Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - August 11 2021

groups i'm teresa tomeo 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 is call to 1-833-288-3986 with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters we asked the question as you heard just there at the intro what is stopping you from becoming a catholic is it something that someone said years ago is it something that perhaps bothered you about where the church is or where it's going or various people in the church who knows uh but let's let's talk about that let's figure out what is stopping you from becoming a catholic here's our phone number 833 two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're listening to us outside of uh north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205 271 nine eight five you can also text the letters ewtn to five five zero zero zero wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and of course you can always send us an email ctc ewtn.com is the address ctc at ewtn.com charles berry is our producer michael birchfield our phone screener and jeff berson is on social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now just put your question in the comments box jeff will send that to us here in the studio i'm tom price along with dr david anderson tom how are you today very well you're my friend oh i'm hanging in there thank you a couple of interesting questions here i'm going to lead with this one i've never really seen this asked quite this way this came to us from frederick via youtube frederick says what can you say to protestants who call themselves catholic but not roman catholic you ever heard that one yeah i sure have yeah i sure have well to begin with i'm i'm grateful that they have a consciousness of of the need or the importance of belonging to the universal church yeah i mean that that's what the word catholic means when they claim to be catholic i mean different protestants have used this word of course since the 16th century they recite the creed like we do um and uh and they you give different interpretations from protestants some of them will claim that well this means that they hold the face of the faith of the apostles some of them you know the note of universality is is greater but i appreciate the acknowledgement that that they need to be in continuity with the church of the ages and that's that's what that signals and that's what means and i appreciate that so then i would just i suppose if they wanted to have a dialogue with it i would challenge them on the historicity of that claim is there confession in fact the faith that the universal church has always held and i mean i think you'll find if you look into it historically it's not it's not that luther was an innovator and he proposed a radically new understanding of the christian faith that was not the catholic faith was not the faith of the ages and you know the the protestant claim to base its teaching on the bible alone i think is belied by many things and not the least of which is the bible's been around for a long time it's been around in a lot of different cultures a lot of different languages not all of them churches in communion with rome you would think that if luther's doctrine or calvin's doctrine were just simply the plain meaning of the sacred text that somebody before the 16th century would have seen it and yet nothing like lutheranism nothing like calvinism emerged in the christian world until the 16th century you know northern uh northwestern europe in the 16th century in a very particular time in a very particular place a very particular cultural situation that particularity is not what we mean by catholicity which is universality okay very good and we thank you so much for your question there here's one from theta and theta is eight years old and the uh theta says dr anders i am confused about jesus knocking over the tables of the money changers i learned that destroying things breaks the commandment not to steal can you please explain this story to me thanks theta yeah thanks theodore i really appreciate the question so how would you feel theta if if somebody came into your house your house your house theta and put up tables and started doing business in your kitchen and would you consider it stealing to go in there and say uh we're moving your tables out of my kitchen i don't know who you are or why you're here but you need to get out of my kitchen because this is my kitchen and not your kitchen yeah right and that's what jesus says to the money changers he says this is my father's house he is the son he is the son of god uh they were there uh illegitimately according to christ they didn't have a right to be there doing what they were doing they were interlopers and just like you would uh maybe call the cops call the police and say come get this guy out of my kitchen who thinks he can sell twinkies you know with me here jesus said you don't you guys don't belong here you don't have a right to be here so move along move along okay very good theta thank you so much for your very good question call to communion here on ewtn our phone number 833-288 excuse me that's 833-288-3986 gabe has a question for us gabe says is it true that jesus suffered anxiety during his early years regarding dying on the cross i don't know about early years i don't think the sacred text says anything about his early years but we do know that in the garden of gethsemane christ experienced anguish psychological distress i don't know that the that that anxiety is the best word um actually i think anxiety is probably not the best word anxiety i think we usually use to refer to a kind of ill-defined fear you know it's not the same thing as if you know somebody busts down my door with a you know machete aimed at my head that's not anxiety that's just terror i mean i'm afraid of a very concrete specific thing anxiety is usually a bit more sort of generalized and christ didn't have a sort of generalized anxiety i mean he was not a neurotic person he was faced with the prospect of horrific suffering and it would be very unnatural for his humanity not to recoil against that so you know courage bravery fortitude doesn't