Of Course You Have Religious Freedom. Except When the State Says You Don’t: Deconstructing the Absolute Statism of Combox Junkie Doug Indeap, If That Is His Name.

May 1, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Doug Indeap (if that is his real name) spends a profuse amount of time trolling Catholic and conservative blogs and using the comboxes to instruct us all in his own firm belief in statism and, in particular, a squeezingly cramped and claustrophobic interpretation of first amendment religious freedom. His view of religious freedom can be summed up simply: Of course you have religious freedom; except when the state says you don’t. But he has it backwards: The purpose of the law is not to limit the First Amendment; rather, the purpose of the First Amendment is to limit the law. Religion, not the state, is the guarantor of freedom, because its ultimate end is the Good, rather than power for its own sake. [Read more] Read more

In Defense of Bishop Campbell

April 25, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Everyone, everywhere must support Bishop Campbell for the courageous stand he has taken in defending the Church’s moral teaching against intrinsic evil. He has acted as a Catholic bishop is supposed to act. Everyone, everywhere should pray that he has the gift of fortitude from the Holy Spirit to stand by his action, whatever the cost to himself personally. Because in the end this is not about Bishop Campbell personally, but about the moral good and the dignity of the human person and the truth of the Lord. For as Pope Francis put it when he was Cardinal Bergoglio, the attempt to foist gay marriage upon society is “a machination of the father of lies.” And the Church will not compromise with him. [Read more] Read more

Leonardo De Chirico Has Fun With Semantics

April 24, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Those cultic, pagan Romanists, not content just to add books to the the Bible, now add definitions to the dictionary! So claims Leonardo De Chirico, who is jealous of the word "evangelical." Meanwhile, John Bugay entertains us with his dreadful fear of Catholic expansionism, blames John Paul II, accuses George Weigel of linguistic theft, and breathlessly excoriates "sacraments, Mariology, hierarchy, traditions, papacy, devotions." (He leaves out Rosaries, vain repetitions, indulgences, Mass cards, saints, liturgies, vestments, trinkets, baubles, and beads.) But the fun has only begun, for Mr. De Chirico's sense of entitlement would not be complete without an allusion to the Trojan Horse. [Read more] Read more

Why Jason Stellman Has Protestantism Nailed

April 24, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Jason Stellman is spot-on in his exposure of the Protestant double-standard on infallibility; i.e., that Peter was infallible when he wrote two epistles, but not when he taught as pope. Protestant apologists fail to explain how the Holy Spirit could guide the authors of Scripture but not the Magisterium of the Church. They fail to explain how God is capable of turning water into wine in 30 A.D., but just couldn’t have appeared before a poor Polish nun in the 1930s to tell her about His great mercy. They fail to explain how the one is the action of God, but the other little better than ignorant superstition. For this reason Protestantism is "practically and ecclesiologically atheist." [Read more] Read more

Regarding the First Protestant Critique of Pope Francis’s Words on Finding Jesus in the Church

April 24, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Yesterday I predicted that it would not only be dissenters within the Church, but also dissenters outside the Church, who would be stirred to verbal hand-wringing over Pope Francis's homily in which he said that "it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church.” And lo! but a few hours after I made my prediction came this post from the familiar and prolific TurretinFan — the amazing, the undaunted Mr. X of Calvinism. In this post, I look at four main points that Mr. X stresses in his response to Pope Francis, and hopefully give a counter-response that clarifies what I believe the pope to have had in mind; with this caveat lector, that I am not giving an infallible interpretation here . [Read more] Read more

Pope Francis: Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Iesu

April 23, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

The Church does not say that non-Catholics will not be saved; but all theological nuance aside, the crucial thing for those outside the Church to understand is this: You are living a life that is less than what Christ intended. Christ intended for grace to be poured out through the sacraments; you don’t have them. Christ intended for us to encounter Him in the Eucharist; you haven’t received it. Christ intended for us to be led into “all truth” within the Church; you are being shepherded, by your own admission, by fallible teachers. You may talk about Christ until you are blue in the face, but you do not know Him; you have not encountered Him; and your life is less than what He meant for it to be. [Read more] Read more

The Amazing Mr. X Riddles Us More on Papal Infallibility

April 20, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

I am worried about Mr. X. Normally, he is one of the abler critics of the Catholic Church; apart from Dr.* James White, Mr. X is probably the most capable member of Team Apologian, and Dr.* White was correct to praise “the consistency of his work.” His earlier critiques of two of my articles on sola scriptura, though wrongheaded, were at least cogent. They at least made arguments that were serious and scholarly and worth addressing. But I am afraid some inconsistency has crept in to the works, starting with an article of his on Pope John XX , and now just yesterday with a very strange addition to his latest examination of papal succession and infallibility. I frankly know not what to make of it. [Read more] Read more

A Clarification On the Salvation of Infants Who Die Without Baptism

April 20, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

According to a theological inquiry commissioned by Pope John Paul II: "Many factors give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us. What has been revealed is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism. But we have strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church." [Read more] Read more

The Amazing Mr. X Plays Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That

April 19, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

Time and again, the Protestant apologist lacks a basic understanding of the point of infallibility. The reason God gave the pope this charism was only for the purpose of preserving the Church from error in faith or morals. When defining ordinals, the purity of Church teaching, and unity of Christians, is not at stake, so the Holy Spirit does not guide the pope. It is not a question of, “If the pope is infallible in large things, he must also be infallible in small things” — as if, to be of use, infallibility has to mean “possessing all knowledge.” Rather, infallibility is a charism that the Holy Spirit grants the pope only under very specific circumstances and for very specific purposes. [Read more] Read more

United to the Suffering of Mary

April 18, 2013 By Scott Eric Alt

I had always heard people, when the theology of suffering came up, talk about uniting your suffering to the suffering of Christ. I had never considered the possibility of uniting my suffering to the suffering of Mary. I realized: I had been approaching Mary entirely the wrong way. You know, you never get over the loss of your child. Never. A lot of people ask “Why?” but that’s a nonsense question. Even if God were to come down to me and explain why, and even if I could understand it, I don’t want to know why: I just want to have my daughter back. The right thing, though, is not to hide your suffering away in the hopes that it won’t be there because you can’t see it. The right thing is to embrace your suffering. [Read more] Read more