Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - July 15, 2021

to work i'm theresa tamiya when call to communion with dr david anders starts now what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests why do catholics worship mary why do i need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the bible i think the pope has too much authority what's stopping you you are called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network well it's that time of day where we ask the question what is stopping you from becoming a catholic if you've got an answer to that question that you'd like to share with us we would love to hear from you if you'd like to be part of the program the number is eight three three two eight eight e w t n that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're outside the united states and canada we've got a number for 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 if you are if you are calling from outside north america that's one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five if you're watching us on tv today you can be part of the program by sending us an email ctc at ewtn that's ctc at ewtn.com you can also text us your question 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 today for tom price charles berry spinning the dials producing the program your call screener is michael birchfield and jeff burson handling our social media efforts so if you're watching us on youtube or facebook live you can type a question into the chat window and it may find its way to us by the end of the program and our host as he is every day at this time dr david anders how are you jack i'm doing fine how about you you know what i am fantastic thanks for asking uh we've got a little objection here uh that was posed on on the internet that we want to pose to you okay let's hear that that may help uh ease the fears of some of our viewers and listeners the objection is this the catholic church has spent two millennia demonizing human sexuality to a degree unmatched by any other institution declaring most the declaring the most basic healthy mature and consensual behaviors taboo indeed this organization still opposes the use of contraception preferring instead that the poorest people on earth be blessed with the largest families and the shortest lives as a consequence of this hallowed and incorrigible stupidity the church has condemned generations of decent people to shame and hypocrisy yeah i really appreciate that objection i thank you so i have a slightly different perspective as you might as you might suspect the first thing i'd like to suggest is that it you can't really accuse the church of demonizing human sexuality when uh she elevated to the level of a sacrament the union that is specifically indicated not by catholics but by the human race as the appropriate context for conjugal union right so marriage in the catholic church is actually a sacrament and and what affects a marriage is the agreement of a man and a woman to join together to give oneself to one another for the purpose of raising a family through some form of sexual cooperation and the intent to engage in that conjugal union is integral to the intent to marry and church actually among christians has elevated that to a sacrament meaning that it is a sign of christ's self-giving and self-sacrifice for the sake of his bride the church and that every christian couple has an opportunity to participate in that divine nuptial reality and to mirror it and reflect it and express it to the world through the gift of their own sexuality so far from demonizing it the church has done what the church always does which is take a naturally good thing and elevate it through the domain of grace to something supernaturally significant so you can hardly accuse the church of demonizing now uh i also think that a historical perspective here is helpful you consider the condition of women and sexuality in the ancient world uh prior to the coming of christ and after the coming of christ and we're all well aware in history of feminism scholarship has really helped us see that the condition of women in the ancient world was pretty abysmal they were property belong to their husbands and fathers and sometimes their sons or whoever male was appointed as their guardian more or less to be bought and sold at the man's discretion so that their fertility could be at the service of of of the man and his progeny and his in his kinship and rights of inheritance and all the rest of it women didn't have any say in the matter well along comes the christian faith and early as christians first second century christians declared that women actually believe it or not uh have the same uh human dignity as men and that men ought to be held to the state same standards of continence that women were held to because in the ancient world men could run around do whatever they wanted to do women were expected to be chaste incontinent so they could protect the the integrity of the of the patrilineal line but men were not held to those same standards and the pagans were kind of shocked that the christians said no no no men have to be held to the same standard as women in terms of their sexual integrity and women have the same rights to self-determination in the exercise of their sexuality that men do so women can't be forced to marry against their will for example and the pagans said well that's just a crazy idea and you you catholics are anti-life you're the anti-life party because don't you know this is the pagan attitude if if we don't get women bearing children by the you know age of say 13 14 we're not going to be able to maintain the population because in those days infant mortality was very very high women might only live 30 years they didn't bear at least five kids in their lifetime you couldn't maintain the population along comes the christian church and says no you