mean that we are unconcerned with pain or suffering it means that we are resilient in the face of it which christ was okay very good and that uh that was from gabe gabe we thank you so much for your email which i think we just received recently now if you have an email that you would like to send to us uh perhaps a topic for a future show or a question for a future show here's the address to send it to ctc at ewtn.com ctc at ewtn.com in a moment we're going to get to the phones here at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288-3986 we'll begin uh with chris in just a moment here a couple of lines open for you if you have a question for dr david andrews or if you'd like to explain to us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic 833 288 ewtn that's 833 833-288-3986 the wednesday edition of afternoon and wednesday afternoon edition that is of call to communion turn to mary the mother of god for help bearing witness to the gift of life with the national life rosary designed exclusively for ewtn by premier italian rosary maker guerrelli in collaboration with renowned catholic sculptor timothy smalls help build a culture of life with the national life rosary available now at ewtnrc.com [Music] order your national life rosary today tomorrow morning on the sunrise morning show we will be celebrating the feast of saint jane day chantal the disciple of saint francis de sales and our catholic councilor kevin prendergast will look at the growing problem of depression among adolescent girls in the pandemic plus rita heikenfeld on grapes in bible foods the sunrise morning show tomorrow at 6 a.m eastern on ewtn radio [Music] i still have my sanity because of ewtn and listening to your station everybody needs to listen to positive things if you only listen to the negative things it just gets very bad if it weren't for your uplifting and wonderful people that conduct your programs uh i don't know if i could still be not crying ewtn helping people grow in their love and understanding of god [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn if you have a question for dr david andrews or if you'd like to explain what is stopping you from becoming a catholic our lines are open for you right now we have four lines available at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here's good news with news from ewtn's vatican bureau you can watch all the important events from rome even if you don't have tv access and we know a lot of folks don't using the latest technology we have made it possible to watch the latest news from the holy see delivered directly to your home via live streams from rome to your home the ewtn vatican bureau brings you the coverage you just won't want to miss watch it live on ewtn youtube and follow us on facebook instagram and twitter if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn let's begin today with chris a first time caller in dayton listening on the great sacred heart radio hello chris what's on your mind today well thanks for taking my call um i'd heard dr andrews talk about uh salvation before and is it outside of the catholic church and and i thought his answer was was kind of i'm not trying to be insulting but was just a little bit weak and what i mean by that is i'm on my way to my catechism right now because i've decided to become catholic but when he said the catholic church is just the true fulfillment of faith and there are other ways to be saved at least that was the impression that i got and i would think a lot of people got that impression then i was thinking why do i need you that why do i need the priest why do i need this if there are other ways to salvation you know maybe i.e the protestant church or or you know presbyterians methodists what have you um then why do i really need to do this communion you know confession to a priest you know all those things that catholics go through which right now i think is wonderful but i didn't i just didn't get the spirit of what how important it is to do those things so that's the reason for the call thank you yeah yeah thank you so much i really appreciate the question so uh the church rejects indifferentism and differentism is the idea that it just doesn't matter what religion you belong to or if you belong to one at all everybody's in the same boat that's indifferentism the church rejects indifferentism the church's position the teaching of the church is that that the the fullness of the christian faith the means of grace the truth about christ and the kingdom of god present and mystery are available to us comprehensively and uniquely in the catholic church but that there are elements of truth and sanctification that exist outside the formal boundaries of of catholicism not the not the whole show not comprehensively but elements and so and they themselves actually are forces impelling to catholic unity so you know let's say you're baptized in a presbyterian church and you have 66 out of 73 books of the bible that's the situation that i grew up in well i would never have become catholic but for baptism in the presbyterian church and the 66 books of the bible that i had that that was the that was the hook if you will that drew me eventually into the catholic faith okay some people don't even have that so josephine bakita for example tells us that she didn't have any knowledge of god or the scriptures but she saw the sun moon and stars and was filled with a profound desire to worship whoever made them she didn't know who made them but whoever it was was pretty awesome and she wanted to pay him honor and reverence and worship him and that was that that conduced towards catholic faith so when she heard the gospel of the catholic church she said yep that's what i'm signing up for that was the guy i was looking for all along okay now uh so the question is what if you're in that situation of you have not yet been drawn into the full unity of the catholic faith for that comprehensive truth and all those means of grace does the church teach that you are without hope well the second vatican council wrote in lumen gentium those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of christ or his church and yet sincerely