priesthood Archives - To Give a Defense

Mr. Pavone admits to CNA: I told my bishop to shut up and leave me alone.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 18, 2023 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals; priesthood

When CNA reported that the Vatican had defrocked Mr. Pavone, he complained that he had no idea. “How did CNA learn about this before I did?” he cried. He wants us to believe he rose one morning in the pink of innocence, said the Office, made his coffee and got online, read CNA, and sat there astonied. Apparently the Vatican defrocked him and decided not to tell him. That’s credible. But now, Pavone tells CNA that it may have gotten lost in the stacks and stacks of mail that come in to Priests for Life. “I have no idea what they sent me,” said the befuddled Pavone. “The communication broke down a long time ago. They may indeed have sent something. I simply didn’t see it.”

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.

Do priests rob Christ of his high priesthood? Part 2 of a series on John Calvin’s Institutes IV.18.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 1, 2015 • Anti Catholicism; Apologetics; priesthood

“Satan,” John Calvin says at the beginning of Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.18, “has attempted to adulterate and envelop the sacred Supper of Christ as with thick darkness.” Those are high words. How has Satan done this? you may ask. Oh, it was “with most pestilential error,” Calvin tells us. For lo! “he blinded almost the whole world into the belief that the Mass was a sacrifice and oblation for obtaining the remission of sins.” Calvin has no patience for anyone who holds to any such idea as that; he describes it as “the common opinion of the vulgar.”