Called to Communion - 08/26/20 - with Dr. David Anders

vandalized for more news with the catholic perspective visit ewtnnews.com i'm theresa tomio and call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation a priest 1-833-288-3986 stopping you this is called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network so what is stopping you from becoming a catholic what is it tell us what it is if you're not catholic clearly something is stopping you what is stopping you from becoming a catholic we want to hear that from you today our toll-free telephone number is 833 288 ewtn that's how bad we want to know the answer to that question is we will pay for the phone call outside the 833-288-3986 states and canada we will not let that stop you your number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and we'll even put you straight to the front of the line at one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five you can always send us an email ctc at ewtn.com or you can text your question to dr anders he's a 21st century kind of historian text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name in your question message and data rates may apply i'm jack williams sitting in for tom price taking some well-deserved time off this week charles berry our producer extraordinaire ryan penny handling your phone calls and jeff berson handling all of our social media efforts so if you're watching dr anders on youtube or facebook live um first of all give thanks that you only have to look at him and you don't have to look at me and then type a question into that chat window and it may find its way to us by the end of the program and our host as he is every day dr david andrews how are you jack i'm well how about you i am fantastic thank you i'm glad to hear it uh kirk uh was watching on facebook uh earlier in the week and his question is what do you say to a non-believer who says the devil doesn't exist um yeah thank you so uh i probably wouldn't say very much to be honest with you and welcome to the majority and uh yeah the church actually has some principles of evangelism uh that tell us we should start with um the hierarchy of truths now there's no such thing as a truth that's more true than another true truth i mean it's but there's some truths that are more important right so you know it's true uh you know that i had an ezekiel bred muffin for breakfast that's true it's not very important to the transmission of the catholic faith except insofar as it keeps this particular evangelist alive um so what's the highest truth the most important truth the truth most central to uh to the catholic faith and to all of our lives or almost the existence and being of god right that's the most important truth um and in the second most important truth and his creative creation of us and the world second most important truth is the incarnation of christ the son of god who died and rose again for our salvation founded the catholic church and gave us the sacraments as the means of grace i mean these are these are the foundational truths now now within that right there is the there is the presupposition that there is such a thing as evil and sin and personal responsibility okay now when we begin to work out the fine details of that we find out that you know there are other intelligent agents in the universe other than other than human agents that include the angelic realm demons and angels and they are participants in this drama and that obviously comes into our catechetics and is important for our self-understanding as christians but i'm not going to lead in an evangelistic outreach with them with the message that satan exists right not necessarily unless the context and prudence suggests that that would be a fruitful enterprise um you you already began by saying this fellow is not a believer well i want to find out what exactly that he does believe what does he in fact affirm does he believe in existence of god does he believe in the existence of moral evil and uh and moral goodness does he believe in personal responsibility um and i want to start working my way through the hierarchy hierarchy of truth it's not that the existence of the devil is unimportant but it's not as central as these other key questions and honestly the only way that i know with certainty that there is a personal devil is from divine revelation and so more important becomes the question of the reliability of divine revelation 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number [Music] 833-288-3986 an interesting question here uh david it's an anonymous emailer who says as a catholic convert and a contractor would performing work on a protestant church be okay i almost feel like i would be condoning their doctrines go work on the church you're totally all right you're absolutely okay uh so first of all i'm not even gonna get into the question of whether protestant doctrine is right or wrong okay and obviously it's right in some ways and it's not right in other ways and and some particular protestant church may do on balance more good than otherwise in the world and i mean there's always kind of ways to slice that apple but you don't have to slice it okay you don't you don't have to sit there and try to weigh prudently the options of you know are they good and bad how much good how much bad you don't have to do all that here's why here's why the church has some helpful principles in moral theology about cooperating with things that are not altogether perfect all right wake up that's most of reality um and uh and here's what the church says you can never formally will evil you cannot desire an evil end and so you know let's say for example that this protestant church made a big deal out of trying to get catholics to leave catholicism as the church that i once attended did right well that's evil you shouldn't try to pull catholics out of the catholic church that's a bad thing let's say you can't so