3 Apologetics Points
There are many good books for Catholics to purchase to defend the Catholic Faith while talking to non-Catholics on topics such as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or the Eucharist or the Immaculate Virgin Mary or even all Scriptural topics including Purgatory. But three debilitating moves for Catholics to use on Protestants while debating on-the-fly are as follows: 1) Disprove Sola Scriptura by reading Scripture Alone? 21 Reasons to Reject Sola Scriptura by Joel Peters. It can be found online or in $2 pamphlets from Amazon. It will take less than an hour to read, and it is undeniably the best little booklet to disprove the erroneous Protestant notion that Divine Revelation is found exclusively in [...]
Does God Change His Mind Through Church History?
Two other titles I threw around for this blog post were, Was the early Church more traditional or charismatic? and Was the Early Catholic Church as Dogmatic as the Medieval Catholic Church? This is a long blog post, but if you follow it carefully to the end, I believe you'll be happy that you did. In the above picture, every domino represents a different century in Church history. I used to believe that liturgy and dogma in Catholic Church history followed an erratic pattern like the above picture of dominos, where every century differed from the next century. Where it is true that the politics of Church history have followed a [...]
Why the Restoration of the Catholic Church Must Be Marian
Part I: A Night on the AmbulanceN.B. You can skip Part I if you do not want my real-life account of EMS from 20 years ago that got me thinking about the mystical body of Christ’s “anatomy.” The theology of this blog post is found exclusively in Part II: An Analogy In the Mystical Body. But Part I here does describe an epic fail in my life... While pre-med at Boston College, I worked as an EMT at night. Upon graduation, I returned back to Denver and went to paramedic school while discerning if I should continue in medicine or if I was in fact called to the Holy Priesthood. [...]
Can We Evangelize While the Church is Bleeding?
By Marc Zarlengo Evangelization is not something that was pounded into me as a nominal, half-hearted (uncatechized) Catholic growing up in the 80s and 90s. In fact, I never thought about it. But as someone who has since reconverted to the faith and now attends both the Novus Ordo and traditional Latin Mass (TLM), I am confident that faithful Catholics of all stripes are facing one major common difficulty: How do we evangelize in this current environment of discord and bleeding? It’s a real problem, and we need to deal with it. Our job according the Great Commission is to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them [...]
15 Mortal Sins Catholics Are Missing in Their Confessions
Part I: Why Do We Need Confession and What Is Mortal Sin? If you know Part I, you can skip to Part II. We are all born in original sin, meaning the status quo of even the cutest baby on earth before baptism has natural goodness but no supernatural goodness. Still, God has a plan of a supernatural beatitude planned for that baby in heaven in both body and soul. Because transmitted original sin separates us all from God, it would take a great sacrifice of a God-man to reconcile any person born in sin: God, because only a pure and blameless and boundless sacrifice can appease an infinite offense [...]
Athanasian Creed on the Trinity
In the old Divine Office, all of us priests pray during the morning hour called "Prime" the Symbolum Athanasium or Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday. (It is prayed even more frequently in ancient editions preceding the 1960 Roman Breviary.) The Creed below is attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria in the 4th century, written to distinguish true Catholic-Christians (from Arians who denied the Divinity of Christ.) This Creed on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit begins with the unusual and striking words, "Whosoever wills to be saved..."(Quicúmque vult salvus esse) "before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith." This is followed by an astonishingly beautiful and powerful treatise on [...]
Can a Priest Baptize the Baby of a Same-Sex Couple?
In the photo above, a priest baptizes a baby that will be raised by two women. This took place at St. Cecilia’s in California on 7 May 2017. P/C USA Today’s Desert Sun. When a large homeschooling family brings their 9th baby to be baptized, that infant, at the moment of baptism, dies to the original sin in which it was born, comes out of the water risen with Jesus Christ and is a tabernacle of the Blessed Trinity, now beginning life as a son or daughter of God. When two same-sex guardians bring an infant to be baptized, that infant, at the moment of baptism, dies to the original [...]
World Religions Part III: Real Catholicism is the Only Antidote to Chaos
I attempted to prove in World Religions part I and part II that Catholicism is the only world religion that even claims to deliver lasting fulfillment to modern man. In this blog post, I will attempt to show that an "updated" Catholicism can never do this. Only real Catholicism can serve as "an antidote to chaos" to borrow a term from the best-selling book by Jordan Peterson. Yesterday, I drove from Denver to Chicagoland to be with my grandma for what may be her last month on earth. I am vigiling by her bed with both an iPad to get some work done and the old Collectio Rituum to begin [...]
World Religions Part II: The Exclusive, All-Embracing Cross
Because this blog post will inevitably raise the question "Who can be saved?" I would like to give the two bookends within which all Catholic orthodox answers must fall. One the one end, Pope Pius IX wrote, "By Faith it is to be firmly held that outside the Apostolic Roman Church none can achieve salvation. This is the only ark of salvation. He who does not enter into it, will perish in the flood. Nevertheless equally certainly it is to be held that those who suffer from invincible ignorance of the true religion, are not, for this reason, guilty in the eyes of the Lord." (Denzinger 1647, Ott 312.) Invincible [...]
Harry Potter’s Effects on Children
I recently put up a FB post about JK Rowling's fictional character Cassandra Vablatsky. Vablatsky is the fictional character who wrote the textbook Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Even Harry Potter's "fandom" website admits that Vablatsky was named after famous Russian Satanist, Helena Blavatsky. Under this FB post, I had 223 comments before publication of this blog post. One thing I later remarked is that it would be harder to pry from the hands of a Colorado teen his or her pot than Harry Potter novels! Such a disproportionate response shows some preternatural involvement. But what proves the preternatural (diabolical) side [...]