seek god nor move by his grace and strive by their deeds to do his will as is known to them through the dictates of conscience and that's the teaching of the council or again in gatty met specs fabulous passage for since christ died for all men and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one and divine we ought to believe that the holy spirit and a man are known only to god offers to every man the possibility of being associated with the paschal mystery so teaching the church is clear that formal sort of card carrying membership in the catholic church is not is not metaphysically necessary for salvation and god can extend and does extend grace to everyone according to their condition that does not mean that the offer of grace is made as clearly or efficaciously and i i i like to give a trivial example trivial analogy if you catch an infection you might get well on your own maybe but go out and take some antibiotics prescribed by the physician and you're pretty sure to get well you know depending on the infection right right and uh and that's that's a bad analogy but it's the best i can do at the moment the catholic church is the the fullness of the truth about god and all the means of grace and so it does make a tremendous difference that one be catholic and i can give you some illustrations about let's take the truth side of the equation for a moment it's very easy to see some religious communities some protestant denominations in fact teach that it's okay to leave your wife and kill your child they do they say it's okay to leave your wife and kill your child the catholic church says not okay to leave your wife and kill your child can't do that sorry very bad very bad well those are diametrically opposite teachings diametrically opposite so it's not a matter of indifference whether you hold to one position or the other it's it makes a fundamental difference to the whole orientation orientation of your life do i think i have a vocation to to lay down my life and suffering it's not about me and i've got to serve my spouse and my family and my children and give them life and nurture and hope and and love and care and comfort and solicitude even if it's not convenient for me that's a very different orientation from someone who says well you know this is this has become an inconvenience to me so i'm going to shed myself of this family that i'm tired of that's a very different position now it's just one of thousands of instances where the truth of the catholic faith makes a major difference to how you live your life now let's say somebody is living in one of those denominations that say divorce your wife and kill your child does that mean that they can't be saved no they could they could listen to the testimony of conscience and reason and come to a contrary conclusion but it's going to be complicated for them it's going to be harder if they have you know pastoral care telling them go ahead leave your spouse kill your child that's going to make it a lot harder for them and then let's say they they do the horrible let's say they actually commit the horrible deed and they you know commit some infidelity to their spouse or violence against their child if they're catholic and they come to their senses and come to repentance the sacrament of penance becomes a very very powerful means of reconciling them to god clearing their conscience and giving them grace to take up the task of holiness again with renewed with renewed hope and vigor if they are denied that sacrament of reconciliation then they won't have the objective certainty of forgiveness they could have forgiveness through an act of perfect contrition but they won't know that they've got it and they won't receive that infusion of sanctifying grace that's peculiar to the sacrament they won't have that objective assurance they won't have the nurture and pastoral care of the church they won't be readmitted to holy communion they won't be admitted to holy communion all of which will be an impediment to their continuing in the life of grace and holiness not it's not impossible for them but it's much more difficult of course chris thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 the wednesday edition of call to communion here on ewtn let's go now to uh camille a first-time caller listening in melbourne florida on the great guadalupe radio hey camille what's on your mind today hi how are you you know i i listened to different religious uh uh whatever you call it churches or whatever you know and you're one of them and i am a true christian i walk the walk and i have a question for you when i'm witnessing no matter if i'm holding up a sign except christ you know uh repent accept christ you know he loves you uh or i go and witness in stores and stuff or wherever these people are at you know i come across people i'll say oh i ask them i'll say you know are you a true christian are you a christian and you know what some of those people and i've had several of them they'll say no they'll say i'm a catholic they won't say yes i'm a christian and i go to the catholic church no they say when i say are you a christian they'll say no i go to i'm a catholic now uh ask me why would the answer like that yeah thank you well i think it's a semantic a difference and some people some catholics when they hear a question like that coming from someone that they know is not catholic they they think well this person wants to know if i'm one of them right if i if i practice the faith the way they do and they want they're keen to emphasize that they follow christ in the catholic church and they want to differentiate in that way so that they so they're not just you know lost in the amalgam of all the different denominations and i think that's why they would differentiate but technically technically if you really want to get down to the meaning of the words and where they came from historically all catholics are christians not all christians are catholics now christ himself never used the word christian jesus that we know of at least that we don't have no evidence that jesus ever used the word christian for that matter jesus didn't use the word catholic but jesus did talk about the