you couldn't will that end you couldn't say well you know they want a new back porch man i'ma lay that back porch and i hope it gets a lot of catholics out of the church well you could if you did it for that reason that would be sinful if you were if you intended the evil purpose that they were achieving that they were seeking to achieve you'd be cooperating them formally with evil that's always wrong but then there's another kind of cooperation with evil called material cooperation with evil that is quite literally when you provide some matter some material that they use in the execution of their plans and material cooperation can be either remote pretty far away or can be proximate way up close proximate material cooperation with evil is often wrong not always but it's often wrong this would be like you know say the nurse working in an abortion clinic and the doctor says hand me the vacuum you know and she's standing right there and hands the vacuum over and he uses that to kill the baby that's very close cooperation with people can't do it remote cooperation you working in the factory that manufactures the screw that goes into the vacuum uh you're not really cooperating directly in the evil and so you know as a contractor you're just building buildings you're not out there formally cooperating with the aims necessarily the institutions for which you're working and that's okay ewtn's called to communion with dr david anders [Music] there's all kinds of prayers there's all kinds of ways of praying there's all kind of methods of praying there's a serenisian method francis giselle and ignatius of loyola there's franciscan methods and dominican methods and you name it we got it but sometimes we depend on a method too much like pieces said that prayer was conversation with god do you have a hard time conversing with people no i don't have a hard time well that's how it is with god beyond damascus with dan danatay and aaron richards is our show for young adults everybody's talking about encounter everybody's talking about that mountaintop experience what we fail to often talk about is what happens after what happens beyond that damascus moment jesus christ is calling all of us to be missionary disciples disciples of jesus who are on mission to bring the kingdom of god here and now on this earth beyond damascus with dan demete and aaron richards saturday at 8 eastern on ewtn radio now there's a fast and easy way to get in touch with ewtn the ewtn everything number call 1-800-447-ewtn to get the latest information on programming special events pilgrimages and more our ewtn family viewer services representatives are ready to help you with whatever your needs may be the ewtn everything number one eight hundred four four seven ewtn ewtn [Music] be sure to join us for dr doctor saturday morning at 11 a.m eastern time it's the official program of the amer catholic uh medical association hosted by doctors thomas mcgovern andrew milley and chris stroud again doctor doctor coveying covering all sorts of medical and ethical topics from a catholic perspective saturday's 11 a.m eastern time a co-production with our good friends at redeemer radio right here on ewtn 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 plenty of time for your calls and a couple of open lines for you first up today is teresa in cape girardeau missouri listening to ewtn on the amazon echo teresa you are on with dr anders oh thank you um i have two questions kind of related the first one when a catholic person rejects the catholic church and goes and joins say like a protestant um non-denominational church are they actually in some to some extent also rejecting jesus and the second question how do protestant ministers explain some of the apparent contradictions between protestant doctrine and scripture and in particular i'm thinking about justified by faith no need for confession and the fact that jesus gave the ability to forgive our sins to their to the apostles and of course you can't forgive them that you don't know what they are sure yeah thank you appreciate the question so first of all are those who leave the catholic church for a non-catholic ecclesial communion in a sense rejecting christ i i think we have to be a little bit more nuanced than that and then just have a kind of black and white you're either for jesus or you're against him kind of thing uh jesus himself was a bit more nuanced than that you remember the disciples in his own day found some people that were casting out demons in the name of christ and yet they weren't part of the company of the apostles and they said should we make these guys stop shall we shut down their show and jesus says no leave them alone because if they're not against us they're they're for us okay he had a kind of a little bit more nuanced view in the catholic church we have the fullness of the truth about christ about god about the moral life about grace and the means of grace we've got the fullness in the catholic church outside of the catholic church there are communions that have elements of truth and sanctification but they don't have the whole picture they're missing something that's important but they've got parts of it now the church says that outside the catholic church those elements of truth and sanctification can be for some people means of redemption and so i always use the example of my baptist grandfather he didn't know anything about the catholic church everything he knew he learned you know just by stereotypes and caricatures from his ancestors he had he had the baptist bible which is not the whole bible it's just 66 out of 73 books he had baptism and he had marriage those were his two sacraments and my granddaddy got more grace out of his two sacraments in his 66 books then i get out of my 7 and my 73 you know i mean he was just a fantastic human being with a lot of natural virtue and a lot of grace in his life and i believe personally that he's in