November 2015 - To Give a Defense

TO GIVE A DEFENSE

No, Virginia, blogs are not the magisterium. 7QT XXI, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 27, 2015 • Blogging & Writing; Seven Quick Takes

This is really a post about the New Evangelization and how blogs fit in (and how they do not), but I must go through some set-up first. I had already chosen the new title for this blog, secured the new URL, and was fast at work making it pretty, when lo! over on Facebook someone — let us call him A. — shared a presumptuous post to my timeline. The post in question was a podcast promoting some obscure Marian apparition, rejected by the local bishop. I won’t give it further attention by naming it here; it is that bad.

What infallibility does not mean.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 24, 2015 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

In my years of engaging apologetics topics with Protestants, and even sometimes fellow Catholics, I have found that the Church teaching on infallibility is one of the most difficult for people to grasp. It is more often necessary to explain what infallibility does not mean than what it does, and so root out the errors in people’s understanding. For example, infallibility does not mean that the pope is without sin, nor does it mean that every utterance of a pope is infallible. A Wednesday audience and a papal interview are not infallible. The pope’s opinion of the Red Sox is not infallible.