Well, considering the name “Peter” means “rock,” I’m thinkin’ he is.

But Michael Barber, professor of theology at John Paul the Great Catholic University has decided to spend some time – and blog-posts – studying the issue in a little more depth. Here is Part I.

Check it out!

Most Catholics today have at one time or another met a self-professed ‘Bible Christian.’ This is someone who claims to only believe what is in the Bible, and nothing else. As such they reject supposedly “added” Catholic beliefs like the papacy, purgatory and the sacraments, because they claim they are not in the Scriptures. In some cases, such as purgatory or even the role of Mary, it does take a deep understanding of the Bible to see their foundations found within its pages. But there are some beliefs rejected by ‘Bible Christians’ that jump out of the pages of the Bible with just a cursory reading. These are what I call the “biggest biblical blind spots of ‘Bible Christians.’”

1) The role of Peter
When I was an evangelical Christian, I often studied the Scriptures, but somehow I never saw Peter as an important figure in the New Testament. Now that I am Catholic, I do not know how I could have been so blind. Peter is almost everywhere in the Gospels and in Acts, and he re-appears in Paul’s letters at times as well. We have three separate instances – from three different Gospels – where Jesus gives Peter a specific, and unique, role in the Church (Matthew 16:17-19, Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:15-17). Yet the vast majority of Protestants – and all ‘Bible Christians’ – fail to recognize any significant role for Peter in the early Church or in today’s Church.

2) The Eucharist
‘Bible Christians’ love to claim that they take the Bible literally, and they note their interpretation of Genesis 1-3 to support their claim. But what about John 6? In that chapter Jesus clearly states that he is the bread of life and one must eat his flesh to have eternal life. Yet no ‘Bible Christian’ takes that literally, and they relegate the Eucharist to a minor, purely symbolic, ceremony. The early Christians, on the other hand, understood the meaning of Christ’s words and made the celebration of the Eucharist the central act of their worship.

3) The role of works in salvation
“We are saved by faith alone!” cries the ‘Bible Christian.’ Yet the Bible is full of warnings on the necessity of works for the salvation of the believer. The parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) directly links our works with our eternal destination, and the only place in the New Testament where ‘faith alone’ is found (James 2:24) condemns it as unable to bring justification. But somehow the ‘Bible Christian’ still cries out “faith alone!” simply because it is a Protestant tradition.

4) The place of suffering in the Christian life
Often people don’t realize how much a culture impacts their worldview. This is true even for Christians. Our modern Western culture puts pleasure at the center of happiness, and rejects any value to suffering. This cultural presupposition has infected Christians, including ‘Bible Christians’. Yet if you read the letters of Paul, you cannot help but notice the role of suffering in his theology. The Lord himself made it clear how integral suffering would be to Paul’s life when he told Ananias: “Go, for this man [Paul] is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name” (Acts 9:15-16). And of course, the heavy emphasis put on Christ’s suffering and death in the Gospels should tell even the most cursory reader of Scripture how important suffering is in the Christian Faith.

5) The necessity of Baptism
The vast majority of ‘Bible Christians’ believe that one simply has to “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior” in order to become a Christian. While some might also eventually baptize such a person, it is not seen as a necessary step in the life of a Christian. Yet nothing could be further from the biblical witness. When the crowd asks after the first Christian sermon how they might be saved, Peter responds, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Baptism was the normative means to enter the Church and no Christian denied this fact until recent years.

It is unfortunate that ‘Bible Christians’ reject such clear directives from the Bible. Such people are usually sincere, well-intentioned followers of Christ. Let us hope and pray that one day they will decide to enter the Church that gave us the Bible – the Catholic Church.

A question you will sometimes hear when debating Protestants on the role of the Pope in the Church is “Why Rome?” In other words, even if Peter himself did have primacy (which just about every Protestant will deny), why does the bishop of Rome have that primacy now? After all, Jerusalem was clearly the center of the Christian church at the beginning (and Peter was the leader of that community before going off on missionary trips) and Peter was also the bishop of Antioch before he went to Rome, so why does not one of those two have primacy in the Church? Why did the leader of the Roman church receive his primacy?

