This Paul VI encyclical really deserves a birthday party.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 25, 2018 • Church Social Teaching

 

On March 26, 1967, Pope Paul VI pub­lished Pop­u­lo­rum Pro­gres­sio. It is about the right to a just wage, employ­ment, safe work­ing con­di­tions, to join a union, and the uni­ver­sal des­ti­na­tion of goods. Did I miss it last year when Catholics threw a 50th birth­day par­ty for Pop­u­lo­rum Pro­gres­sio? I mean, John Paul II thought it mer­it­ed birth­day cel­e­bra­tions. In 1987, he cel­e­brat­ed it with a brand new encycli­cal. You may recall. It was called Sol­lic­i­tu­do Rei Socialis. John Paul II said that PP was a “dis­tin­guished” addi­tion to Catholic social teach­ing.

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The Bible says call no man father! Answers to common objections IV, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 22, 2018 • Apologetics

 

Odd it is that the same per­son who insists that “This is my body” is just a metaphor also insists that “Call no man father” must be utter­ly lit­er­al. But no one real­ly thinks that I can not call my dad “father.” No one real­ly thinks I can not call George Wash­ing­ton “the father of his coun­try.” (Well, maybe there are a few odd­balls who do say such things, but the real objec­tion is not to call­ing dads “father” or Wash­ing­tons “father” but to call­ing priests “father.” The objec­tion is reserved for priests.) To be fair, there is a cer­tain log­ic in it.

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Let’s watch as St. John Paul II “kitchen sinks” pro-life.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 15, 2018 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Social Teaching; Pro-Life Issues

 

Recent­ly Leila “Bub­bles” Miller, a Catholic writer with a cer­tain fol­low­ing, plained, yet again, about what she calls the “kitchen sink­ing” of the term “pro-life.” She wor­ries — giv­en the exis­tence of that pesky New Pro Life Movement—that the term must now include every­thing, I mean every­thing, even the wery kitchen sink. Because prop­er san­i­ta­tion is some­how not a pro-life issue. Imag­ine this. Her post was in response to an arti­cle at the right-wing Catholic Vote, by Eric Sam­mons, enti­tled “Why I’m Through Being Pro-Life.” In it he bewails the New Pro Life Move­ment.

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Yes, the term “social justice” can be found in Church encyclicals.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 15, 2018 • Church Social Teaching

 

Some­one saith that though, yes, we do owe the Church reli­gious assent even when it does not speak infal­li­bly, but still and all, I will “eat my hat” if you can find the term “social jus­tice” in any encycli­cal. Real­ly? In Quadra­ges­i­mo Anno (1931), Pope Pius XI uses the term nine times. He writes: “To each, there­fore, must be giv­en his own share of goods … [in] con­for­mi­ty with the norms of the com­mon good, that is, social jus­tice.” Social jus­tice is part of the “moral law,” says Pius XI; it is, by 1931, “firm­ly estab­lished” in Church teach­ing. Some hat-eat­ing is in order, methinks.

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The Eucharist is only a symbol! Answers to common objections III, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 15, 2018 • Apologetics

 

As it hap­pens, I have already answered this objec­tion before in a two-part exe­ge­sis of John 6. But recent­ly an anti-Catholic stat­ed the objec­tion to tran­sub­stan­ti­a­tion in a pecu­liar­ly abso­lutist sort of way: “[Com­mu­nion] is sup­posed to be done pure­ly has a sym­bol or metaphor of the body and blood of Christ.” Wait. It is sup­posed to be mere­ly a sym­bol? Who says? Where is that in the Bible? Is there a text where Christ says, “Now, do this as a sym­bol of my body and blood?” With­out that, we have a ques­tion of inter­pre­ta­tion.

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Priests can’t forgive sins! Only God! Answers to common objections II, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 8, 2018 • Apologetics; Sacraments

 

Sup­pose you owed a debt you could not repay. Sup­pose fur­ther that my father is a wealthy man, and because you are a fam­i­ly friend, he decides to pay off this debt for you. He entrusts the mon­ey to me to pass on to you. I give you the mon­ey, and you pay the debt. In an imme­di­ate sense, I gave you the mon­ey; in an absolute sense, how­ev­er, the mon­ey came from my father. He paid your debt, not me. He just did so through me, as an inter­me­di­ary. That is how Catholics view the sacra­ment of penance. Priests, of them­selves, do not for­give sins.

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Catholics pray to dead saints! Answers to common objections I, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 24, 2018 • Apologetics

 

So there I was, inno­cent­ly mind­ing my own busi­ness, when some­one hands me the follow­ing “I love you but let me attack you” piece of anti-Catholi­cism. “I love you sis­ter and I’m sor­ry that you think I’m per­se­cut­ing you because I’m not. I nev­er once judged or con­demned you. I was expos­ing the false church itself and now I will talk about a few rea­sons why it is blas­phe­mous. … First thing would be pray­ing to dead saints, this is idol­a­try since prayer is a form of wor­ship. The def­i­n­i­tion of prayer is …” Yes, do let us look at that def­i­n­i­tion. That real­ly will clear a lot up.

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Pope Francis contradicts Benedict XVI and John Paul II on abortion? Fake (Site) News!