church if you look at the gospel of saint matthew chapter 16 so one place in scripture where jesus well actually two places where jesus talks about the church and he says to peter you are the rock you're peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it i give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven so christ talks about the church as an institution built on the rock of saint peter with an authority to bind and loose and he goes on to say whoever hears you hears me he'll reject she rejects me and i'll be with you to the end of the age therefore go make disciples of all nations teach them to obey everything that i have commanded you and baptize them in the name of the father son and holy spirit so christ has a concept not of christianity but of the church as a continuing institution with a mandate to teach and baptize and make disciples with saint peter as the rock foundation and the authority of binding and losing so if we want to stick to the words and concepts of jesus the question is can i belong to that institution that christ founded can i belong to that institution that christ founded and if so where is it well christ said the gates of hell would not prevail and it would endure till the end of the age so if christ founded this institution and as long as christ is not a liar it must still be around yep well there is there is one institution that has been in continuous existence since its foundation by christ claiming the power to teach and to bind and to loose and to baptize and make disciples and that would be the catholic church now early in the first century in antioch uh these fellows were running around doing their business and some non-christians began to deride them and they applied the term christian to these people who belong to the church because they claim to be followers of christ so that's where the word christian comes from it was a term of derision applied by the church's detractors and so it was applied first to catholics it was applied first to catholics now of course over the centuries people have broken away from the church and rejected the identification with the catholic church and have said well we just want to be known as christians not as catholics we don't want to we don't want to be in communion with that universal body that's been around for 2000 years that happened in a big way in the 16th century of course and and so today we have lots of people that claim to be christians but not to belong to the one holy catholic at apostolic church but catholics understand themselves to be all of us christians okay camille is that helpful for you uh yeah yeah it really was it kind of dumbed down to me it was almost like okay well you know i'm a catholic and i'm not a christian i don't believe in christ and i was thinking boy you know that hit me like a steel wall there and uh it it does bother me i've i've been at least three or four people have come up and you know when i come up to them they they say this to me and i'm saying i i need some uh answers for this right i hope we've eliminated that so let me just clarify this are you saying that some of these people are saying i am a catholic but i don't believe in christ like they the attitude i was getting from them yeah it was like it was like no i'm not a christian no i'm a catholic okay we're just using the word with in a different sense that's all right that's all that's right hey camille thank you so much for your call it's called communion here on ewtn lines are open for you at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 got an email from matt who says dr anders i'm trying to understand the mindset behind the set of beliefs of imputed righteousness the elect and the rapture my fallen away siblings talk about these things confidently my question is since i graciously repudiate these beliefs with them do they consider me non-elect that's a good question so first of all i don't know you said siblings is that we're talking about yeah i don't know exactly what communion your siblings belong to and so this kind of terminology is used in different denominations with slightly different emphases uh but it's very characteristic of reformed protestantism or calvinist protestantism so i can speak to that to that group maybe they're not in that group but if that's that's what i'll talk to okay uh so technically a reformed or calvinist protestant would would claim to know if he or she was elect in fact westminster confession of faith which is a key doctrinal statement of presbyterianism says that the elect can know for sure that they are elect but they wouldn't claim technically to know for sure that someone else was reprobate because see the way they understand this is not the catholic position right the way they understand it election becomes evident to someone when they are regenerated and believe in christ but prior to that regeneration an individual would not know with certainty that god hadn't marked that out for their future you say yeah so they would say well you know maybe you're not they might think maybe you're not born again now right but they might hold out hope for you sometime in the future fascinating so very different from the way catholics think about this stuff definitely lots more straight ahead on this edition of call to communion stay with us as a servant of christ's church ewtn foundress mother angelica was a pioneer of the new evangelization in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the global catholic network ewtn is commemorating mother's legacy with a special event on sunday august 15th we're honoring another apostle of the church's mission to boldly proclaim the eternal word to all people a life totally dedicated to our lord and his church witness to providence the first annual mother angelica award an ewtn exclusive this sunday night at eight eastern on ewtn television and radio and now the ewtn family prayer with father joseph family a prayer that we pray together is a powerful prayer so please pray together with me our ewtn family prayer today we pray for those who are suffering with parkinson's disease [Music] lord jesus christ consolation of the afflicted you are our refuge we