Including a Discussion of the Doctrine’s Dogmatic Status and Espousal of it by Nine Recent Popes and Vatican II The Virgin Mary from the Ghent Altarpiece, 1432, by Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * * * This topic is one of the most misunderstood areas of Catholic theology: not only by Protestants, but also by not a few Catholics. Human beings cannot fully understand many complex and deep areas of theology, because they are... Read more
Saint Paul, by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * * * The future universality of the priesthood is clearly indicated in the Old Testament: Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts. (cf. Is 66:18, 21; Jer... Read more
By Jan Tik [Flickr / CC by 2.0 license] * * * * * It’s always been as highly amusing as it is annoying to me to observe the constant stream of atheist invective and epithets hurled at Christians and Christianity. I take pains to note that not all atheists act in this fashion; but online, it sure seems like those who don’t are a tiny minority of, maybe 10-15%. Many have opined that the frequently unsavory nature of Internet discourse... Read more
Photo by “wolter_tom” [public domain / Pixabay] * * * * * Our Protestant friends often tell us that “the Church is the invisible sum total of all true believers.” Many Protestants (including myself in my evangelical years in the 80s) are taught that institutions are “bad” and that “religion” (another bad word) is infested with the “barnacles” of man-made traditions. This sort of thinking, I submit, has more of “the 60s” in it than of 60 A.D. The... Read more
Plato: marble copy of the portrait made by Silanion, c. 370 BC for the Academia in Athens. [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license] * * * * * GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, 31 October, 2011. The Presbyterian writer Calvin B. Calvin startled and astonished friends and comrades on Thursday when he revealed that he had conversed with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (c. 424-348 B. C.): who has been bored for centuries because he hasn’t found anyone remotely as... Read more
[Pixabay / public domain] The Catholic Church assuredly does not claim any such thing; only that an authoritative Christian tradition and institutional Church was necessary to establish and proclaim the canon of Scripture. In many places, both directly and indirectly, Sacred Scripture teaches that it is inspired and infallible. What it doesn’t provide, however, is its own canon (list of books). Simply put: Scripture is what it is. 1 Timothy 3:16 and other passages clearly teach inspiration. The Catholic Church... Read more
Page from Codex Vaticanus Septuagint, from 1209. The Greek Septuagint Bible contained the deuterocanonical books. [public domain / Wikipedia] The Old Testament in Catholic Bibles contains seven more books than are found in Protestant Bibles (46 and 39, respectively). Protestants call them (inaccurately) the Apocrypha, while Catholics refer to them as the deuterocanon. These seven books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach), and Baruch. They were included in the Septuagint (the Greek... Read more
Or, “Do ‘right’ and ‘left’ properly apply (by analogy) to an ecclesiastical spectrum as well as to political analysis?” Servant of God, Dorothy Day (1897-1980) in 1934 [public domain / Wikipedia] * * * * * There is such a thing as an ecclesiological left and right. “Radicals” is one way of referring to the far right or far left. Radical Catholic reactionaries are far right, which becomes in effect very similar to far left (dissidence, disobedience, pick-and-choose, Protestant-like private... Read more
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) in 1956 [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] * * * * * Our Protestant friends (particularly evangelicals) sometimes claim that all Christians are priests, and that there is no special class set apart from others in the Church. I submit, however (and hope to show below) that the Bible teaches about clergy, who are set apart from lay members of the Church. It also gives indication of priestly function. The priesthood as we know... Read more
Come Unto Me, by Carl Bloch (1834-1890) [Flickr / CC by 2.0 license] Anti-Catholic reformed Baptist James White wrote on his Facebook page on 11-28-14: [Rick] Warren slips in his capitulation to Rome at 26:06 of this video, calling the Pope “Holy Father” (a term used in the Bible ONLY of God the Father by Jesus—remember, the Papacy claims the titles of all of the Trinity, Holy Father, Alter Christus [all Roman priests do], and Vicar of Christ , which is... Read more
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