Some Catholics might argue that this is simply what the Christians decided when Peter died, or even before he died. But I don’t think it was that simple, nor do I think that is how God usually works in this world. As I have written before, the Church’s understanding of God and His works develops over time, and I think the primacy of Rome was no exception. Over time, many factors came into consideration in the Church’s deepening understanding of Rome’s place in the universal Church. Here are a few of the factors:

The martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome
The first, and most important, reason Rome gained primacy in the early Church was that it was the location of the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul. Martyrdom was central to the faith of the early church, and the places where martyrdoms occurred were considered sacred places. Thus, the location where the two greatest apostles died was considered of supreme importance in the Church. Irenaeus in the 2nd century said that the church in Rome was “founded” by Peter and Paul even though everyone knew that there was a church there before either of those two arrived. But their deaths there established them as the “founders” (by their blood) of that local church, and the leaders in that church gained their authority.

Thus, this sacred connection to Peter and Paul “transferred” their privileges to the church in Rome. Peter clearly has been given a unique – and authoritative – role in the Church by Jesus (according to Matthew 16:17-19, Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:15-17), and his death in Rome cements Rome’s position as the church which receives that primacy. Furthermore, Paul’s death there also grants Rome Paul’s mission to preach the Gospel to the whole world. (Note: the pope was most commonly seen as the successor of BOTH Peter and Paul in the early church, not just Peter. The death of both of these apostles bestowed both of their missions on that church). All the other factors listed below find their foundation in this most important factor; in other words, if Peter and Paul had not died in Rome, it is highly unlikely that Rome would be the primacy see of the Church.

Rome’s reputation for orthodoxy
During the first centuries of Christianity, Rome had a great reputation for orthodoxy. While bishops of other great Christian cities such as Alexandria or Antioch or Constantinople fell into heresy, it was known in the early Church that never was heresy embraced in Rome. This reputation grew over the centuries, and many saw it as a special protection granted to the church of Peter and Paul. Rome could be counted on, when other churches embraced heresy, to always teach the True Faith.

Rome’s charity to other churches
Another reason for Rome’s primacy was due to its role in charity in the early Church. As a “rich” local church, it was known to help other local churches throughout the empire when in need. Ignatius of Antioch in the early 2nd century said that the church in Rome “presides in love,” which many scholars believe references their great charity towards the rest of the Church. This charity, of course, would also give them a certain prestige within the universal Church and link those churches to Rome in an intimate fashion.

The destruction of Jerusalem
In 70A.D. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies, and then in 135A.D. it was wiped out again by the Romans. These two events not only removed the Jewish population there, it removed any real Christian presence there as well. For all intents and purposes, there was no church in Jerusalem after 135 A.D., so its bishop could not have any real authority over the universal Church.

Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire
Another reason for Rome’s preeminence is the fact of it being the capital of the Roman Empire. This was more important in the East, but it was a factor in the Roman church’s rise, nonetheless. Many Christians saw the Roman Empire as the boundaries of the Christian world, and the capital of that Empire was seen as the “capital” of the Christian world as well. This was not the common view in the West, who saw Rome’s prerogatives in a more spiritual light, but it was an influential view in the East.

Some might see the above as proof that there is no “real” reason for Rome to be the primary church in Christendom. After all, Peter and Paul just happened to die in Rome, which just happened to be a conservative church and therefore not in danger of falling into heresy, and which just happened to be a rich church and could therefore help others, and which just happened to not be destroyed by the Roman armies, and which just happened to be the capital of the Empire. But to a Catholic, that would be like saying that the Roman emperor just happened to hold a census when Mary was pregnant with Jesus, thus leading to the fulfillment of Scripture that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. God works through the reality of our human world, and so nothing in salvation history “just happens.” All of the factors listed above allowed Christians to better understand the role that God wanted for the church in Rome in the universal Church.

Note: today, most Catholics and Orthodox would agree in general with what I have written above, although of course they would disagree with exactly how Rome’s primacy should be practiced in today’s Church.

This is an edited version of a post I originally wrote on a Protestant apologetics forum.

This past weekend a fellow convert asked me why I became Catholic. I quickly answered, “Because it is true.” Of course that didn’t really answer his question, as he wanted to know the specific things that drew me to Catholicism. So I gave him an abbreviated form of my conversion story.

But the answer “because it is true” is the fundamental reason why I became Catholic. And there is no better patron saint for this reason for conversion than today’s saint, St. Justin Martyr. Justin was a pagan philosopher who jumped from one philosophy to another in pursuit of the truth. This fundamental longing for truth is something that has been missing from much of modern philosophical studies, and in modern society in general. At the beginning of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the senior demon Screwtape writes,

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I note what you say about guiding our patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” of “false”, but as “academic” or “practical”, “outworn” or “contemporary”, “conventional” or “ruthless”. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy’s own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it “real life” and don’t let him ask what he means by “real”.