pray for those who are suffering the effects of parkinson's disease as they lose their physical strength and abilities increase their spiritual strength and abilities renew their inner spirit day after day and through their share in your sufferings give the grace of conversion to sinners and their weakness reveal your strength give peace and joy to those who care for them amen [Music] tomorrow on more to life peace be with you do you feel like someone or something is robbing you of your peace we'll help you find rest that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six allison is listening to us in northern ireland via youtube today allison says hi from northern ireland i'm trying to understand the difference between praising and glorifying god what do we as catholics mean by the glory of god okay thanks so i don't know that i've ever read a technical theological definition of these terms so i'm gonna i'm gonna sort of free associate based on just their casual usage in in in catholic tradition well first of all the glory of god means god's god's righteousness his beauty his radiance the things that we would say wow that's awesome when thinking or talking about god and you know we have experience of things that are glorious beautiful sunset beautiful sunrise a great mountain the birth of a child and we are we are awed by them and god has attributes properties that are awesome in this way except they're also intrinsically good and so we would refer to those things as god's glory now of course the most one of the most glorious things that we experience about god is his provision for our salvation in sending his son to be our incarnate lord and die for our sins and rise again send into heaven that's that is preeminently glorious so we that's actually that's what we highlight when we say the gloria the prayer called the gloria in mass we really highlight the gift of jesus christ and the forgiveness of our sins through him so all those things are god's glory now when we talk about glorifying god typically we mean both living and speaking in a way that acknowledges god's majesty awesomeness holiness righteousness love and so forth so that can include our speech but it can also include our behavior as we live in a manner that's glorifying to god um we talk about praising god usually here we're talking about prayer song vocalization that acknowledges the awesome glory and wonder and majesty of god or gives thanks to him very good thanks for listening to us today in northern ireland glad you're hanging in there with us on youtube call to communion here on ewtn back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here's charlie a first-time caller in vail colorado listing on youtube this afternoon hey charlie what's on your mind today hi um i had a question about john chapter six i was reading this with a friend of mine last night and i just had a question sure okay it's verse 37 it says all those that the father so this is what jesus says all those that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me i will never drive away and so and he kind of says that in a few different ways but i was just wondering what jesus means by that like does god choose christians like before time even existed like are people chosen by god to be christians and not to be christian yeah thanks i really appreciate that question so uh the answer to this is actually fairly complicated and there have been different opinions on it in the history of catholicism and of christianity in general so let me lay out a little bit of a context in the old testament god called abraham to be a very to be a special person in his history abraham was called to be the father of many nations father of a great nation that would be a blessing to the whole world and he would give his children the sign of circumcision to indicate that they were participants in that covenant that promise that god had made and the people of israel the hebrew people uh later israel and judah and then eventually the jews were there with the heirs to that promise and uh the jewish people the hebrew people had a very keen awareness that they were elect in the sense that god had chosen them as a people to be his own special possession and to be a blessing to all the world but but baked into the promise to abraham was the promise that they would in fact be a blessing to the whole world and the prophetic expectation of jesus's coming was that it was not only the hebrews who would be saved but the promise to abraham would be thrown open to the whole world through jesus christ and so the language of election and choice and predestination that we find in sacred scripture has particular reference to this idea that god has now thrown open the offer of salvation to the entire world and those who are from among the gentiles that come to christ understand themselves to be called in just this way right they are now also heirs with israel of the promise of abraham and that happens through faith so that's that's kind of a broad sense and of course this this much to be sure was god's plan all along that before the foundations of the world he made provision to offer salvation to the whole world now we can ask a more narrow question which is that well how does an individual soul come to the act of faith is that something that is just entirely up to us and the church has always taught well even the act of faith itself proceeds from the gift of god's grace so the moment you've become interested in the question of god and of coming to christ and receiving grace there's something called prevening it grace the grace that comes before that's already at work in your life and so our salvation in god is from grace to grace it is initiated from god's gracious activity and he carries it on to completion now can we say that he offers that grace to everyone well actually that's the teaching of the catholic church that god offers that grace to every single person now here is the tricky part and this is the part that theologians have have not decided on that the church has never defined right so this is kind of the wiggle room in that question when the offer is great of grace is made how do we differentiate between