 am By Dave Armstrong

Protestant anti-Catholic apologist Jason Engwer wrote the post, “Early Ignorance Of The Assumption Of Mary” (8-15-20). His words will be in blue below. Then I will make two arguments from analogy. ***** Today is the Feast of the Assumption, commemorating Mary’s alleged bodily assumption to heaven. There’s a significant line of evidence that’s seldom discussed that suggests the early Christians had no concept of an assumption of Mary. Many early patristic sources cite Enoch, Elijah, and Paul as examples of... Read more

Trump & Children in Cages, Separated from Parents

Last updated on: August 15, 2020 at 10:00 am By Dave Armstrong

with Paul Hoffer [compiled from three lengthy Facebook threads, dated 19, 20, and 21 June 2018; see the fuller discussions: one / two / three. Here I will mostly collect my own thoughts and links to articles about it.] ***** The discussion started with my link to this article: “Ted Cruz Introduces Emergency Legislation to End Family Separation – It Looks Solid” (David French, National Review, 6-18-18) And of course the Democrats (being the very exemplars of Christian compassion, unlike... Read more