When someone is wounded — whether it’s a parent who lost a child and blames God, or someone who’s been sexually abused and is struggling to figure out who they are, or someone who’s been falsely accused by people he knew — the last thing they are looking for is the Right Answers. And certainly they’re not looking to be interrogated by someone who wants to know if they’re still following all the moral laws. There are times when this kind of response only makes their hurt worse. They want love.Apologetics has an important place, but this is what God revealed to Julian of Norwich: “I saw that God is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. God is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for love, which is so tender that God may never desert us.”
When compassion is superior to apologetics.
BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 18, 2020 • Apologetics; On Other Blogs
It’s possible St. Thomas More is responsible for the fact that so many Catholics like to cite John 20:30 – 31 and John 21:25 as proof texts against sola scriptura. I haven’t tried to trace the argument forward. Certain it is, however, that you’ll hear it a lot if you watch “The Journey Home” on EWTN, and every now and then you’ll find it on Catholic apologetics Web sites and in longish apologetics “guides.” Here’s John 20:30 – 31 in the RSV-CE: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”
Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Kazakhstan, once again feels a need to tell us that God does not positively will the diversity of religions we find in the world. We’ve been through this before. It all goes back to a joint statement that the pope signed with Muslim leaders at Abu Dhabi in February of 2019. The pope clarified that the diversity of religions is part of God’s permissive will, and LifeSiteNews trumpeted that as a “win.” But two months later, Schneider was claiming the pope needed to “correct” Abu Dhabi. Three months after that, he wailed that the pope was betraying Jesus Christ. Now he says Vatican II itself must be corrected, and he thinks he has precedent for correcting Church councils.
You nullify the word of God by your tradition!” Christ tells the Pharisees in Mark 7:13. Mark 7:13 is a common Protestant proof text for sola scriptura and, specifically, against the authority of tradition — so much so that Dr.* White ends his opening statement with it. See? he cries. Jesus condemned tradition! We’ll get there. But first let’s join Dr.* White around 35:45, when he turns to an oft-stated and, truth be told, bizarre claim: The decision to convert to Catholicism is a fallible decision. No doubt it is, but who denies it? It’s hard to tell what Dr.* White thinks he proves by pointing this out.
If Dr.* White wants to claim that “blueprint for anarchy” is a bad argument, he’ll need to prove why it’s a false argument. Take up Mr. Madrid’s challenge and show us sola scriptura “actually working.” It will not be enough for Dr.* White to merely complain that he doesn’t like those words. Nor can he just scoff at an exaggerated number of denominations as a substitute for addressing the problem of division itself — as though, having proved the number ain’t that high, he can pull the covers over himself and sleep the sleep of the just.
Protestants know that if the Church Fathers did not talk about sola scriptura, then it really would be an invention of the Reformation that was unknown before. Surely, if it were a true doctrine, someone knew about it before the sixteenth century! So they go plowing through volume after volume of the Church Fathers trying to find it by force of divination, which they call sound exegesis. In the earlier parts of his opening statement, Dr.* White has claimed to find it in St. Cyril, in Theodoret, and in St. Augustine. Now he tries to pile on St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius is a real hero of Dr.* White’s.
This article is a companion piece to an earlier one from 2017, about Pope Honorius I; and one from last year, about Pope John XXII. These are the three popes people will often cite to prove that popes can be heretics. Sometimes anti-Catholic Protestants are looking for an example of why infallibility can’t be true and the papacy is a tradition of men. Other times, anti-Catholic Catholics (for they too exist) are looking for a precedent as they seek to justify themselves in their belief that Pope Francis is a heretic.
This is the first of a new series entitled “Bad Apologists Say,” in which I review some remarkably ineffective arguments for the faith, or against others, that Catholics tend to be mysteriously attached to. I begin here with the myth of “33,000 Protestant denominations,” which is usually associated with Steve Ray. If you take a look at the actual source Mr. Ray uses, you will find all sorts of problems, one of which is that it counts only 9,000 denominations, and another of which is that its definition of “denomination” is practically designed to give you inflated numbers. It even includes denominations of groups that can’t even be called Christian in the first place.
Two Catholics—a writer for Catholic Answers as well as an actual archbishop–are claiming that it is obedience to the law that merits heaven and allows us to avoid Hell. This is painful, because I spent a lot of time during my conversion working past a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching I was conditioned to believe: that the Church teaches justification by work. It doesn’t, and it’s actually a heresy to which the Council of Trent attaches the penalty of excommunication.
It’s very sad to watch. People all over Facebook are calling this letter “powerful” and “one for the history books.” “He represents the true Church,” one said. “Extraordinary courage,” said another. When you can say words like that about a letter filled with conspiracy theories and eschatalogical gobbledygook about the “children of light” and “children of darkness,” I don’t think you’re in a position to be reasoned with. Viganò’s letter is what a faction’s itching ears want to hear, and they have turned unto fables.
Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood director who became a “pro-life” superstar, has quite a history of racist rants on Twitter, as my friend Mary Pezzulo documents on her blog. Back in September, she used the words “thug” and “stain” to describe Bishop Talbert Swan, who happens to be black, and then proceeded to lecture him about how he was a disgrace to his own community. (AJ, in case you did not know, is white. A white woman telling a black man he’s a disgrace to the black community. “Let me tell you about real racism,” white woman tells black man. You are “an enemy to your own people.” Very lovely.) [
Catholic News Agency reports that the Austrian bishops are agitating for the Church to give a “formal, liturgical blessing” to “homosexual couples.” (It never ends. The answer is no, but it never ends.) Their committee on the liturgy asked for a book to be written explaining how such a thing may be done. The title of the book is The Benediction of Same-Sex Partnerships. CNA does not say whether the book limits blessings to “partners” who are celibate. It does not matter, in any case, because the Church has ruled it out and there’s no room to wiggle.
Atheists sometimes have the same obsession with biblical literalism that Fundamentalists do. One such atheist is Tim Sledge. Mr. Sledge used to be a Baptist pastor. He now has two books out. Goodbye Jesus is his deconversion story. The follow-up is called Four Disturbing Questions With One Simple Answer, and even Dr. David Madson, whose Ph.D. is in biblical studies, thinks it’s a slam-dunk against Christianity. The book is full of dumb questions like Why didn’t Jesus tell us about germs? But apparently people with Ph.D.‘s in biblical studies take the poor guy seriously.