those who accept the offer and those who do not where's the ultimate causation for that fall down to right well clearly the the rejection of the offer of grace comes from our own freedom what about the acceptance does that also just proceed from my free will so that if i say yes to god's grace i'm better than that other guy that said no and this is the element of mystery because even the saying yes to god's grace is also itself an act of god's grace now how does that play out with human freedom and divine foreknowledge and theologians have given different answers to that question some of them lean more heavily on the side of you know it's god's determination others lean more heavily on the side of our human freedom the catechism of the catholic church sort of splits the difference by saying that god's providence works through human freedom but i think in terms of the overall thrust of the new testament documents and the teaching of salvation the emphasis of saint paul is that god has thrown the promise of salvation open to the whole world and that's that's the way in which predestination operates as distinct from the election of the hebrews they thought of themselves as a people set apart but christ has become the atoning sacrifice for the whole world that's what saint john teaches in his first epistle first john chapter one okay hey charlie thank you so much for a call do appreciate hearing from you today on this beautiful wednesday afternoon here on ewtn's call to communion we received a call from sri a few minutes ago but uh lost that call sheree you're welcome to call us back at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 cheryl has a question for us what did augustine write about the eucharist did he think it becomes the body and blood of our lord jesus oh yeah absolutely to be sure to be sure he did yes now augustine did not the best of my knowledge write a treatise on the eucharist as he wrote on other topics but he does mention it in many letters and epistles and and texts that he composes over the centuries and yes he absolutely believes in the real presence of christ in the eucharist now sometimes people find a lot of language of sign and symbol in saint augustine and in fact augustine wrote one of the first philosophical treatises in history on semiotics which is the study of signs it was called de megistro on the teacher and he was very interested in questions of linguistics and the way in which words and signs indicate and he recognized that the catholic faith was filled with with with symbolism and with signs that point to immaterial realities and that's a big part of his thinking uh even our words for god augustine's word for god in in latin is de us d-e-u-s four-letter word and augustine once said uh you know god is not a four-letter word and he didn't mean the way we you know he meant it's god is not reducible to the four letters of the latin term they use but it's not it's not the sign i.e the four letters it's the reality to which it points and so he's always attuned to the significance of signs and symbols as a constituent part of our faith and some people read that language in conjunction with the sacraments and they go well augustine must be saying that the sacraments are just symbols and that's not what he's saying he's saying they're symbols never said that they were just symbols and he as he's explicitly over and over again affirms their intrinsic efficacy and that they really do convey christ to us but he but the catholic church teaches and of course this is augustinian doctrine as well yeah that the eucharist and all the sacraments are efficacious signs they are signs they are symbols but they're signs and symbols that really convey the things that are being signified very good and we thank you so much for your question today here on ewtn's call to communion tom price here reminding you to join us for dr doctor on saturday morning at 11 a.m eastern the three doctors are going to be discussing practical and current medical topics with a focus on the dignity of the human person and by the way not for nothing this is the official radio show of the catholic medical association do check it out saturday morning 11 a.m eastern right here on ewtn radio back to the phones now at 833 288 ewtn here is kathy in conowingo maryland listing on siriusxm channel 130. kathy what's on your mind today hello i'm calling i have a question um i'm a rebirth to the catholic faith i came back to church in 2019 and i listened to ewtn almost every day and i study and look i'm very interested in my faith but i'm getting a bit confused because i feel like there's a lot of division between the cardinals and the priests within the church not agreeing on issues like forcing the vaccine and denying the eucharist of public officials to support abortion that disunity is making me confused as to who am i supposed to be believe yes oh these are great questions i really appreciate that thank you so much so the who should you believe question is very simple i mean i i can answer that very easily so you you believe jesus christ and the dogmatic teaching of the catholic church now one thing about jesus's teaching and the and the dogmas of the faith is that they have general application they have general applications so jesus for example says if you love me and keep my commandments my father and i will come to you that's true that's absolutely true it's always true everywhere if we love christ keep his commandments then the blessed trinity will come and dwell within us now that's a very different question that's a very general question from how should father smith you know in our our lady of perpetual help perish in wherever uh what kind of what kind of parish ministry should he institute on wednesday night you know to reach out to uh the young people in his neighborhood so that they can learn about christ love him and have the blessing of the indwelling trinity so the general truth is christ will come to us if we love him and keep his commandments but the practical like particular prudential question is well you know do i institute a bible study or a you know open basketball night yeah that's a prudential question and