Month: May 2018
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My Position on Vatican II
Inevitably, whenever starting a traditional Catholic blog such as this, I end up with two accusations. This comes from the hyper-polarity in the Catholic world today, which can only be remedied by a return to an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) that is in continuity with the history and tradition of the […]
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The Long-Term Game Plan
In 1969, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013), gave an interview on a German radio broadcast. At the time, what he said seemed absurd. Today, it is known as “The Ratzinger Prophecy.” “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live […]
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The Origin of the Bible
All Christians revere the Bible as the written word of God. Few, however, know why that is. In fact, most Christians just assume that to be the case without ever questioning it. They hear it from their pastors and their churches. Everybody says it. But how do we know the Bible really is the authentic […]
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Faith Alone?
Some years back, my daughter asked me: “Daddy, what is a Protestant?” My answer was simply this. A Protestant is a Christian who “protests” various teachings of the Catholic Church, but retains core Catholic teaching, such as the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for example. I stopped there as the […]
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Purgatory
The subject of purgatory is a very difficult one for Protestants to grasp, namely because in their view, it just doesn’t make any sense. From the typical Protestant perspective, a person is either saved, or not saved, at the moment of death. If saved, the person’s soul should go immediately to heaven, right? If not […]
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Pope Francis and the Limits of Papal Authority
The above image is a screenshot of the Drudge Report on the morning of 21 May 2018, which is the staple source of breaking news in the United States and around the world. Basically, the Drudge Report compiles leading news headlines around the globe and aggregates them onto a single one-page source with clickable links […]
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Outside the Church there is No Salvation
If you have not already read my essay on Jesus Christ Founded the Catholic Church, you should do so first for context. The Catholic Church has always taught extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, which means: “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.” Traditionally, many have taken this to mean that unless you are a signed and certified […]
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Everything Old is New Again
The statistics don’t lie. They can’t lie. They’re all telling the same story. Mainline Catholicism is imploding. It’s more pronounced in some areas than others, but with just a few exceptions, dioceses all across the United States are shrinking. They are in a state of managed decline, with parish mergers and closures. The priest shortage […]
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The Bible is Not Enough
The doctrine (or discipline) of Sola Scriptura is Latin for “Scripture Only” or what many people refer to as the “Bible Alone” doctrine. What it typically means today is a little different than what it was intended to mean 500 years ago when the German Protestant Revolutionary Martin Luther first uttered the phrase. Nevertheless, it […]
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Jesus Christ Founded the Catholic Church
In my previous essay, Jesus Christ is God, I argued that Jesus Christ is God made flesh. Once we accept this we need to start taking him seriously. If God exists, and I argued that he does in There is a God, and Jesus Christ is that God, then what he said and did while […]
Complete Christianity 