It seems like the work of Hell has been largely successful today: the pursuit of objective truth has become unfashionable in most circles, as whatever someone believes is “true for them” and not really relevant to daily life anyway.

Yet St. Justin lived in a different era, and he was a passionate about pursuing the truth, wherever it might lead him. When he eventually encountered the “philosophy” of Christianity, he recognized that the truth was not a concept or philosophy, but a person: Jesus Christ. And although he was a philosopher, he was not drawn to Christianity merely by intellectual arguments, but also by the witness of the martyrs, whose love of the Truth led to their heroic deaths. St. Justin himself ended up following their witness, which is why he is remembered as St. Justin Martyr.

St. Justin Martyr, pray for us!

In some Evangelical circles, knowledge of the Biblical Greek language is seen as a trump card in any arguments regarding the interpretation of Scripture passages. When a debate occurs, someone just has to say, “well, in the original Greek, this means…” and the argument is won. But the reality is much different: although knowledge of Biblical Greek is helpful in many ways, it does not automatically give one knowledge of the “real” meaning of a passage. Greek is still a human language, and as such, it has its ambiguities just like any language. Furthermore, those who know Greek have their own biases and preconceptions which they bring to the text. Sometimes knowing the Greek can eliminate certain possible interpretations, but never does it alone give you sure knowledge of the meaning of a debated passage.

One of the most well-known Greek teachers in the Evangelical world is Bill Mounce. I myself have used his materials to learn Biblical Greek. Fortunately, even though he is an expert in the Biblical Greek language, Mounce does not fall into the fallacy of thinking that knowledge of Greek gives you some secret knowledge of the inner meaning of the Bible. He understands that proper interpretation includes many factors outside of just knowing the original language.

Case in point: a recent blog post by Mounce caught my eye, as he decided to tackle 2 Peter 1:20-21, which is a heavily debated passage between Catholics and Protestants. This passage states:

RSV: First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
NAB: Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.
NIV: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Greek: τουτο πρωτον γινωσκοντες οτι πασα προφητεια γραφης ιδιας επιλυσεως ου γινεται ου γαρ θεληματι ανθρωπου ηνεχθη προφητεια ποτε αλλα υπο πνευματος αγιου φερομενοι ελαλησαν απο θεου ανθρωποι

The importance of this passage in Catholic/Protestant debates should be clear: does this passage mean that an individual cannot interpret Scripture? If so, that would go a long way towards undercutting one of the bedrocks of Protestantism. After making some introductory comments regarding context, Mounce posits two different possible meanings for verse 20:

Contextually, Peter is saying that the prophecies of Scripture were not made up by the prophets from what they saw and heard in their prophecies and dreams; but what they understood them to mean was the result of the Holy Spirit carrying them along. They too had experienced the direct work of God, just as Peter had on the Mount of Transfiguration. But can we be more specific?

1. One view is to say the passage is talking about origins. These prophecies and interpretations came from God, as opposed to what the false teachers were teaching.

2. A second view is to say the prophecies are not open to any one person’s individual interpretation, but the interpretation must be in conformity to apostolic interpretation. For us today, this would mean Scripture in general.

At this point, I am not sure there is much difference between these two options. Prophecies and their interpretation come from God, not from individuals who vary from the apostolic teaching.

I would be in basic agreement with Mounce at this point, and in fact I would say the two possibilities can be combined into one: the origin of prophecies in Scripture (and all of Scripture for that matter) is the Holy Spirit, and therefore an individual is not allowed to make up their own interpretation of what they mean. Furthermore, any interpretation cannot vary from the deposit of faith – what Mounce calls “apostolic teaching.” But then Mounce goes off the tracks:

But the Catholic REB translates “No prophetic writing is a matter for private interpretation.” This would cement the seat of authority of interpretation in the church and not any individual teacher, preacher, or prophet, and exclude, among others, people like Luther. At one level, this is not saying anything different. The false teachers were wrong to come up with their personal (and different) interpretation of things. But I wonder how Peter would feel being told that his interpretation of the Messianic Kingdom was wrong because is was an individual interpretation and different from the prevailing (i.e., Rabbinic) views of the day. I suspect he wouldn’t agree.