heaven and he's a great inspiration to me my grandfather even though he didn't have the fullness he had enough of the truth that it was a means of sanctification and redemption for him now when you interview catholics who have left the church and gone off into other denominations uh and so why did you leave and we've done this i mean statistically pew religion research has done this kind of thing for us and we can read their responses about two-thirds or maybe even 70 percent of the people who leave the catholic church and join another christian denomination will tell you that they left the catholic church because they failed to relate to it that they felt like their spiritual needs weren't being met they couldn't seem to make the thing real to themselves and that could very well represent a failure of catechesis on the part of the church itself and so i you know i want to be generous in my judgment of other human beings and i'm i'm look i've been catholic long enough to recognize that you know there is such a thing as a failure of catechesis and uh and you know i i love the catholic faith and i've studied it for years and and i i see the this tradition of transcendent wisdom and grace and holiness and it's a powerful source of encouragement and hope and and and virtue in my own life but i also recognize that i had to kind of fight for it you know i had to give myself with great uh effort to the study of this tradition to make sense of it and it's pretty big you know catholic faith says a lot there's a lot of parts moving moving around and they're sometimes hard to make sense of and i had the time and the and the and the gifts to make that discovery a lot of people don't some people are illiterate some people are raised in a cultural expression of the catholic faith that may be somewhat anemic in comparison to the riches of the tradition that's not their fault necessarily it might be but it might not be their fault and so if somebody walks away from the church it could be it could be because they're obstinately committed to sin that's a pot i mean maybe the church says hey you know you can't commit adultery well i'd really like to commit adultery i'm going to leave the church well that's on them they're responsible are they rejecting christ yes but someone else might say i really want to know god who will tell me how to know god i want to relate to jesus who's going to tell me how to relate to jesus and for some reason or another there's some there's a failure of cat of catechetical ministry in their parish they don't get the answers that they're looking for they've been pastorally mistreated and then some well-meaning protestant person comes alongside him and says well buddy let me tell you how it is a lot of people have been drawn away in just that way and i want to be charitable in my judgment towards that soul now what i want to do is come come also alongside them and go i'm glad that you found something that's meaningful i'm glad that you're telling me that you're now you feel like you're walking more closely with god with jesus have you considered maybe some of the ways in which these things were present to you or could have been present to you in the catholic faith but you never saw them because they hadn't been presented to them presented to you and now that also brings us to these contradictions that you raise are you aware there are some difficulties with the position that you've taken you may not have seen them yet but if you'd let me explain i can open your eyes maybe to some ways in which in which the catholic faith may fulfill longings and needs that you did not know that you had all right now let's come around to that second question which is you know how do they explain these contradictions they are contradictions and they're very real okay and ultimately it was the contradictions of protestantism that led me to catholicism but i lived 30 years in the protestant church without seeing them and the reason i didn't see them is because the protestant tradition is not unaware of the bible of course they're not unaware of the bible they're aware of these tensions and they bring to their reading of the bible a particular interpretive paradigm an interpretive technique that is designed to harmonize those inconsistencies different denominations harmonize them in different ways and they may be more or less successful but they are aware of the contradictions and they and they attempt to give answers for them let me let me tell you the one you raised which was about justification by faith let me tell you how luther did it so so uh what luther did is when he read the book of romans in the book of galatians the two texts that talk about justification by faith and not by works he thought that when paul said works that paul must have been talking about all moral effort that's what he thought that it wasn't paul wasn't just identifying the works of the jewish law he was really identifying sort of any kind of moral striving that was luther's position luther was mistaken about that but but forgivably mistaken it was i don't think it was on him that he made that mistake uh and then luther concluded well then therefore moral striving is is really of no consequence it whatsoever at all in terms of justification before god that's how he that's how he read saint paul he found that he thought that was kind of the key to interpreting the entire bible and then he read his own experience into it and he said okay so there's a lot of the bible that gives me moral exhortation that tells me thou shalt do this thou shall not do that and you know if you do you're gonna catch it but over here paul seems to say something different that's luther's view not my view it's luther's view how do i reconcile these tensions well you know when i read those moral texts it really scares me and it really makes me want to flee to god's grace and mercy maybe that's the point of the moral exhortation maybe i'm