on that uh you don't have to believe that pastor smith has the best possible wednesday night ministry right he might he's a human being he might have good judgment he might have bad judgment he might make mistakes you're not obligated to believe that his program on wednesday night is the best program in the world but you do need to believe that pastor smith has the authority to declare which of those we're going to do so not that he's infallible when he picks between the basketball game and the bible study but just that he's authoritative but that's but that kind of question has no dogmatic significance you see and so you know when when bishops disagree on on policy on policy they're not necessarily disagreeing on dogma or morals when they disagree on policy this is just evidence that they're human beings we we believe that they have authority in the church to govern the church right we don't have to believe that their authority is always exercised prudently sometimes it's done very importantly as history shows so so easily right um and you know also st paul says something about this kind of division in the church in first corinthians chapter 11 verse 19 18 and following actually he says i hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you and i believe it and indeed there must be differences among you to show which of you are approved or which of you have god's approval and the way i would apply that teaching is we're always going to have disagreements with people about prudent policy you know hey do you guys want to have meat sauce or tomato sauce with your spaghetti you know we're going to have disagreements on prudent policy right so how do i know what is this business about so you can know which of you are of approval well how do we treat the people that we disagree with that's the real test not are we right and are they wrong or are they right and are we wrong but how do we treat the people with whom we disagree do we love them do we respect their humanity do we give them the benefit of the doubt or do we condemn them and hate them and try to rhetorically or legally destroy them and that'll tell us a lot about whether or not we have that blessing of the indwelling trinity yes indeed appreciate that kathy thank you so much for your call we hope that's helpful for you call to communion here on ewtn we have time for a few more phone calls at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 let's go to uh todd right now a first-time caller in lowton oklahoma hope i got that right listing on oklahoma catholic radio todd what's on your mind today well first off it's lawton and uh just thrilled to be talking to you sir thank you um i will have a mia culpa first though i'm a cradle catholic but i was listening to your earlier question from the charming lady who was saying she goes up to people and asks if they're christians and they say well no they're catholics and i understand the difference because we have a lot of baptists here in rural oklahoma and you are always so polite when you get that question over and over again but it kind of reminds me of when i was a young child and my sarcastic father when i would ask him why he would turn to me and say stop using that dirty protestant word um if christ founded a church on earth our faith uh the holy uh has an apostolic church how is someone a christian if they're not a member of our church yeah thanks well uh so saint paul says whoever is baptized has clothed himself with christ that's galatians chapter 3 verse 15 whoever is baptized is clothed himself with christ and the church has always regarded uh baptism as intrinsically valid provided has the proper form regardless of the celebrant and i mean this was this is a dogmatic teaching so saint augustine actually wrote treatises and treatises about this in the fourth century when the donatists claimed that only their baptism was valid and uh justin said well no that's not true baptism is is intrinsically efficacious whoever performs it that may belong to the catholic church but a heretic or or someone outside the fold of the catholic church can perform a valid baptism other people are really baptized saint paul says whoever's has clothed himself with christ well second vatican council lumen ginseum says of those who are baptized that they have the right to be called christian and you know in my own case i was baptized in the presbyterian church in early 1970s and i lived the first say 32 years of my life outside the catholic church most of that period in ignorance of the catholic faith that was i was not catholic through no fault of my own in fact i was just living the faith as i had been taught it and i'd actually been taught to distrust catholics and be very suspicious of them and i was sincere i wanted to follow christ and the sacred scripture as i understood him and in that sincere quest ultimately led me into the catholic church but the church grants me the dignity of having called me a christian even before i was formally received fully received into the catholic church okay appreciate that todd thanks so much for calling today from oklahoma call to communion here on ewtn uh question here now from joe watching us this afternoon on youtube joe says a protestant told me that in matthew 16 jesus uses two different words for rock petros and petra he argued that this difference in terms means that jesus not peter is the rock what say you david yeah thank you so uh you remember rocky balboa sure do right um what would you have thought if i don't remember this being a line in the film if uh if somebody said yo rocky man you the rock like you would have caught the the verbal the rather cheesy verbal play on words quite easily right yes yes and that's exactly what jesus does so he uses the word petra in greek is feminine he masculinizes it petros make it refer to a masculine person namely peter and so it's as if jesus said yo rocky you the rock and it's obvious the what's being predicated here now this is not simply my judgment or the judgment of the catholic church it is the judgment of of sound anti-catholic protestant exegetes so i remember when i was in the protestant seminary one of the most famous professors