Let’s get this straight: Mounce agrees that it is not proper to get interpretations “from individuals who vary from the apostolic teaching,” yet he thinks the Catholic understanding of the passage could be used against Peter, the chief apostle?! Peter, by definition, cannot have an “individual interpretation” which varied from the apostolic teaching, as he is himself an apostle. Surely Mounce cannot believe that Catholics would use this passage against Peter, the first pope!

And this brings up a more important question: how do we know what is “apostolic teaching”? Most Protestants today would say it is by properly interpreting Scripture. Yet you can see the circular argument: Biblical interpretation cannot vary from apostolic teaching, yet apostolic teaching is determined by (individual) Biblical interpretation. There must be some determination of what is apostolic teaching outside of Scripture. And fittingly, it is the role of the apostles (and their successors), not just any individual, to declare what is apostolic teaching. The reason is that the apostles have the same origin as the Scriptures, for it was the Holy Spirit which gives them their authority.

Although Mounce errs in his understanding of the Catholic interpretation of this passage, I would agree fully with the final paragraph of his post:

As is so often in Greek, the original language gives us the range of interpretive options, but usually it is context that makes the final decision. Greek is not a magic key that reveals the one and only possible interpretation; otherwise we wouldn’t have an endless supplies of Greek commentaries.

Fortunately, Christ did not expect us to be Greek scholars to understand the Bible; instead he gave us apostles and their successors to guard and teach the deposit of faith, which gives us the overall context in which to properly interpret Scripture.

When I was an Evangelical Christian, we would often engage in “spontaneous” prayer in which each person would simply pray as “the Spirit led them.” We were against rote prayers, feeling that they were “traditions of men” and broke the Lord’s command against vain and repetitious prayer (Matthew 6:7). But over time I started to realize something: our “spontaneous” prayers were awful unoriginal, each sounding like a slightly modified version of the previous prayer.

The same thing occurred with our Sunday worship services: they were intended to be spontaneous and fresh, yet over time they took on a set structure that was much like every other Evangelical service out there.

It appears that other Evangelicals have noticed that today’s Sunday services are still just as predictable as always, as can be seen in this hilarious video:

The problem with condemning repetition in prayer is that it is almost impossible to be truly spontaneous all the time, and it is human nature to feel comfortable with repetition in our lives. Jesus did not condemn repeating prayers, he condemned mindlessly repeating prayers. If you say the Hail Mary without contemplating what you are saying, then you are “babbling like the pagans” (Matthew 6:7). But if you pray the Hail Mary while contemplating the mysteries of our salvation, then your prayer is efficacious. After all, when the apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he did not say, “just wing it”, but instead gave them a set prayer to say: the Our Father.

I recently got the following question by email:

The scriptures tell us that among those born of women there have been none  greater than John the baptist.  So how do we reconcile this with Mary being more blessed than all?

The question is referring to Matthew 11:11, in which Jesus declares:

Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

In this passage, our Lord is extolling the importance of John the Baptist in the plan of salvation. As the last of the prophets, he had the unique role as the forerunner to Christ. Furthermore, his greatness is seen in his humility: instead of his important role leading to pride, John the Baptist chose the humble path, making his whole life one that points to another. As Scripture constantly repeats, it is the humble who are exalted and the exalted who are humbled.

But does this statement mean that John the Baptist is “greater” than Mary? After all, both were “born of women”. To understand this saying of Jesus, one must understand that Jesus spoke in the way of the people around him; in other words, as a 1st century Jew (after all, he WAS a 1st century Jew). One of the common ways rabbis in that time spoke was to make an absolute statement to make a point, but which was understood as one that was not to be taken literally. For example, Jesus commanded that we call no one “father”, yet no one stopped calling their father by that name. He commanded that we cut off our hand if it causes us to sin, and none of his followers actually believed that they should dismember themselves. These “absolute” statements have a way of making a strong point that impresses upon the mind the point being made, but they are not to be taken literally.

But how do we know that this particular instance is an example of this type of “absolute” statement? Because we know for a fact that there is one “born of women” that is greater than John the Baptist: Jesus himself. After all, Jesus was truly born of Mary, and he is far greater than John the Baptist. Matthew himself in his Gospel takes pains to show us that Jesus is both born of a woman and that he is greater than John the Baptist, yet he has no problem in reporting this saying of Jesus in his Gospel. So we know that Jesus highly honors John the Baptist, but also that his statement should not be taken completely literally.