not supposed to take it at face value maybe it's there to frighten me so that i'll see christ in his mercy and that's exactly what luther did he said you've got to divide the bible into law and grace grace is all the promises of mercy laws all the commandments you have to take the one at face value you have to take the other is sort of god's pedagogy and not really meant to be taken quite literally now that that that distinction is artificial and luther invented it but it's a way that protestants have learned to deal with these kinds of tensions in the text there are other ways that they have that they have dealt historically they're not unaware of them and there you go eight three three two eight eight e wtn that's our toll free number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six um next up is john in springfield ohio listening on st gabriel radio john you're on with dr anders all right hi doctor hey how are you good i wanted to know does mormons believe in god uh they use the word god and if you ask a mormon do you believe in god he'll answer the question yes when you when you dig into what they mean by the word what they mean by the word god is absolutely not what catholics mean by the word god absolutely not what catholics mean by the word god so depending on your what your definition of god is if you define god the way catholics define god then the answer to the question would be no do they use the word god yes they use the word god so what catholics believe about by the word god okay so the catholic view is god is the first principle what's a principle a principle is that from which something proceeds okay so in geometry you have axioms you have proofs the conclusion proceeds from the axioms of the of the geometric proof procession okay and the universe proceeds from an intelligible first principle in this way all of the created world all of matter all of space all of time every creature every agent nothing in the created world nothing in nature contains within itself the principle of its own existence i do not cause myself to be the earth does not cause itself to be it proceeds in a in a hierarchical textured way from an ultimate first calls our first principle god is the first principle everything that is derives its being by emanating from that first principle and so the first principle is utterly unlike nature when i look around at nature i find discreet concrete items rock dog tree radio host microphone individual things they have extension they have dimension they have weight they have measure they can change they have parts right and because of those aspects they're impermanent and they do not contain within themselves the reason for their own existence they depend on deeper and deeper levels of reality whether physics or chemistry or all the way down to the very first principle itself god is not like any one of those things god is not like a tree he's not like a radio host he's not like a microphone he's not like an apple or a rock he's not even like a some distinct axiom in geometry or in physics he transcends all of that particularity and differentiation he is in fact the very act of being itself a a nature so transcendent that it defies and escapes our every categorization that is the god of the catholic tradition that is the god whom we worship the mormons do not believe in that god when mormons use the word god what they mean is a concrete physical particular like jack williams or charles berry or david anders or hercules or jupiter something more like the pagan gods of greek and roman antiquity a concrete particular anthropomorphic physical being who himself was once a human being elevated just like hercules or or one of the greek heroes or maybe psyche from the myth of cupid and psyche a concrete individual historical being who was elevated to god-like status and became you know the the dictator or magistrate of his own little planet and is not alone and that there are others like him in the space-time continuum or in the multiverse that there are other little deities like that ruling over their other little planets and that if you are a good mormon you get to get your own planet and be a god like that they believe that that being that that that demiurge has a wife and and physically sexually copulates and has offspring right and uh and so is radically unlike the god of the catholic faith and that means in consequence that the mormon god is not the creator of all things but is a dependent being subject to change very very different from what catholics mean by the word god 833 288 ewtn that's our toll-free telephone number it's free anywhere in the united states in canada eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six you can always send us an email ctc at ewtn.com that's ctc at ewtn.com uh you can follow us on twitter at ewtnradio or follow ewtnradio on instagram straight ahead we'll talk to davis in maslin ohio and we've got some open phone lines for you and plenty of time for your calls at 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three 3986 it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders gloria purvis we have the wrong understanding and appreciation of pregnancy we need to do what's best for the child not what's convenient for the mother the father or the doctor the leading catholic voices are on ewtn radio father benedict rochelle there are legitimate differences of opinion in any religion there are differences of opinion in catholicism but in catholicism you expect that people will take the teaching of its supreme authority seriously to go diametrically opposed to those teachings is to not be a catholic someone in the name of catholicism is sponsoring the destruction of human life lives of unborn children and they got the name catholic on the door the highest authority in catholicism and the encyclical humane vitae evangelion vitae is absolutely clear that no catholic can support abortion and that