Original title: “How Cardinal Newman Convinced me of the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church” Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) in the 1840s, at the time of his own conversion [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * [Written in 1996. Published in The Coming Home Newsletter, Sep-Dec 1997, pp. 1-8; also in The Latin Mass, Fall 1999, Vol. 8, No. 4, 65-71. This is the most “theologically technical” version of the several variants of my conversion story] * * * * *... Read more
1903 German map of the Galatian region (in present-day Turkey) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * * * This article has been re-uploaded under the title, St. Paul on Sinners in the Church (Notorious Galatians). ***** Read more
Caricature of G.K. Chesterton by David Low (1928) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * Quotations from my book, The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton (2009) * * * * * Agnosticism When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no... Read more
NASA photo [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] (12-29-06) [all passages RSV] * * * * * 1. “Cloud of Witnesses” – Hebrews 12:1 . . . we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses . . . Word Studies in the New Testament (Marvin R. Vincent, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980; originally 1887; Vol. 4, p. 536), a famous, standard Protestant reference work, comments on this verse as follows: ‘Witnesses’ does not mean spectators [Greek martus, from which is derived martyr],... Read more
The Madonna of the Pinks (1506-1507), by Raphael (1483-1520) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] Linguistic and Exegetical Considerations [from my book, The Catholic Verses; (2004). This is the entirety of Chapter Thirteen: “The Blessed Virgin Mary” (pp. 181-190) ] * * * * * Luke 1:28 [RSV]: “And he came to her and said, ‘Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!'” [The RSVCE translates kecharitomene (“favored one” above) as “full of grace”] Catholics believe that this verse is an indication of... Read more
[see the information page for this book, for full details and all purchase options] (published in August 2009 by Sophia Institute Press, 445 pages) * * * * * You may have heard of Nave’s Topical Bible (a work I have loved for years). This is Dave’s Topical Bible. Contrary to what many believe, Catholic doctrine is not made up by popes and theologians but is derived entirely from revelation, as this book shows. This collection of passages from the Bible is overwhelming evidence... Read more
(published in September 2002 by Our Sunday Visitor) I wrote the 44 apologetics inserts on as many topics: explaining and defending all of the basic Catholic doctrines and “controversial” issues, in capsule summary form, with more than 800 references to the Scripture and Catechism of the Catholic Church. My name never appeared in this volume. Great for humility: not so great for helping me to sell books! In 2005 it was revised as The New Catholic Answer Bible (mentioning my name this... Read more
St. Joseph church, Detroit: my home parish since March 1991: German Gothic revival style (1870s) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license] (mid-1990s) * * * * * Nona the Non-Denominational Protestant: I don’t get it, Peter, why Catholics keep putting up with the same old empty form prayers and rituals every Sunday at Mass. Don’t you ever have the desire to grow in the Lord, and feel God’s presence and praise Him exuberantly? Peter the “Papist”: How do you know that all Catholics don’t... Read more
The Transfiguration (1594), by Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] (1995) * * * * * Martin [Protestant]: It baffles me, Joe, how you Catholics can believe you’re saved by works, when the Bible says “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16). Joe [Catholic]: We don’t. Let me explain. First of all, belief in Christ means also to obey Him. This is shown in passages where the opposite of belief is disobedience, such as in 1 Pet 2:7 and... Read more
Iraqi (Yazidi) refugee girl with her family at Newroz camp in the Al-Hassakah province, northeastern Syria (August 2014), where 12,000 were being helped by the International Rescue Committee [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license] * * * * * Bring the refugees in by the multiple thousands (I put up a paper on my blog five years ago about immigrants — even illegal ones — citing Church statements on compassionate treatment), but they must be vetted, just as immigrants have always been.... Read more
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