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 11, 2018 • False Report; Pope Francis; Pro-Life Issues

 

I tell you again: Give no cre­dence to Fake Site News. Nev­er give them cre­dence, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope. Nev­er give them cre­dence when they are bash­ing the pope, but par­tic­u­lar­ly give them no cre­dence when the author is John-Hen­ry West­en. A look at his absurd attempt, here, to claim that Pope Fran­cis some­how con­tra­dicts Bene­dict XVI and John Paul II on abor­tion, gives us one more exam­ple why. But first let us go to Gaudete et Exsul­tate and read the words of Pope Fran­cis about the equal sacred­ness of all human life.

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Yes, Virginia, the Catechism is a Magisterial document.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 4, 2018 • Apologetics

 

The Mag­is­teri­um is the teach­ing author­i­ty of the Catholic Church. The word does, after all, come from the Latin mag­is­ter, which means “teacher.” So when St. John Paul II, in pro­mul­gat­ing the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church, called it a “sure norm for teach­ing the faith,” he is call­ing it Mag­is­te­r­i­al by def­i­n­i­tion. He said that in Fidei Deposi­tum, which is an apos­tolic con­sti­tu­tion, which is the high­est, most solemn decree a pope can issue. You don’t get more Mag­is­te­r­i­al. It’s not as though the pope is say­ing, “You know, here’s a pri­vate opin­ion of mine.” It’s an offi­cial act of his papa­cy.

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What does Pope Francis think Our Lord Jesus Christ wills? Part 7 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 26, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

The Cor­rec­tors claim the pope teach­es: “Our Lord Jesus Christ wills that the Church aban­don her peren­ni­al dis­ci­pline of refus­ing the Eucharist to the divorced and remar­ried and of refus­ing abso­lu­tion to the divorced and remar­ried who do not express con­tri­tion for their state of life and a firm pur­pose of amend­ment with regard to it.” Hmm. I’ve often had the dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing out exact­ly where they find these here­sies, for they are slop­py. They nev­er say, “Heresy X is to be found in Para­graph Y.” Search for your­self. Report back to me if you see what I don’t.

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A reply to Patrick Tomlinson and his reputed stumper of a riddle for pro-lifers.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 25, 2017 • Pro-Life Issues

 

A sci­ence fic­tion author named Patrick S. Tom­lin­son has a ques­tion that, if we are to believe the hype, “baf­fles abor­tion foes.” What is this stumper of a ques­tion? you ask. Here it is: Would you save one thou­sand embryos or one child in a fire? Real­ly? That’s it? This is the ques­tion that’s sup­posed to con­found us? This is the ques­tion that gets Raw Sto­ry in a heat of excite­ment and Mr. Tom­lin­son many new fol­low­ers on Twit­ter? Please. The ques­tion is a cliché. You prob­a­bly heard some­thing very much like it in high school.

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Ultramontanism and a supposed conflict between Pope Francis & Pius XII on capital punishment.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 15, 2017 • Moral Theology; Pope Francis; Pro-Life Issues

 

Joseph Shaw of the Latin Mass Soci­ety, who is all wrought up about “Ultra­mon­tanism” and killing peo­ple, cites what he thinks are con­flict­ing state­ments between Pope Pius XII and Pope Fran­cis. Here is Pius XII: “Even when it is a ques­tion of the exe­cu­tion of a con­demned man, the State does not dis­pose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the pub­lic pow­er to deprive the con­demned per­son of the enjoy­ment of life in expi­a­tion of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dis­posed him­self of his right to live.” That’s sup­posed to con­tra­dict Pope Fran­cis some­how.

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Does Pope Francis deny negative prohibitions? Part 6 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 8, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

Here is the sixth heresy The Cor­rec­tors claim to find in the text: “Moral prin­ci­ples and moral truths con­tained in divine rev­e­la­tion and in the nat­ur­al law do not include neg­a­tive pro­hi­bi­tions that absolute­ly for­bid par­tic­u­lar kinds of action, inas­much as these are always grave­ly unlaw­ful on account of their object.” Now, as I not­ed ear­li­er, it is a con­tin­u­al prob­lem to try to fig­ure out where The Cor­rec­tors think we are to find any one par­tic­u­lar heresy. They nev­er say “Heresy X is to be found in Para­graph Y.” We have to guess. They do slop­py work.

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Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. XIX. In which Fake Site News and CRISIS!!! misrepresent Pope Francis on civil unions.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 4, 2017 • LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome

 

Pope Fran­cis Derang­ment Syn­drome has got­ten so bad that Scan­lon at Cri­sis!!! and Bak­lin­s­ki at Fake Site News can quote the pope accu­rate­ly but still attribute to those words a hereti­cal mean­ing vast­ly at odds with what they plain­ly say. They engage in calum­ny in plain sight, and hope that their audi­ence won’t notice. The pope says, “Mar­riage is only between a man and a woman, a union between two men is some­thing else,” and Fake Site and Cri­sis!!! report: Pope approves of same-sex unions! They’re not try­ing to hide their decep­tion any more.

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What does Pope Francis think of conscience? Part 5 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 2, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

Here is the fifth heresy The Cor­rec­tors say they find in Amor­is Laeti­tia: “Cons­cience can tru­ly and right­ly judge that sex­u­al acts be­tween per­sons who have con­tract­ed a civ­il mar­riage with each oth­er, although one or both of them is sacra­men­tal­ly mar­ried to anoth­er per­son, can some­times be moral­ly right or request­ed or even com­mand­ed by God.” So the text says that God some­times can ask peo­ple in an irreg­u­lar union to keep engag­ing in the sex­u­al act. Real­ly? Is that the nec­es­sary inter­pre­ta­tion of Amor­is Laeti­tia 303? I’m skep­ti­cal.

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