catholics are responsible to take serious action against legalized abortion the people you know and trust are on ewtn [Music] ewtn communicating the faith you know you get paid in heaven for the ministry that you do on here i love your show my life has completely changed through god's power and through his revelation i've changed myself in my life all my first fruits go to god and i remain in god i pray all the time your show is in my prayers ewtn live truth live catholic hi this is janet williams you don't have to be a woman to enjoy women of grace tomorrow at 11am eastern here on ewtn radio now back to call to communion with dr david anders eight three three two eight eight e w t n is our toll free number i'm gonna give you a unique opportunity i know i've been frustrated by things like this in the past and maybe you listen to call to communion when you're driving in the car or you're somewhere where you just don't have a pen to write things down so i'm going to give you a unique opportunity here so get out your phone open up your contacts and go to create new contact put in ewtn radio and then enter this toll free number one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six that's the number davis used in masoline ohio he's listening to uh ewtn on our great affiliate there living bread radio he's a first time listener davis welcome to the program thank you dr andrews anders and my name's dennis [Laughter] no problem um and my question is about the the souls at the end of time will leave their bodies a high percentage of them i understand and then someone will be sent back i would like to bring that topic up and see what you have to say sure sure absolutely so what the catholic faith teaches is that death simply is the separation of soul from body that's the definition of death right the soul here is the principle that that animates the the the biological organism and and so in in some respect we can actually say that anything that's alive has a soul right plants animals whatever has life by definition has a sulcus soul just means whatever it is that animates the organism but the human soul is a little bit different well it's quite a bit different actually from plant life or animal life because it contains within it also a principle of immortality deriving from its immaterial nature right the plant soul is entirely material animal soul is entirely material with the human soul has transcendence and immateriality baked into it and we can discern that we can discern that even from introspection when we become aware of things like our own abstractive power our own power of intellection and and freedom intentions uh consciousness these sorts of things that defy material explanation and are immaterial in their very in their very essence uh have about them the marks of immortality and so when the human person dies soul separated from body but continues to live the soul continues to live now soul can live in one of three places it can be in god in the beatific vision the soul can be in purgatory awaiting the beatific vision soul can be separated eternally from god by its own free choice and being hell now at the end of time this catholic doctrine the end of time the soul and body will be reunited now that's not something we could know from reason or introspection we could only know it because god revealed it the soul and body will be reunited in the resurrection of the dead and then all all the humans who've ever lived will be judged in a public forum by god and then consigned to their eternal destiny whether that be heaven or hell is that helpful but uh well my question basically was about uh right now three years ago somebody was saying they were asleep and they had a dream the sun was moving around like from fatima and lourdes and uh they were shook real hard and went up and went before god oh i got you you're really talk you're talking about out of body experiences and near-death experiences this kind of thing what sort of accounts should we make of these testimonies so uh what the catholic faith would say is that these are these are reports of private revelation or they purport they claim to be uh revelatory experiences and uh we have no sort of we have no prima facie reason to believe them or to treat them as credible and you have to take them on a case-by-case basis and evaluate whether you think there's any reason to find them credible or not the vast majority of claims to private revelation the church dismisses and said there's no reason to consider them reliable and yes sometimes the church will will acknowledge that someone's report of a private revelation at least doesn't contradict the catholic faith and its content but that's a far thing from saying that we're going to trust that it's vertical or valid or truth-telling um and uh and so really it's a matter of speculation whether you think there's any credible evidence that such things actually indicate you know the ascent of the soul uh in a sort of genuine metaphysical way now i will tell you a catholic authority who's prominent on ewtn who takes such account such accounts fairly seriously and that's father spitzer you know we have a television show called father spencer's universe doug keck hosts and father spencer sort of makes much of these kinds of things and has done a lot of uh research into the neurology and biology of of death and has examined this and he he believes that he has established independently that it's credible to believe at least some of those reports that's father spitzer's personal opinion and i would direct you to his research uh he's got many books on the topic he's got many books period and a lot of them talk about this kind of dynamic uh you you can dip into father spitzer if you think that that that's interesting but you're not obligated to his conclusions because this is just not a part of the catholic faith you know it's it's like if i assert some some thesis in chemistry it's really