Category: Exegesis

On death penalty, Roma locuta est, causa finita est.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 2, 2018 • Apologetics; Exegesis; Pro-Life Issues

 

Nat­u­ral­ly, the usu­al sus­pects are scream­ing: CRISIS!!! Phil Lawler, worst known for his recent book call­ing the pope a “lost shep­herd,” bemoans “anoth­er dose of con­fu­sion.” (If some­one finds a Lawler arti­cle about the pope in which he doesn’t claim to be “con­fused,” let me know.) “Once again,” Mr. Lawler writes, “Pope Fran­cis has giv­en the world rea­son to believe that the teach­ings of the Catholic Church can and will change.” As though he has nev­er heard of New­man and new wine can be forced into old wine­skins, by gee by gosh by gum.

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The singular “they”; and, anthropos in Matt. 13:44.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 1, 2018 • English Grammar; Exegesis

 

A weird dis­cus­sion broke out on Face­book today; it involved a priest’s change to the read­ing of Matt. 13:44. The NAB reads: “The king­dom of heav­en is like a trea­sure buried in a field, which a per­son finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The priest seems to have changed “sells all that he has” to “sells all that they have.” That was it, but that was enough for some to com­plain about “pro­gres­sives” and “lib­er­al fem­i­nism” con­spir­ing against our pro­nouns. Noth­ing’s safe any­more, I tell you.

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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?”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Michael Hichborn, aka “The Lepanto Institute,” under attack by eeeeevil social justice warriors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 16, 2017 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Social Teaching; Exegesis

 

Michael Hich­born is still bunkered up some­where at Lep­an­to after I post­ed a vicious hit piece against him. He writes to us from that bunker to defend him­self against the “enraged” “social jus­tice left­ists mas­querad­ing as Catholics in our midst.” Said mas­quer­ade par­ty is in a “blind rage” over his wery men­tion of Judas! Now Lep­an­to is being per­se­cut­ed over a new meme sug­gest­ing that ugly and emp­ty church build­ings are a result of char­i­ty to the poor and that this is how “Judas got his wish.” Blind rage from SJWs ensued.

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Hichborn meme attempts to link social justice to Judas Iscariot.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 14, 2017 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Social Teaching; Exegesis

 

Hich­born miss­es the point. Judas did not put ser­vice to the poor above wor­ship of God. Judas does not want to give the mon­ey to the poor at all; he wants to keep it for him­self and pre­tend he gave it to the poor. Thiev­ery from the poor does not match any def­i­n­i­tion of social jus­tice that I know of. If Mr. Hich­born thinks it does, he needs to point us to who defines it in any such way. If some­one claims to advo­cate social jus­tice, but in real­i­ty diverts mon­ey meant for the poor to his own use, that is a betray­al of social jus­tice, not its essence.

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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.

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God defines marriage. To accept same-sex marriage is heresy.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 15, 2016 • Exegesis; Moral Theology

 

In order to deny that Church teach­ing on this mat­ter is a point of divine rev­e­la­tion, one would have to deny: that the words of Christ in Matt. 19:4 do not count as divine rev­e­la­tion; or, that Matt. 19:4 does not apply to the ques­tion of same-sex mar­riage. I don’t see how one could sus­tain either claim. Since Christ is God, what­ev­er he teach­es is, by def­i­n­i­tion, divine rev­e­la­tion. To claim that, though Christ is answer­ing a ques­tion about divorce, he is not stat­ing a prin­ci­ple that applies to any ques­tion about mar­riage, seems arbi­trary and unnec­es­sar­i­ly lim­it­ing.

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Gendering God to suit an agenda: A reply to Rabbi Mark Sameth.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 13, 2016 • Exegesis; LGBT Issues

 

At the New York Times, Rab­bi Mark Sameth asks pert­ly: “Is God Trans­gen­der?” Here’s the short answer: No. God has nei­ther sex nor gen­der. The for­mer is a bio­log­i­cal con­struct, cre­at­ed by God; and the lat­ter is a lin­guis­tic con­struct, cre­at­ed by man. (See what I did there?) God, being tran­scen­dent, is out­side both. You can’t gen­der God. But Sameth attempts to do just that, which is why a longer answer is required here. After some intro­duc­to­ry para­graphs involv­ing a cousin who had sex-reas­sign­ment surgery, he turns to a few bib­li­cal texts.

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Three verses that don’t prove sola scriptura.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 20, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis; sola scriptura

 

In con­ver­sa­tions with Protes­tants, the top­ic of sola scrip­tura will almost always come up. Accord­ing to those who are per­suad­ed by this idea, the Bible — six­ty-six, not sev­en­ty-three, books — is the sole infal­li­ble rule of faith and prac­tice for the Church. What­ev­er is not specif­i­cal­ly in the Bible, or may be log­i­cal­ly inferred from it, is not bind­ing upon Chris­tians. The idea is actu­al­ly self-refut­ing when asked this sim­ple ques­tion: “So where is sola scrip­tura in the Bible? If it is not to be found there, then the teach­ing is self-refut­ing: What­ev­er is not in the Bible is not bind­ing on Chris­tians.

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Is doubting the Resurrection “good for Christians”?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 1, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis

 

In a recent arti­cle in the Wash­ing­ton Post, Jacob Lupfer argues that “doubt­ing the Bible is good for Chris­tians.” Since the arti­cle was pub­lished on Good Fri­day, I sus­pect­ed that the oblig­a­tory year­ly scoff­ing at the Res­ur­rec­tion was afoot. Lupfer did not dis­ap­point. The sec­u­lar media is always busy at its charism of instruct­ing Chris­tians on how the Bible should real­ly be read. It is not as though we inquire with the Church or any­thing like that; instead, we look to our prophets in the media. Sev­er­al things fas­ci­nate me about Lupfer­’s attempt to play prophet.

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Your Bible probably has a mistranslation in it at James 2:14.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 20, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis; Good Works

 

In James 2:14. (Unless you read the Douay-Rheims, or the King James.) Here is James 2:14 in the NAB trans­la­tion that is read at Mass: “What good is it, my broth­ers, if some­one says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? I empha­size the word “that” because it is wrong. It should not be there. Here is the same verse in the 1899 Douay-Rheims: “What shall it prof­it, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him? Notice that “that” does not appear here. But most mod­ern Bible trans­la­tions include it, or some vari­a­tion.

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Does the pope really think Jesus sinned?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 8, 2016 • Exegesis; Pope Francis

 

At the end of that pil­grim­age,” the pope says, “Jesus returned to Nazareth and was obe­di­ent to his par­ents. … A pil­grim­age does not end when we arrive at our des­ti­na­tion, but when we return home and resume our every­day lives. … We know what Jesus did on that occa­sion. Instead of return­ing home with his fam­i­ly, he stayed in Jerusalem, in the Tem­ple, caus­ing great dis­tress to Mary and Joseph who were unable to find him. For this lit­tle ‘escapade,’ Jesus prob­a­bly had to beg for­give­ness of his par­ents.” Does this mean the pope thinks Jesus sinned?

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