at the institution i studied that was a man by the name of d.a carson and if you look up d.a carson you'll find books and books and books published by erdmans and baker and all these evangelical publishing houses and he's very very well known in that community and he's very highly regarded it's one of the one of the few evangelical biblical scholars who's actually has some standing in the academic world outside of evangelicalism he's known kind of a known quantity in that world and uh and uh and anti-catholic i mean the man is anti-catholic he's no fan of catholicism but if you want to read his article on saint peter in a book published by moody press one of the most anti-catholic publishers in existence called great leaders of the christian church d.a carson concludes exegetically peter's the rock i mean grammatically he's the rock it's pretty evident from from the grammar of the sentence that he's the wrong now carson doesn't draw the catholic conclusion about petron promises and supremacy and succession but when it just comes to the grammar of the sentence he's like well of course he's the rock of course yeah there you go hey guy thank you so much for listening joe glad that you're with us on youtube this afternoon brian has this to say dr anders really enjoyed listening to you you have increased my faith thank you i believe i heard you say on one occasion that you have online resources that you reference to find what the original text says about different verses in the bible could you please provide me some of those internet sites that provide the original text in the languages hebrew greek aramaic of of the original scriptures and their english translation thanks brian well there there there are many yeah there are many i'll give you two that i like to go to one is a catholic site and one's a interdenominational site the catholic site is new advent and it's a kind of a news aggregator also has copies of the church followers and and the catholic encyclopedia the tsum theologica but there's also a bible link where you can read the bible in three parallel columns of greek uh english translation and then um and then the latin vulgate and so that's one way to do you know kind of comparison uh the international site is one called bible hub and i i like it a lot because i can look up individual texts of scripture and then pull up an interlinear translation where you get an english translation along with the underlying greek or hebrew and then of course they're hyperlinked so that you can click on individual words uh get the uh the etymologies and you can parse the words and uh and see all their usages across sacred scripture so it's a quick and easy way to do word studies in the bible and i use that quite frequently very good here's an anonymous emailer who says you know mother and baby homes in ireland residential schools in canada financial scandals here and there doctrinal confusion liturgy wars complicit clergy and a messy vatican bureaucracy since time immoral it's a very dismal resume i should say so why should i consider rome my home i cannot even see the unity which you consider as one of the marks of the true church of christ how many ideological camps do you now have in your church you got trads libs conservatives rad trads rad libs ad info ad infinitum i like i like rad libs rad libs yeah uh yeah thanks i appreciate the question so uh a couple things one you know i think that you see lots of headlines in the news about catholic scandals when was the last time the new york times carried a cover story about the unobtrusive self-effacing catholic priest in kansas who heroically celebrates the sacraments for 72 years and you know counsels many young people in their marriages and puts their lives back together when when when did you last see that story gee it's been a long time you know i mean i can tell i could tell i won't right now but i could tell any number of stories of of priestly accompaniment pastors who have come alongside my family and helped us in times of crisis and shown constancy and faithfulness and and charity uh none of those stories are going to make it onto the front page of the paper and so you know there's a human beings have a a tendency a bias a heuristic bias to draw from the most salient and recent and frequent and available data their characterization of a complex phenomenon and so what is thrust in your face all the time is you know some scandal that the that the newspapers like to put up about some priest or cardinal and so you think well that must be characteristic of the whole church but you know that that's not rational yeah i mean you you wouldn't characterize other institutions that way uh i mean you know it just comes to sheer numbers you're going to find scandals in the public school system and the federal government and you know whatever institution the nfl i don't care what it is you know you're going to find problems in any human institution and if you shine a spotlight on them they're going to become more salient more evident to you and uh and it's not rational to form a a general judgment based on that kind of selective data so i would encourage you let's let's take a different data set they're called the lives of the saints spend a week just reading lives of the saints and then call me back yeah absolutely appreciate your anonymous email dr david anders got a whole lot of things accomplished today on the program thank you so much well thank you tom remember we do this program monday through friday at 2 p.m eastern here on ewtn radio with an encore at 11 pm eastern be sure to check out the podcast anytime of the day or night at ewtnradio.net ewtn ewtnradio.net on behalf of dr david andrews i'm tom price please join us again tomorrow we'll see you then god bless the pandemic separated many of us from the body of christ both the sacraments and our christian community ewtn takes you to the shrine of the most blessed sacrament in hanceville alabama

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,611

Rating: 4.8620691 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: 5sDRuK-4hz8

Length: 54min 20sec (3260 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021