neither here nor there as far as the catholic faith is concerned such things of course could happen by god's almighty power there's no reason for me to believe you know off the cuff that any particular report like that is true eight three three two eight eight e ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 next up is laura in salem oregon a first-time caller listening on modern day e radio laura you're on with dr anders hi can you hear me okay absolutely hey how can i help you thank you for having me on um i have uh somebody very dear to me who looks at all the world religions and sees that everybody believes that they have the truth and wonders how catholicism could be any different from that and i wonder if there's a rational response to him because he's not really in a place where he would recognize an encounter with christ sure yeah there's plenty of things we can say rationally to him so the first thing i would say is of course that catholicism is very much like other world religions in a lot of ways as we would expect it to be right because what the catholic faith actually teaches is that there is a common human nature that we all share you know whether you grow up in china or india or sub-saharan africa or north america or south america uh or you know the inuit cultures of the north pole we all essentially come from the same stock and our our biology and our spiritual nature are more or less the same right we have the same human nature we have the same transcendent longings we have the same moral law inscribed into our very being and so it stands to reason that when that when our own self-knowledge gives expression in rights and ceremonies myths stories and philosophies that those myths and stories and philosophies would themself articulate very m many of the of the same theses in in metaphysics and morals and that's in fact what we find you know so a wonderful book you you ask for references and resources that that uh explores just this very topic would be the book the abolition of man by the anglican writer c.s lewis and it's all about the existence of a sort of common transcendent moral norm and you could call it the natural law uh he actually identifies it with the chinese concept of the dao you could refer to it you know by the indian notion of the dharma or the rita but or the egyptian concept of mot but the idea that there's some sort of transcendent moral norm outside of ourselves to which we all owe reverence is something that you find uh widely spread practically universal around all human civilization and that's precisely what saint paul says in the book of romans chapter one that that what is what can be known about god and the demands of the moral life is evident to all of us evident to all of us and uh lewis makes another interesting observation uh and it's this it says look the the the narrative details of myth you know are obviously fictitious i mean there's no zeus there's no hera there's no apollo there's no tiamat there's no marduk from the babylonian epic but story in itself mythic story in particular has this quality that it tends to evoke a sort of consistent pattern of transcendent themes and so the details of the story vary you know from from myth to myth culture to culture but many of the themes that are evoked are transcendent and we find them emergent themes like things like grace forgiveness courage honor the sublime the numinous these sorts of things are evoked in these stories and they speak to something deep and profound within us now there's one of these myths that stands out in in stark relief from all the others in that it is not located in um in um in that you know that time in history called once upon a time but actually took place when kiranis was governor of syria when caesar sent out a decree to number the firstborn males of the house of israel and that this myth if you will if i can use that word took flesh was born in bethlehem of judea we can identify it in time and space we can find it located archaeologically and of course i'm speaking of the incarnation of jesus christ which is unlike uh the avatars and myths and legends and in incarnate beings that show up in in in the world historical myths and the difference in cultural import in significance and transcendence between that story which actually is locatable in time and space in history and all those others is is not just orders of magnitude different but it is of a wholly different order what did christ bring to the story that these other stories did not did not bring well christ brought the message that that transcendent wisdom right that pervades all of these myths and stories that divine reason that is the immortal spark in all of us that even someone like plato or aristotle could recognize took on flesh and called all people to worship the one god and not the cr the creator rather than rather than the creature and that's why saint augustine found the catholic faith to be the one true religion because christ accomplished in history what plato aristotle and the other myth makers could only dream of right calling the entire world to this worship of the one transcendent deity and when you look at the history of the catholic faith down through the centuries uh the impact the imprint of catholic civilization what we find is the steady march of the doctrine of human dignity made in god's likeness and image plato aristotle the babylonians the greeks they had no concept of the common dignity of the human person created in god's image you know aristotle thought some people were just naturally born to be slaves you know barbarians were of a wholly different order christ says no no we're all children of the one god all capable of redemption and grace and so you have to love your neighbor as yourself and the catholic church didn't just articulate that ethic it lived it out socially and transformed the entire world there's a reason why it is within catholic civilization