HENRY MATTHEW ALT

TO GIVE A DEFENSE

Announcing a new byline: Henry Matthew Alt.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 9, 2024 • Blogging

Last year, when I reached my tenth anniver­sary with this blog, I made a change to Hen­ry Scott Alt as the byline; that was to reflect my thought that I would also have it legal­ly changed. Then The Bad Thing hap­pened, which I will not oth­er­wise detail, ever. It is enough to say that, because of The Bad Thing, I stopped blog­ging and delet­ed all my social media accounts, sim­ply so that I could address it as I need­ed. When I returned ear­li­er this year, I did so under my orig­i­nal name. But now The Bad Thing is over, and the overness of it—the per­ma­nent, world-with­out-end overness of it—frees me to pur­sue ear­li­er pur­pos­es.

The Catechism, homosexuality, gay priests, & Fr. James Martin.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 1, 2024 • LGBT Issues

Fr. James Mar­tin is up to his inno­cent-sound­ing trick­eries again. I’ve writ­ten about them before, but first things first. There’s been a lot of doubt­ing on my Face­book page of late that the Cat­e­chism calls homosexuality—the ori­en­ta­tion itself, inde­pen­dent of any homo­sex­u­al acts—“disordered.” But the does say that, quite plain­ly: “The num­ber of men and women who have deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies is not neg­li­gi­ble. This incli­na­tion, which is objec­tive­ly dis­or­dered, con­sti­tutes for most of them a tri­al.”

The last thing I am going to write about Donald Trump.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 24, 2024 • Politics

I do not like Joe Biden. (I think he’s a good guy, but as pres­i­dent I don’t like him.) I think he’s too old, he’s vis­i­bly show­ing his age, I dis­agree with prob­a­bly 90% of his policies–including his sup­port for abor­tion rights, includ­ing his sup­port for same-sex “mar­riage.” But if this were an ear­li­er year, if it were a very dif­fer­ent can­di­date on the Repub­li­can side, all of that would actu­al­ly mat­ter. I would not hes­i­tate to vote for Ronald Rea­gan over Joe Biden. I would not hes­i­tate to vote for George W. Bush over Joe Biden. If the GOP did what it will not do and nom­i­nat­ed Lynne Cheney, I would vote for her over Joe Biden. But that is not the elec­tion choice we actu­al­ly do have, and for that rea­son none of those crit­i­cisms I have of Joe Biden mat­ter.

The important difference between “grave matter” and “mortal sin.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 3, 2024 • Theology

If you’re not Catholic, you may be think­ing: “But Alt! You guys throw these terms around—mortal sin; grave mat­ter; venial sin—I don’t know what these mean.” I get it; it’s not you. Catholics con­flate “mor­tal sin” and “grave mat­ter” all the time—even those who know the dif­fer­ence and could rat­tle it off by rote if brought before the Inqui­si­tion. Often, some will speak as though there is only a ten­u­ous dif­fer­ence at best, of no more note than the dif­fer­ence between mud and mire. “Abor­tion is a mor­tal sin!” they will cry.

Infallibility does not mean a pope can tell us all things. [Part 3.3 of a series.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 19, 2024 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

Protestants—some of them: those who spend a large por­tion of their lives pon­der­ing the errors of Rome—seem to think infal­li­bil­i­ty means a pope can tell us all things. Or at least those things I real­ly would like to know. A pope can use his infal­li­bil­i­ty to tell us any­thing he wants to reveal. Can’t he? If he want­ed, he could tell me how many jel­ly beans are in the jar, or how many steps there are between the Tiber Riv­er and Peter Kwasniewski’s license plate. So why doesn’t he give an infal­li­ble inter­pre­ta­tion of every verse of Scrip­ture?