Today is the Feast of All Souls, in which we remember those who have died and are currently in purgatory. In honor of this feast day, I have posted a new article on my website in which I defend, using both Scripture and reason, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory:

Removing Our Sinful Natures: The Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory

Purgatory is one of those subjects, like economics, about which nearly everyone has an opinion but few have in-depth knowledge. Protestants point to it as an example of a pernicious “tradition of men” which Christ wisely condemned. Orthodox Christians, who accept the possibility of an interim state between this life and heaven, are uncomfortable with many traditional depictions of purgatory as well as associated doctrines such as indulgences. And many Catholics today treat purgatory like a persistent rash they cannot get rid of: it comes to their attention now and then, but is better left hidden from public view.

However, the doctrine of purgatory has a long and valued history within the Catholic Church and it would be unfaithful to our predecessors in the faith to ignore or minimize it. So our first necessity is a clear definition of what the Church teaches regarding purgatory. Given all the images and ideas among the faithful about this belief, it may be surprising that the Church’s teaching is actually very limited.

Read the whole thing here.

I have been involved with Internet discussions and apologetics for a very long time, at least in Internet terms. I remember debating a man from the Netherlands via email about Catholic theology in 1992, before I was even officially received into the Catholic Church. Considering “Internet years” are somewhat like dog years, I figure that’s 119 years of online debates and discussions (and it even feels like more sometimes). Over that time I have developed some rules of engagement for Internet apostolate that might be helpful for others.

1) Always remember the superiority of the real world over the virtual world.

If you are spending more time interacting with people over the Internet than you do in the real world, then you need to seriously curtail your online activity. God made us physical beings and we cannot replace physical interaction with virtual interaction. It’s just not the same.

2) Your salvation is more important than your involvement on the Internet.

If frequenting a blog or forum disturbs your peace and makes you anxious, uncharitable and/or unkind to those around you, you should simply stop going to that blog or forum. I have had to abandon certain forums and blogs because I found myself too upset with those I encountered there. It is better to simply walk away.

3) Don’t ever say anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t say in person.

This is a pretty common suggestion, but it is very true. If you wouldn’t call someone a putz to their face, don’t call them that online (and if you would call them that to their face, perhaps you need to see your confessor).

4) Don’t write anything in anger.

If you write a post or comment on a blog or on a forum in anger, be sure to preview it before posting. Then delete it.

5) Don’t stereotype people.

It is very easy to stereotype the people we “meet” over the Internet. If someone says he likes the Traditional Latin Mass, don’t assume that he is an “angry Traditionalist” who rejects Vatican II completely. If someone says something supportive of Rush Limbaugh, don’t assume she supports everything he espouses. The truth is that most people don’t fall into nice and neat categories. I remember encountering a person online who was devoted to the Latin Mass but also supported liberal Democrat politicians. Remember to just debate actual arguments raised, not positions you assume the person also holds. Don’t think you actually know people you only encounter online. You don’t.

6) Take at least one day off a week from the Internet.

Preferably Sunday. Remember that man was not made for the Internet, but the Internet for man. If you feel you need to be on the Internet every day, then you are showing signs of a dangerous addiction. This is unhealthy, even if the sites you go to are not harmful themselves.

7) Always assume the good intentions of others.

If someone writes something that could possibly be interpreted multiple ways, assume the best interpretation. I have seen countless examples of someone making a point, someone else misinterpreting it and attacking it, then a whole discussion ensues before the original poster returns to say that he never meant what he was accused of saying. Writing is a difficult task, and often what we write isn’t exactly what we mean. Give people the same benefit of the doubt that you want to be given.

8) Remember who the real Enemy is.

It’s not some heterodox blogger or pro-abortion advocate. It’s Satan. Those who do things that support his reign are slaves of Satan, and our duty is not to try to defeat them, but emancipate them and help them become sons of the True King. Yes, we must resist evil in all its forms, but those who advocate for evil need to be converted, not conquered.

9) Remember that God resists the proud.

Even when they are right. On the Internet you encounter people at all stage of their spiritual life. Many don’t know the first thing about the Faith yet still expound upon it. It is easy to look upon them like the Pharisee did to the Publican. Instead of quickly jumping in to tell them how they are wrong, first say a prayer for them and then gently lead them to a fuller understanding of the truth. I can guarantee that a prideful retort will do nothing other than turn them more away from an orthodox understanding of the Faith.

