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Catholic

2018-03-25T15:34:46-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Does John Zmirak Even Understand Church Teaching?

Last updated on: March 25, 2018 at 3:34 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Having read his recent column, titled "Open Borders Catholics Falsify Church Teaching," I am not sure what Mr. John Zmirak means by “open borders Catholics.” The closest he comes to defining this term for us is in his insistence that we must “secure the borders,” but even that could mean any number of things. It could mean no more than: Enforce existing immigration law; or, it could mean: Build a wall from Texas to California. So who are these are “open borders Catholics”? Mr. Zmirak does not say. We shall have to supply the lack out of our imagination, via his references to Abp. Cupich, Abp. Chaput, and Pope Francis. These are the only names Mr. Zmirak cites. [...] Read more

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Radical Traditionalists

2018-03-25T21:51:23-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Greg Toppo of USA Today Says Pope’s Beliefs Just Like Those of Dissenting Catholics. Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. XII.

Last updated on: March 25, 2018 at 9:51 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Greg Toppo, is USA Today's “national K-12 education writer. He’s interested in tech & how video games are changing school.” So obviously he’s the very man to go to when you want an in-depth and precise report on the doctrine of Pope Francis. (He’s also a “general assignment reporter,” he tells me on Twitter; though one still has reason to doubt the depth of his knowledge about things Catholic. The bold headline of his article screams out at us bravely. “Like Pope Francis,” it says, “many USA Catholics’ beliefs surprising.” Oh? When you see that kind of thing in your newsfeed, dear reader, you know you have another case of Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome on your hands. [...] Read more

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2018-03-25T22:44:02-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Answers for Same-Sex “Marriage” Advocate Matthew Vines.

Last updated on: March 25, 2018 at 10:44 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, in which Mr. Vines claims to give the “biblical case in support of same-sex relationships”—recently posted “40 Questions for Christians Who Oppose Marriage Equality.” “Too often,” Mr. Vines laments, "LGBT-affirming Christians are the only ones asked to explain and defend their views. But there are many pressing questions that non-affirming Christians frequently do not address." Oh, well, then! These questions have never been answered before! Not once. Let me correct this oversight for those who (like Mr. Vines) hath ears to hear. Forty questions merit forty answers. [...] Read more

2018-03-26T22:19:59-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Remember Lot’s Wife.

Last updated on: March 26, 2018 at 10:19 pm By Scott Eric Alt

It is not marriage, what five people forced upon us all on Friday, and can not be marriage any more than a square can be round or a hexagon rectangular. What five people forced upon us all on Friday was a game of make-believe, a lie. Words mean things, and marriage is not just a social arrangement entered into by any two people who may choose. Marriage is ontological, rooted in God’s design of the human person for unity and procreation. Man was not designed to fit with man, nor woman with woman. [...] Read more

2018-03-27T23:46:15-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Laudato Si is a Hard Teaching. And We Must Accept It.

Last updated on: March 27, 2018 at 11:46 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Encyclicals take time to read. They take still longer to digest and understand, and longer still for them to even begin to change our habits of thought and patterns of behavior. That is particularly true when, as encyclicals should, it hits us where we live. How many of us can say they’ve understood and modeled their moral life after Rerum Novarum? Can you? That was written in 1891. A hundred years later, Pope St. John Paul II still had to adjure us on its teaching when he wrote Centissimus Annus. We’re thick. [...] Read more

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2018-03-30T21:44:01-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why I Am Never Leaving the Catholic Church.

Last updated on: March 30, 2018 at 9:44 pm By Scott Eric Alt

I am Catholic because Catholicism is true. It is not a little true. It is not some truth mixed with error; if I wanted that, I would still be Protestant. I am Catholic because the Catholic Church is the only place you will find the fullness of Truth. It is for Truth that I became a Catholic, and it is for Truth that I will die a Catholic. At the start of my conversion, I did what, as far as I was concerned, was the only logical thing to do for someone who thought that God might be saying to him: “Become a Catholic”: I made a list. [...] Read more

2018-03-30T21:50:47-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Before You Get Outraged and Share That Post on Your Social Media Profile…

Last updated on: March 30, 2018 at 9:50 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Only two things matter: the salvation of the soul, and truth. That is why it is an offense to see so many posts running the rounds of social media that are full of blatant untruths that could be discovered by a small amount of fact-checking. The headline, or the meme, screams at us. “Pope Francis says yada yada yada!” we are told; when, in fact, the pope has said nothing like yada yada yada. “Obama’s outrageous words!” another post screams; when, in fact, Obama didn’t say it and what he did say was a bore of a cliché. [...] Read more

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2018-03-30T21:58:14-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Two Highly Illogical Arguments for Sola Scriptura.

Last updated on: March 30, 2018 at 9:58 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Highly illogical is a recent post by Stephen Wolfe, which comes recommended to us by polemical rogue John Bugay. The title is "A Short Defense of Sola Scriptura," but it's more than short---it's blithe, cursory, breezy, shallow, perfunctory, and wholly unoriginal. Mr. Wolfe fails to answer many key questions: (1) How do we know there are 66 books and not 73? (2) Where is sola scriptura in the Bible? (3) Where is sola scriptura in the Fathers? (4) Why was James White the first to find out that sola scriptura is just a "normative condition"? [...] Read more

Answers for Calvinists

2018-03-30T22:52:50-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Misquoting St. Cyprian; Or, How “John Bugay” Abuses the Church Fathers.

Last updated on: March 30, 2018 at 10:52 pm By Scott Eric Alt

Polemical rogue Mr. "John Bugay" is promoting a group that calls itself "Operation St. Cyprian" and plans to disrupt the papal visit in September with entire tracts! The reason this group exalts St. Cyprian as some sort of favorite son among Church Fathers is because---so "Mr. Bugay" tells us---Cyprian "rejected claims of papal authority." But the quotation he uses to support such a claim is taken out of context, and he ignores many inconvenient words from On the Unity of the Church. This is very bad for Mr. Bugay. [...] Read more

Answers for Calvinists

Anti-Catholicism

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Triablogue

2018-04-01T14:34:50-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Frank Bruni, of New York Times, Hectors Christians: “Bow to the Enlightenments of Modernity!”

Last updated on: April 1, 2018 at 2:34 pm By Scott Eric Alt

So the New York Times ran a column by Frank Bruni—of all the days in the long calender of the year, on Easter Sunday—the point of which was to badger Christians into bowing their knee to the Sin Liberation Front, aka “gay rights.” Mr. Bruni starts off, as do most leftists who will have their own way, with a pompous and condescending sneer: I’m here to free you from that needless blue blanket you cling to. Then, after that haughty and oily display, the leftist comes out of the closet and screams his brownshirt demands. [...] Read more

Answers to Media Fictions

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