April 2017 - To Give a Defense

A reader says 1 Cor. 11:28–29 does not bar grave sinners from the Eucharist.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 27, 2017 • Exegesis

Paul tells us why it is necessary to have a proper disposition before we receive the Eucharist. He begins by rebuking the Corinthians for their “divisions” and “factions.” He also condemns some abuses that crept into the common meal prior to the Eucharist. The rich, who could bring a large share of food and drink, ended up gorging themselves to the disadvantage of the poor, who were not able to bring much. As a result, “one [man] is hungry and another is drunk.” “Do you despise the Church of God,” he asks, “and humiliate those who have nothing?”

Mr. Trump contracepts promise to Little Sisters of the Poor.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 25, 2017 • Politics

Peradventure Mr. Trump is just plotting his next strong blow against Obamacare? But no. I know it runs counter to every impulse of the Trump apologist, but let us not delude ourselves here: Mr. Trump needs no permission from the HHS; he can order the rule change. But he hasn’t done so. Why? Oh, everyone expected a rule change. Mr. Trump is on the side of the nuns. He is on the side of religious freedom. He will crush abortion like the serpent’s head. Pinky swear. We’ll get no religious freedom under Mrs. Clinton; we must vote Trump; he’s on our side; you’ll see.

Dissenting Catholic Dick Durbin tells Dems not to dissent on abortion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 24, 2017 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

The hypocrisy of Sen. Dick Durbin knows no bounds. He is a Catholic who publicly dissents from his Church on abortion. And yet he has no difficulty in telling fellow Democrats that if they are pro-life, they have no place in the party. So as Durbin sees it, you have a higher obligation to your political party than you do to your Church. You should obey men rather than God. Fortunately, Durbin’s bishop has invoked Canon 915 and forbidden him Holy Communion. This should also be the case with Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, and Kaine. It won’t, but it should.

The incoherence of “Just clarify Amoris! Answer the dubia!”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 24, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia

I have said myself: Pope Francis should answer the dubia. I have also said that AL is orthodox, is entirely consistent with Familiaris Consortio, and that anyone who reads it otherwise is in error. I just wish the pope would say that himself. That said, I find most of those who rally, circulate petitions, ventilate in the media, and otherwise make a spectacle of themselves, to be incoherent in their demand that the pope give clarity. On the one hand, they say, “The pope should answer the dubia. He should clarify.” On the other hand, they have already made up their minds that AL is heretical.

A poem for my stillborn daughter, Caitlyn.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 18, 2017 • Personal Narrative

Eleven years ago today, my daughter was stillborn. That day, in the hospital, a nurse who provided grief support to parents who’d experienced perinatal loss visited with me. (Kim, who had eclampsia and had had a seizure the prior morning, was still spending a large part of the day asleep and half-aware of what was going on.) During the conversation, the nurse suggested to me that I write something for my daughter and have it buried with her, in order to mitigate a sense I had that I wouldn’t be able to do or say all that I wanted to.

Sean Spicer is right: German Jews weren’t German citizens.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 12, 2017 • Politics

Sean Spicer stupefied the masses when he said: “I think when you come to sarin gas, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.” Hitler was much better than Assad! But this claim that Hitler never gassed his own people? Think Progress says it is “false.” NBC News says it is false. Everywhere, people are saying it is false. Actually, Mr. Spicer is right: German Jews were not German citizens. On September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Race Laws stripped Jews of Reich citizenship. So when Hitler used the sarin gas, he was not using it on German citizens.

Does Canon 194 provide an opening to depose a heretical pope?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 10, 2017 • Canon Law

A reader points to Canon 194 as a possible opening for deposing a heretical pope. The canon lists certain conditions under which a person is “removed from an ecclesiastical office by the law itself.” These are: (1) A person who has lost the clerical state; (2) A person who has publicly defected from the Catholic faith or from the communion of the Church; (3) A cleric who has attempted marriage even if only civilly. The canon adds an important qualification. “The removal mentioned in nn. 2 and 3 can be enforced only if it is established by …”

A heretic would not cease to be pope: Thoughts on Bellarmine.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 7, 2017 • Apologetics; Canon Law

I have argued before that a pope can not be a heretic. There is nothing that makes it theoretically impossible; the Holy Spirit only protects the pope from binding Catholics to heresy. But it seems to me that the safest way for the Holy Spirit do to this is simply to ensure that no one who is a heretic, or who could become a heretic, would ever be elected pope. The other option, I guess, would be that the Holy Spirit could strike the pope down with a stroke or a heart attack just before the fatal moment when any such binding were to occur. These are extravagant speculations.

About that Syllabus of Errors? Guess what else Pius IX condemned.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 6, 2017 • Apologetics

Enemies of so-called “innovations” in Vatican II like to cite the Syllabus of Errors in order to claim that the Council contains Modernist heresies. For example, they like to cite No. 15, in which Pius IX condemns the belief that “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” This, say disciples of Lefebvre, contradicts Dignitatis Humanae, which insists upon religious freedom. But guess what else Pius IX condemns in that Syllabus? These pre-Vatican II documents are full of surprises!

Close reading the pope on Martin Luther.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 5, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Justification; Pope Francis

Let us do that thing that the blogging Catholic must sometimes do, which is to parse a difficult passage from one of the pope’s interviews. This, again, was his interview last June as he winged his way back to Rome from Armenia. A reporter said, “Hey! That Martin Luther guy. You can rehabilitate him, right? Perhaps lift his excommunication? What say you?” It was an insane question. Martin Luther’s excommunication ended in 1546 when he died. Now, I have been told: “Well, you know, the pope only meant to say Luther was not altogether wrong.

Pope Francis is wrong about Luther and justification.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 5, 2017 • Apologetics; Justification; Pope Francis

Things the pope says in an interview are not Magisterial. Here is part of what the pope said: “And today Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants, all of us agree on the doctrine of justification. On this point, which is very important, he did not err.” Now see, this infuriates me as an apologist (and former Protestant). I defend the poor man, but at times he exasperates me. I pointed this out in 2014, and I point it out again now: The CDF hath said that Catholics and Lutherans do not in fact “agree” on justification. We must look at this text.

Oh, that conference on deposing a pope? Church Miscreant had it wrong. And Fake Site News.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 4, 2017 • False Report

Last month our friends at Church Miscreant were all jittery at the news that there would be a conference in Paris on how to depose a pope. Canon lawyers, Christine Niles gushed, would be there! You know, actual canon lawyers, who might advise on how to get rid of that pesky Bergoglio. Two people scheduled to speak at the conference even signed a letter critiquing Amoris Laetitia! Another supported the dubia! Fake Site News tried to make the same connection. Turns out, it was nothing of the kind. Wrong again at Fake Site and Miscreant; what a shock.