10) Don’t just go to Catholic sites.

Part of the history of Catholics in America is that we have often lived in ghettos, completely excluded from those outside the Church. It sometimes feels like we are returning to that on the Internet. We only go to Catholic sites and Catholic blogs and Catholic forums (and usually only those we agree with) and it gives us an unbalanced view of the world. I spent over four years as the only Catholic at a Protestant apologetics forum, and it was a very fruitful experience for me. Not only was I able to defend and explain the Catholic Faith to many who would never hear about it, I also learned a great deal from the Protestants at the site and honed my apologetic abilities. Obviously we shouldn’t visit immoral sites that might lead us into the near occasion of sin, but we should be salt and light on the Internet and bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all corners of the virtual world.

If you have any helpful rules of engagement you use, feel free to leave them in the comments!

From the mailbag:

In your studies of the Catholic faith, since 1991, if you don’t mind me asking Eric (can i call you Eric?) when was it that you chose to believe in a book, yes a book if you don’t mind me calling it that, that has caused death, misery and upset across the globe through its misinterpretation and of course, abuse.

Please visit:

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/sep/01/honesty-overdue-on-abusive-priest/

or

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=94293

I would like your interpretation on the above.

My interpretation of the two articles (both about priests who are accused of abusing children) is simple: if the evidence proves that these men did commit abuse, they should be locked away for as long as possible. If evidence shows that anyone protected them in their crimes, including any bishop, he too should be locked away for as long as possible. Justice demands that such predators and their enablers be punished to the full extent of the law.

You claim that much “death, misery and upset” has occurred in history due to the Bible’s “misinterpretation and…abuse” (I assume the “book” you refer to is the Bible; technically it is not a book, but a collection of various forms of writings). I do not disagree. But I do not judge a religion or philosophy based on those who follow it poorly or abuse it, but instead based upon those who follow it best. This seems to be a logical way to proceed.

Let’s take an example from outside the religious realm. If you wanted to show someone the game of golf properly played, would you show him Tiger Woods or some weekend hacker you can’t hit it straight? It is those who excel in something that most clearly reflect its strengths and weaknesses.

For a Catholic, it is the saints who are the models we look to. We see in them those who have followed Christ to the best of their abilities. An example of someone who followed Christianity well is Mother Teresa. An example of someone who followed atheism well is Joseph Stalin. Which would I rather imitate?

Since my embrace of the Christian life in high school, my faith has not revolved around a book, but a person. I do not believe in a book, I believe in Jesus Christ. Even as an Evangelical the focus of my faith was Jesus Christ. Although at that time I believed the Bible to be the sole authority for the Christian (a belief I now see as faulty), I still looked to Jesus as the measuring rod of my faith. He is the prism through which we properly interpret the Bible. Fortunately for us, he gave us a Church which he promised would be able to interpret it with his authority. And one interpretation that I can be sure of: the abuse of children is evil and contrary to the teachings of Christianity (and just about every other religion, for that matter).

When I see cases of those who claim to be Christian committing horrible acts, two thoughts come to mind.

• Every sin is a horrible act, and I have committed many sins in my life. So I will pray for those who commit these acts that they might find healing and forgiveness in Christ, just as I pray the same thing for myself.
• The Church must have a divine foundation, because how else can one explain the fact that it has survived for almost 2,000 years in spite of such people within the Church? St. Gregory the Great, a pope in the 6th century, lamented that he “must worry about the invasions of barbarians, and beware of the wolves who lie in wait for my flock”. This has always been the case, and many of those wolves actually lie within the flock. Yet the Church has survived and continues to call people to a beautiful life in Christ.

I do not put my faith in other men, nor do I put my faith in a book. I put my faith in Jesus Christ, the one one who is able to give us the strength to rise above our weaknesses and become saints.

And yes, you may call me Eric.

One of the problems with modern Evangelicalism is the desire to make the Gospel easy to follow. So many Evangelicals wish the entire Gospel message to be reduced to a bumper sticker-level that is easy to understand, easy to accept and easy to follow. But in doing so, they jettison much of what is important in Christianity.

Christianity, however, is a total way of life: it involves a compete giving of one’s life to Christ in body, mind, and soul. This is something that cannot be done in a day and, in fact, it consumes our entire lifetimes.