I’m glad to report that Ultramontanists do not exist.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 15, 2024 • False Report; papacy

Ultra­mon­tanists are like the bogey­man: a myth­i­cal being used to fright­en chil­dren. Thus at The Catholic Thing, Fr. Jef­frey Kir­by warns his read­ers about “the rise of the Ultra­mon­tanists.” You nev­er know when the bogey­man is going to come and get you; you nev­er know when the Ultra­mon­tanist is going to wreck the Church. It’s an always-present dan­ger. I have very fre­quent­ly been accused of being an Ultra­mon­tanist, for no oth­er rea­son than that I defend the pope and believe the Holy Spir­it safe­guards the Church from ever teach­ing error. Thus when­ev­er I see an arti­cle like this one, the first thing I do is check whether the author defines what an Ultra­mon­tanist is. Not every­one who uses the term does; it’s a dis­ser­vice to the read­er.

Not everything a pope says is infallible. [Part 3.2 of a series.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 14, 2024 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

Popes say a lot; you can count on one hand the num­ber of times infal­li­bil­i­ty has been exer­cised in 175 years. When Pope Fran­cis said “Who am I to judge?” he was not infal­li­ble. Even when you inter­pret that state­ment correctly—and most peo­ple don’t—he was not infal­li­ble. None of Bene­dict XVI’s social jus­tice encycli­cals are infal­li­ble. John Paul II’s The­ol­o­gy of the Body is not infal­li­ble. Humanae Vitae is not infal­li­ble. Noth­ing that John XXIII taught is infal­li­ble. When a pope gives a homi­ly, or teach­es at a Wednes­day audi­ence, or speaks to a reporter, or engages in small talk dur­ing break­fast, or screams obscen­i­ties after stub­bing his toe, he does not speak infal­li­bly.

Papal infallibility does not mean a pope can’t sin. [Part 3.1 of a series.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 2, 2023 • Apologetics; papacy; Papal Infallibility

Now that we have seen how the Church defines infal­li­bil­i­ty at Vat­i­can I, we can turn to what infal­li­bil­i­ty does not mean. And the first thing it does not mean is that a pope can nev­er sin. Catholics would have to deny their own Church his­to­ry to believe this claim, typ­i­cal­ly made by anti-Catholic Protes­tants. Popes Stephen VI, John XII, Urban VI, Six­tus IV, Inno­cent VIII, Alexan­der VI, and Paul IV (to name only a few) were noto­ri­ous sin­ners. Catholics have hid­den none of this and don’t need to.

Fractures well cured make us more strong. [“Repentance” by George Herbert.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 27, 2023 • Literature; Liturgical Year

Mis­erere me, Domine—“Have mer­cy on me, O Lord”; that’s the 51st psalm. If you pray the tra­di­tion­al Litur­gy of the Hours, you pray it every morn­ing at Lauds. You begin every day with repen­tance, as you begin every Mass with repen­tance. “Have mer­cy on me, O Lord, for I have sinned.” It is good for those to be the first words you say each day. In that spir­it George Her­bert begins his poem: “Lord, I con­fesse my sinne is great.” Before a Catholic becomes a full mem­ber of the Church, the first thing he or she does is go to Con­fes­sion. Repen­tance is first; the Church’s read­ings for the first Sun­day of Lent, Year A—the first of the three-year cycle—begin with the reminder that we all have sinned in Adam. Repen­tance is first.

At Crisis, misquoting Bellarmine to justify schism.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 25, 2023 • Liturgy; papacy; Pope Francis; Saints

There are two ways to mis­quote some­one, and one of them is to get the words wrong. The oth­er is to get the words right but take them so far out of con­text that you mis­rep­re­sent what the author meant. At Cri­sis, some­one named Kennedy Hall is the lat­est to revive a com­mon mis­quo­ta­tion of Bel­larmine that falls under the lat­ter species. His arti­cle is titled “Pope Francis’s Schism.” He does not mean that Pope Fran­cis is in schism, or could go into schism. He means that the pope would cause a schism if he decides to pro­hib­it bish­ops from allow­ing the Tri­den­tine rite with­out Rome’s per­mis­sion. The prob­lem I have with all of this is less that Catholics like Mr. Hall are going around proph­esy­ing schism. My prob­lem is the abuse of Bel­larmine to jus­ti­fy it.