that the doctrine of universal human rights emerges for the first time it's a reason why in catholic civilization institutions of benevolence and learning the universities and modern empirical science develop and no place else in the world great book on that by stanley yaki by the way called the savior of science there is a reason why within the catholic faith magic and trial by ordeal were banished as ways of dealing with social problems or adjudicating good and evil because it was the rational principle right and standards of evidence and law and procedure that were recognized to be the basis of justice right and in all of these goods of the modern world that we take for granted and where lay at the heart of the enlightenment are themselves the gift of catholic civilization to the world and and so yes there are common elements between catholicism and the other traditions but we can also speak about the profound differences let me start to enumerate some of them right when when uh when they when the spanish arrived in central america and they met the aztecs they found a culture that was so racist the aztecs were so racist that they thought that the other races around them should be treated like cattle they should be corralled and slaughtered and eaten and that's how they treated them and believed that by that activity they kept the sun rising in the sky the worst form of rank superstition embedded in in in the living expression of their myths in their culture grotesque racism ritual slaughter and cannibalism in the hopes that they would keep the sun going around the world right and uh uh and the catholic faith by contrast thought that the sun was an inanimate creature made by god that followed consistent natural laws right and so the scientific revolution the copernican and even galileo who gets such a bad rap in his relationship with the catholic church is unintelligible apart from the catholic worldview um when the when when this wasn't catholics but when the british showed up in india they found a civilization of brahmins that burned women to death routinely on their husbands funeral pyres and uh and inspired ultimately what can be shown to have come through catholic civilization although it got kind of diffused a bit in in the english reformation um the benthamite utilitarian british governors said we will hang a man who burns his wife to death and uh and uh and the brahmin said well you know we have a culture and a tradition that says we do this and the brits said we have one too it's we hang men who burn their wives and uh and it's called sati and today of course wife burning in india is is uh really not on the ascendant and it's the influence of western civilization inspired by the catholic doctrine of the equal dignity of men and women you don't barn women to death because a superstitious brahman tells you to we could enumerate instances like this all over human civilization where the gift of the catholic faith human dignity decency the equality of men women of races white black you name it male female slave free all one all possessing this transcendent dignity in christ because we're made in his likeness and image the incarnate logos who came became for us wisdom grace and salvation is that helpful laura yeah that's wonderful thank you so much oh there's a lot of information resources look at tom wood's book how the catholic church built western civilization it's a great treatment of this topic yeah and uh that's a lot of information that we covered there in a short amount of time so you and anyone else who's interested in in digesting that in a little uh more control controlled environment can just check out the podcast go to ewtnradio.com or go to ewtn.com radio slash podcasts and check out the podcast of the program i'm going to be up within a couple hours after we're finished here next up is kelly in madison nebraska a first-time caller listening on spirit catholic radio kelly you are on with dr david anders hello i got a question uh you were talking to the gentleman before this guy a little bit i heard and we had a group discussion this morning and the topic came up about judgment uh as if we when we die the guy's thinking that you know we go to hell purgatory or heaven and we are judged so say you go to purgatory you serve your time and get out of there and then there's a second judgment in the end with the soul and the body coming together we are judged twice i guess why is that okay yeah thanks i got you i got you i can do it i understand that let me you're looking at so you're assuming that that in the judgment we stand as parties accused right it's kind of like we know in civil law we have this principle that you can't stand trial twice for the same crime and that's how you're thinking about judgment well look i got judged the first time why am i getting judged twice that's the wrong way to look at it because this judgment can also mean vindication and in fact sacred scripture says that the saints will participate with god in pronouncing judgment against the wicked and the including the wicked angels you will judge angels saint paul tells the corinthians and the purpose of the of the particular judgment the private judgment is that we receive in our own soul what our deeds deserve whether good or bad okay but if the judgment is well done good and faithful servant and upon death we go to heaven in the beatific vision then at the second coming we're not we're not standing under condemnation we're participating with god in in executing judgment on the world and the saints are vindicated publicly in the same sphere in which they were previously dishonored so the those who persecuted the church for example roman emperors who called on you know the army to put christians to death uh will they'll look in the face of the very martyrs they put to death and the martyrs will be like uh we told you so we we act and this if you go back and read the second century