Luis Palau, a popular Evangelical preacher, falls into the trap of over-simplifying the Gospel:

“Only Christ can give you eternal life. Religion cannot do it. Charitable work will not do it. Good behavior will not do it. Doing communion won’t do it. Reading the Bible won’t do it. Saying your prayers won’t do it. Only Jesus Christ will take you to Heaven if he lives in your heart,” he said.

Let’s look at this more closely:

“Only Christ can give you eternal life.”

A good start, as this is only too true. Christ said that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). Yet it is after this that Palau gets off the tracks:

Religion cannot do it.

The Evangelical bug-a-boo: “religion.” Religion, of course, can be used in many ways – it can be an attempt by man to reach God (not a bad thing to attempt, but one fruitless without God’s help) or it can be simply a man-made way to follow other men (never a good thing). But religion at its most fundamental is the way in which man interacts with God, and the Christian religion is one revealed by God as the means to follow Him. As such, religion CAN bring eternal life.

Charitable work will not do it.

Read Matthew 25:31-46 about the sheep and the goats, which Christ concludes by saying, “Then they [the goats] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Clearly feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and welcoming the stranger will impact our attainment of eternal life, or else why would Christ have given us this parable?

Good behavior will not do it.

The story of the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19:16-22 is a bit more nuanced than Palua’s statement. When the young man asks Jesus how he can obtain eternal life, Christ’s first response is “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” If being good were unrelated to eternal life, why could Christ have said this?

Doing communion won’t do it.

Jesus would disagree: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:51,53).

Reading the Bible won’t do it.

Well, as a Catholic I’m a bit surprised that a Prostant would admit this one, so I’ll concede this point to him. (Although reading the Bible is a primary means in which we know how to obtain eternal life).

Saying your prayers won’t do it.

How can we “receive Jesus” except by praying? How can we know Christ except by conversing with him? I know that he means mindlessly repeating our dinnertime and bedtime prayers, but I think it is never a good idea to denigrate the most important activity we can engage in – prayer.

Only Jesus Christ will take you to Heaven if he lives in your heart

Again, this is true – it is only Christ who can take you to heaven.

Palau’s problem is one that most who do not have the fullness of the Faith fall into: they separate and divide what should not – and cannot – be separated. Palau is right to believe that it is only by following Christ that we can be saved, but following Christ involves our whole being, including: “religion,” charitable work, good behavior, communion, reading the Bible and saying your prayers. Without doing those things, we are not really following Christ and eternal life can elude us.

Let us follow the words of Christ himself when he was asked this question:

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
(Luke 10:25-27)

Sometimes I can’t help myself: when I see an error in reporting about Catholic matters, I feel I must correct it. Here is a case in point:

In the Omaha Catholic Examiner, Todd van Kampen writes,

If there were a Top 10 list of Catholic cultural touchstones, surely “Catholic priests can’t get married” would be listed somewhere in the top five (if not No. 1). But did you know that it isn’t always true?

He then goes on to give an example of a former Protestant minister (who is married) who was recently ordained a Catholic priest under the Pastoral Provision of JPII that allows such things. He also mentions (correctly) that married men can be ordained Eastern Catholic priests.

So what’s wrong with the article? (Ten points if you already picked it out)

A Catholic priest cannot “get married.” What can happen in extraordinary cases is that a married man can be ordained a Catholic priest. Even in his article, Mr. van Kampen notes that if a married priest is widowed, he cannot remarry. This has been the ancient practice of the Church in both East and West: although married men can be ordained priests in the East and in exceptional cases in the West, no priest – either in the East or West – can get married.

This discipline (and it is a discipline, not a dogma) is a wise one. Can you imagine the issues that could arise from a priest being “available”? What if they started dating someone who went to confession to them in the past? What if multiple women in a parish were interested in an “eligible” priest? No thanks.

Today is the feast of one of my favorite saints, St. Justin Martyr. St. Justin was the first Christian to directly engage the dominant pagan culture with the message of Christianity; in other words, he was the first Christian “apologist.” If you read his works today, many of his arguments seem a bit odd, but you must read them within the context of the culture he lived in, as he was highly effective in spreading Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

One of Justin’s primary arguments was the concept of the “spermatos Logos” – the “seeds of the Word.” This is the idea that the Christian faith is present in some form in the Greek philosophers and in other non-Christian religions and philosophies. When Plato, for example, taught something that was true, he was supporting the Christian faith, which is founded on Christ, who is Truth. Although Justin and the early Church condemned the pagan aspects of the Greek philosophers, this positive attitude towards them led the Church to use Greek philosophy to explain doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation in terms that all men could grasp. It was a huge leap in promoting the Christian religion throughout the world.