Ludwig Ott’s anatomy of papal infallibility. [Part 2 of a series.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 24, 2023 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

In part 2 of this series, I want to call your atten­tion to Lud­wig Ott’s dis­cus­sion of infal­li­bil­i­ty in Fun­da­men­tals of Catholic Dog­ma (p. 284), because he gives a very help­ful anato­my of Vat­i­can I’s def­i­n­i­tion. Ott was a Ger­man priest, the­olo­gian, and medieval­ist, as well as a pro­fes­sor of dog­mat­ic the­ol­o­gy, and Fun­da­men­tals is a stan­dard ref­er­ence work in the field (togeth­er with the high­ly respect­ed Sources of Catholic Dog­ma, by Hen­ry Den­zinger). Denzinger’s book was first pub­lished in 1854, and Ott’s a cen­tu­ry lat­er, but they remain the stan­dard ref­er­ences on Catholic dog­ma. Ott dis­tin­guish­es four aspects of papal infal­li­bil­i­ty: the bear­er; the object; the con­di­tion; and the ground.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun a year or two, but wallowed in a score?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 22, 2023 • Literature; Liturgical Year; Sacraments

It is weari­some to need to go to con­fes­sion every week, week after week, but it is more weari­some to go once a year, even once every sev­er­al years. I don’t know why I have often cho­sen the lat­ter. The sins pile up like laun­dry you stare at in denial. That’s my prob­lem this Ash Wednes­day: soiled clothes. Maybe it’s my prob­lem every Ash Wednes­day. Ten Lents ago, when it was my first year blog­ging, I spent a litur­gi­cal sea­son writ­ing about the Vic­to­ri­an poet Christi­na Ros­set­ti. I’ve not done that kind of thing since, so per­haps it’s time again. This year I’m going to talk about John Donne—with a break one week for George Her­bert and anoth­er week for Ger­ard Man­ley Hop­kins.

Dissecting Vatican I’s narrow definition of infallibility. [Part 1 of a series.]

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 13, 2023 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

When the Protes­tant apol­o­gist Wal­ter Mar­tin debat­ed infa­mous athe­ist Mada­lyn Mur­ray O’Hair on a radio show in 1968, he declared: “First we’re going to talk about lan­guage.” He was call­ing out her equiv­o­ca­tion on key terms and try­ing to get her to admit that “in cer­tain con­texts, words always mean the same thing.” O’Hair nev­er did admit it, but that was a price­less line: “First we’re going to talk about lan­guage.” This post is the first in a series on papal infal­li­bil­i­ty; and because infal­li­bil­i­ty is so wide­ly misunderstood—even by Catholic stan­dards of misunderstanding—we’re going to talk first about how the Church defines it.

What is schism? A primer.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 9, 2023 • Theology

Amer­i­can fac­tion­al­ist Car­di­nal Burke, who false­ly accus­es Joe Biden of being an “apos­tate,” and who despite the pre­pos­ter­ous hopes of Pope Fran­cis haters is not papa­bile, says that Pope Fran­cis is in schism. Here is where canon law, which Burke pre­sum­ably knows so well, doesn’t do his reput­ed sagac­i­ty any favors. Schism, says Canon 751, is “the refusal of sub­mis­sion to the Supreme Pon­tiff or of com­mu­nion with the mem­bers of the Church sub­ject to him.” How is it that Pope Fran­cis refus­es to sub­mit to him­self? Even Burke under­stood that accus­ing the pope of schism is a “con­tra­dic­tion.”

What is apostasy? A primer.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 8, 2023 • Theology

Words mat­ter, and because words mat­ter, they must be used precisely—particularly when you are talk­ing about sins against the faith. Two years ago, Car­di­nal Burke false­ly claimed that Pres­i­dent Biden is an “apos­tate.” “Such a per­son,” Burke said, “who claims to be a Catholic and yet pro­motes in such an open, obdu­rate, and aggres­sive way a crime like pro­cured abor­tion is in the state, at least, of apos­ta­sy.” This was mad­ness. Car­di­nal Burke is a canon lawyer and ought to know bet­ter. Is it pos­si­ble to count the errors in these words?

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