martyrs a lot of what they said to the roman emperors was there will be a future judgment and you will catch it and uh and they'll stand up and say at the last judgment um we did warn you guys this was going to happen here we are see so that's the purpose of the final judgment 83 oops i'm sorry go ahead kelly all right very good eight three three two eight eight e wtn is our toll free number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six lilia is in tulsa oklahoma a first-time caller listening on oklahoma catholic radio lilia you are on with dr david anders hi thank you for taking my call i listen to you every day what's your question today question the question is if um someone that is already dead can send a message uh to another person with the person yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so we should not expect such things we should not expect such things nothing in the catholic faith suggests that we should and in fact we are we are specifically forbidden to seek such communication with the dead to seek out conversation with the dead is a magical practice called necromancy and it is strictly forbidden to catholics as a form of superstition a great danger to your soul and a profound evil because you're basically trying to play god and manipulate the unseen world for your own advantage so we must never ever ever attempt to make contact with the dead or seek communication with them in any way that being said there are no limits on what god can do and god has through scripture in history on occasion allowed the saints to communicate to those on earth in one way or another but that happens at god's initiative it is not up to the saint it is not up to us it is up to the almighty power of god whether he wishes such communication to happen so don't wait for it don't expect it if god causes it to happen uh that's his business and we receive it obviously and but anything any sort of apparition or vision or imaginative experience in which someone claims to have witnessed the the debt in any regard should be judged uh and uh and criticized and evaluated and ultimately submitted to the judgment of the church for evaluation thanks so much we appreciate that phone call joe's watching us on youtube and he says some of the reasons that are stopping me from becoming a catholic the doctrine of praying that mary intercede for us confessing to a priest worshiping the eucharist graven images etc okay we talked yesterday about the communion of saints maybe we could touch on one or two of the others okay yep so briefly briefly scripture and tradition both tell us the saints offer our prayers to god so i don't know why i would want to contradict sacred scripture in that regard um when it comes to confession to a priest the key issue in the catholic doctrine of confession isn't so much the question of auricular confession although we'll get to that it's the question do priests have from christ the power to absolve sins and that's the key issue and of course again that's what scripture teaches john chapter 20 jesus said to the apostles receive the holy spirit whoever sins you forgive are forgiven boom there it is in black and white jesus said it why would he give this power to the church if he didn't intend the church to use it now for a long time that power of of absolution was used by the church in a public forum so you know if you if you don't like the private confession business uh you could uh you know i mean church doesn't let this happen anymore but used to be you set them publicly and the priest would absolve you publicly well i personally i like the private business better i think jack and charles probably like private box better also um but the key issue is the absolution now when it comes to the confession side of the equation again this is just the command of the bible jesus i mean saint james says in chapter five his epistle confess your sins to one another you might be healed does that mean confession of a verbal or confession of sin articulate confession of sins not an option for us it's commanded by the bible now the fact that the catholic faith has since the 13th century decided to connect those two the confession of sin with the use of absolution that is a prudent pastoral decision on the part of the church that confession and absolution will be more effective in the soul if it takes place in this private internal forum but that that conjunction is not in itself absolutely necessary to the execution of the sacrament you can have the use of absolution absent private confession now by canon law you can't but i mean theologically that's it there are ways in which that can happen so the private confession thing's not really the difficulty uh graven images graven images well we don't worship graven images we just don't all right i mean that's the catholic faith forbids worshipping engraving images now the bible again i mean this is we're just going with the bible the bible commands the manufacturer of statues and religious artwork so i would recommend to your attention the texts in numbers in deuteronomy where god actually tells the israelites how they have to construct the implements of sacred worship and they're filled with images of animals and plants and sacred things for adornment and and they're integral to the worship of israel and uh and so the manufacture of religious artwork again is commanded by the bible and is useful it's useful for elevating the the heart and mind and devotion to almighty god but we direct our worship to god alone we may we may we may make use of religious artwork to uh uh to evoke certain affections and emotional states to aid that devotion but but the worship was offered to god alone [Music] on behalf of our host dr david anders our producer charles berry call screener ryan penny in social media made

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 53min 57sec (3237 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020