St. Justin, pray for us!

President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was recently baptized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka the Mormons).

She’s been dead for 14 years.

This is an example of the bizarre practice of the Mormon church called “baptism for the dead,” in which Mormons posthumously baptize people by proxy. (Many people don’t realize that this is a primary impetus for their famed genealogy work; as they discover their ancestors they perform these proxy baptisms for them.)

I had some discussions with Mormon missionaries recently, and when this topic came up their sole source for this belief is 1 Corinthians 15:28-29:

When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will (also) be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what will people accomplish by having themselves baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they having themselves baptized for them?

There are many problems with the Mormon exegesis of this passage (for one, nowhere does Paul actually condone the practice, he just mentions it in the context of another discussion), but I think the bigger problem is that this is an extreme example of sola scriptura (which is ironic, since Mormons claim to reject sola scriptura). Nowhere is there any evidence that the Christian Church practiced a “baptism for the dead” at any time in its history. Furthermore, the Church’s practice of baptism has never allowed for a “proxy” in the place of the recipient, especially in a situation in which the recipient doesn’t even know about it! This would run counter to the underlying reason for baptism, i.e. one’s personal inclusion into the family of God. And baptizing a dead person is contrary to the teaching of Scripture that baptism brings new life to the believer. Yet in spite of all this the Mormon church yanks this verse out of context and develops an entire doctrine out of it (this is similar to the fundamentalist invention of the “rapture”).

The Catholic understanding of Divine Revelation is more holistic: we believe that there are two means by which revelation has come to us – Scripture and Tradition – and we believe that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church is the authoritative teacher of that revelation. This three-pronged approach helps to prevent such egregious cases of ripping verses out of the context of the life of the Church. Read Dei Verbum for a beautiful exposition of the Church’s understanding of Divine Revelation.

For a more detailed explanation of the problems with “baptism for the dead,” see this page from Catholic Answers.

A common dispute between Protestants and Catholics is the use of Tradition as an authoritative means of passing divine revelation. Most Protestants of course only accept the Bible as an authoritative source, but Catholics recognize both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition as means by which God has revealed Himself and His salvific plan. However, I have found in many of my own discussions with non-Catholics (and sometimes Catholics) that many do not understand what exactly Tradition is.

For a long time, even after I became Catholic, I saw Tradition as solely consisting of the writings of Councils, encyclicals, and the saints (especially the early Church Fathers). And I think most Protestants see it like that as well. However, that transfers a flaw in Reformation thinking, one that sees the written word as the only assured way of transmitting knowledge. This is a flaw conceived in the age of the printing press, and one that Jesus clearly didn’t share, as he didn’t write anything nor command anyone to write anything.

Tradition includes, of course, those writings, but it is primarily the life of the Church, which is the womb of those writings (including the writings of Scripture). This life consists of Catholics believing, preaching and worshiping, and in a special way it includes the liturgy, which is the life of the Church at its most fundamental level. The liturgy is the action in which we are united to our Trinitarian God and it is a primary means in which our Faith is transmitted from age to age.

We can see an example of this in the Arian debates of the 4th century. Arius and his followers were claiming that Jesus was an exalted creation – the first-born of God, but created, nonetheless. Up to this time, there were no councils to look it, no papal encyclicals, and the writings of theologians and even saints were somewhat conflicted and unclear as well. And Scripture alone did not solve the problem – some passages made Jesus appear to be equal to God, and some on the surface did not. The Arians themselves were very Scriptural in their arguments and loved to quote the Bible in their defense. However, the orthodox had a “trump card”, so to speak: they reminded everyone that in the liturgy, they had worshiped Jesus for the past 300 years. And everyone was in agreement that only God was to be worshiped. Therefore Jesus must be God. Thus, the life of the Church, as experienced in the liturgy, is what transmitted this fundamental truth about our Savior for 300 years before it was formalized in the Council decrees. Without Tradition, we would still be debating the divinity of Christ. (This also shows that the Council of Nicea did not “invent” the divinity of Christ – as a certain bestselling author would assert – but merely affirmed what was already practiced and believed by the Church.)

For those interested in seeing how the life of the Church transmitted Christian beliefs from generation to generation before the written word became primary in the 15th century, I would recommend Jaroslav Pelikan’s 5-volume The Christian Tradition series.