Apologetics Archives - Page 5 of 10

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!

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.

Did Pope Honorius I teach the Monothelite heresy?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 30, 2017 • Apologetics; Church History

Pope Honorius I (625–638) is a favorite example among anti-Catholic Protestants (among them our old friend Dr.* James White) who wish to dispute the doctrine of papal infallibility. Of late, some Catholics have picked up on this, seemingly in an effort to lay groundwork for the claim that Pope Francis teaches heresy. “Why, popes have taught heresy before!” they will say. “The Third Council of Constantinople condemned Pope Honorius I. Thus do Catholics, in a zeal of Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome, begin to sound like Protestants who reject the papacy.

Supremacy of conscience, but only if formed by the Church.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 29, 2017 • Apologetics

According to Donum Veritatis, conscience gives us no rationale to dissent from the Church. Conscience is “supreme,” but not subjective, and not independent from the Church. “Argumentation appealing to the obligation to follow one’s own conscience,” the CDF says, “cannot legitimate dissent.” Although every believer “must follow his conscience, he is also obliged to form it. … Setting up a supreme magisterium of conscience in opposition to the magisterium of the Church” is “incompatible with the economy of Revelation.”

Stop it already with “But Paul corrected Peter”!

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 28, 2017 • Apologetics; Exegesis

But Paul corrected Peter!” is a standard objection raised in one of two contexts. Either it is raised by Protestants in order to deny papal infallibility and papal primacy; or it is raised by Catholics in order to defend their rebellion against Pope Francis, or the notion that people like Cardinal Burke should issue a “formal correction” of the Holy Father. The problem is that this biblical example does not at all prove what those who use it think it does. Peter, as pope, made a judgment binding on the whole Church. His judgment was correct. But what happened was, he was a hypocrite.

Dissenting from the Magisterium causes great spiritual harm.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 23, 2017 • Apologetics

In Donum Veritatis, the CDF lists several forms dissent against the Magisterium might take. (This is the fourth post in a series that I link to in the text.) Dissent,” the CDF clarifies, is different from “personal difficulties.” One must distinguish. You can work through a personal difficulty; but to dissent is to rebel. “Spiritual harm” comes of dissent. There are five kinds: philosophical liberalism, manipulation of public opinion, acceptance only of infallible teachings (sound familiar?), argumentum ad populum, and false appeals to conscience. Dissent is a “leaven of infidelity.”

But Alt! The Church says the Ordinary Magisterium may have defects!

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 21, 2017 • Apologetics

“But Alt! The very same text you cite to claim that Catholics must submit to the Magisterium on all points also says that some teachings may have ‘deficiences.’ The CDF says some things might be reformable. Do you really mean to say Catholics must not object to such things?” Yes. This is not the green light for dissent some claim it to be. Let’s take a look at the actual extent of these words. The discussion begins at §24, where Donum Veritatis reads: “[T]he Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve … conjectural elements.”

Luke 10:16: Whoever rejects the pope rejects God.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 20, 2017 • Apologetics; Exegesis

Edward Pentin tweets that the threatened “correction” of Pope Francis over Amoris Laetitia is still a threat. “Informed sources” tell him this. Oh goody. Cardinal Burke was the first to threaten this queer thing, and Lysergic Acid News could barely wait. How very inconvenient, then, when Cardinal Müller, the prefect of the CDF, rejected any such thought as Burke’s. It “harms the Church,” said Muller, to speak thus. Well, yeah, and there’s no such thing in Catholic tradition as a “formal correction” of a pope. The pope is the Church’s supreme teacher.

What does it mean to give “religious assent”?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 7, 2017 • Apologetics

Glad you asked. The Church develops the concept in Donum Veritatis, as well as the Doctrinal Commentary on the Profession of Faith. The Profession refers to it as a “religious submission of will and intellect”; which implies that Catholics must obey (will) as well as believe (intellect) the teachings of the authentic Magisterium. They must do so whether those teachings are “infallible” or not. This means that a Catholic must think with the mind of the Church; he must conform his intellect with what the Church proposes as true.

We should retire this balderdash about papal infallibility …

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 4, 2017 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

And I mean the balderdash that says you only have to listen to the pope when he speaks infallibly. It is not what the Catechism says; it is not what the Profession of Faith says, it is not what Lumen Gentium 25 says, and it is not what Canon Law 752 says: “Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act.”

Yes, Christ ordained his apostles as priests.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 2, 2017 • Apologetics; Exegesis; priesthood

That this is authoritative Catholic teaching we know from the Catechism, as well as from the Council of Trent. But we also know this by reference to the Greek text of the New Testament, from the Didache, from J.N.D. Kelly, and a cross-reference to Exodus 29:38 in the Greek Septuagint, in which the word used describing the sacrifice of a priest is the very same word that Christ uses in Luke 22:19 when he says “Do this in remembrance of me.” He is telling them, “Sacrifice this,” which means he is ordaining them; for only a priest can offer a sacrifice.

But what if a pope did teach heresy ex cathedra?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 3, 2017 • Apologetics

Dustin Lattimore, a Protestant, asked the question on Facebook. Earlier today, Dave Armstrong also also blogged about it. Mr. Armstrong, in denying the possibility of ex cathedra heresy, still hedges a bit. “I don’t think it is an “impossible counterfactual” or “logically impossible” in all possible or conceivable worlds.” Oh, really? Now, as I see it, Lattimore’s question is like asking, “But what if God had made a round square?” There are no round squares. Round squares are logically impossible. I don’t like to get into quantum apologetics.

Jesus died for Fidel Castro. This should not be a controversy

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 28, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis

Or it should not be a controversy for Catholics. I know that Calvinists say Christ died only for the Elect. (Though they also say we can’t know the identity of the Elect, and would amend my title to read, “Jesus May Have Died for Castro, But We Don’t Know.”). Whereas, for Catholics (those who are rightly catechized) if we can’t know whether Castro is saved, we do know that Christ died for him. Christ died for him just as surely as he died for Mother Teresa. We know this from Ezek. 18:23, 2 Cor. 5:15, 1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Pet. 3:9, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Four questions for defenders of sola scriptura.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 9, 2016 • Apologetics; sola scriptura

A commonplace argument among Catholic apologists, whenever the topic of sola scriptura arises, is that without an authority external to the Bible, one can not know which books belong in the Bible in the first place. No Protestant would argue that the table of contents is infallible, and yet somehow one must know that Galatians belongs in the Bible but not the Epistle to the Laodiceans, the Gospel of Luke but not the Gospel of Philip. Protestant apologist Stephen Wolfe, in “A Short Defense of Sola Scriptura,” tries to sidestep this problem.