can't force women to do this and we celebrate in the canon of the mass the virgin martyrs of the early church that said we prefer to be the master of masters of our own sexuality give that to christ and we're not going to be told what to do by you roman patrons and you roman men that want to exploit our bodies right so in a sense the catholic church real we're the original feminists declaring the dignity of women in their own right to self-determination you can't force them to marry against their will but if you do choose to marry the church is going to elevate that to the level of the sacrament so i really don't think you can make the accusation that the church demonized human sexuality now in the church's teaching on contraception do you have any idea what contraception entailed in the first century what this meant for women in their bodies it's not seemly for me to say on radio it was a horrible abuse of women in their bodies something over which women themselves had no rights and no control abortion was rampant usually through beating women until they miscarried women were exposed children were exposed if they were born and undesired put out to die the church said no to all of that treat women with integrity cheat their children with integrity treat their bodies with integrity far from demonizing human sexuality the church finally elevated out of the morass of abuse and exploitation in which it had lived for thousands of years to something dignified 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america 833 288 it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders [Music] tomorrow morning on the sunrise morning show we'll celebrate the feast of our lady of mount carmel we'll also catch up with bobby schindler from the terry schiavo life and hope network and look ahead to the sunday mass readings with father hezekiah carnazzo from the institute of catholic culture and father jonathan duncan from the diocese of charleston plus news weather sports and a whole lot more the sunrise morning show tomorrow at 6 a.m eastern on ewtn radio [Music] have you ever noticed how much attention atheists get do you know why that is because atheists aren't normal it's normal to believe in god but normal things don't get much attention it's abnormal to say there is no god and that makes the headlines gk chesterton says atheism is an abnormality it's not merely the denial of a dogma it's the reversal of a subconscious assumption of the soul the sense that there's a meaning and a direction in the world and that there's a purpose to things and a meaning to life and chesterton says if there were no god there would be no atheists spend more time with the apostle of common sense visit chesterton.org for more information and go to ewtnrc.com to discover more books and programs written and inspired by gk chesterton [Music] we invite you to grab one of these open phone lines the toll-free number is 833-288 e-wtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six uh we have an email here from brad and he says i've read about many hard to refute miracles why do so many of us not convert to being catholic i struggle with this fact that there is so much evidence yet people don't convert um yeah thanks so you know human decision making is uh is a complicated thing and most of us i think myself included uh we don't we don't frame our worldview and our belief system simply based on uh sort of an aggregate of available facts that's just not the way we roll at any given moment we're bombarded with so many facts we can't possibly take them all in and we usually organize our perceptions and what we think about the universe in in ways that may be non-rational we may typically we're motivated by all kinds of non-rational concerns things of which we may not be even aware and uh cardinal newman who was a great catholic theologian of the 19th century saint john henry cardinal newman understood this and when he talked about the act of faith in divine revelation he really emphasized that more than syllogistic proof is necessary to to bring people to the point of making an act of faith that there really needs to be a kind of coherence between their whole life and personal narrative in the context of their moral decision making such that the presentation of the faith is is not only credible but attractive and plausible to them he called that the the illiterative sense of of the faith it's kind of an infelicitous word but that's what he meant by it and uh and in my own experience you know i find as an apologist that um uh sometimes you can present a really beautiful argument for the truth of the catholic faith and in fact you may you may rhetorically just demolish the guy you're talking to at the end of which he may conclude well that was a pretty argument anders and i'm going to go off to my pagan meeting now thank you very much you know i remember one time actually i i uh before i was catholic but i was still sort of being apologist for the christian faith i can constructed what i thought was a magnificent argument for the reliability of the new testament documents and my interlocutor had absolutely no response whatsoever at all to my arguments and when i concluded i don't know what i thought he was going to throw up his hands and say praise jesus i'm not sure what i was expecting and his response to me was yeah but i don't like christians and i thought okay that's a whole nother can of worms we've got to deal with 833 288 ewtn that's our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america 833-288-3988 evangeline writes in i felt drawn to the catholic church for years but i'm still scared everyone in my life my parents pastor and friends tells me that the catholic church is untrustworthy i've struggled for years with trying to interpret both scripture and the history of the church for myself and it has only resulted in a boatload of inner turmoil and near paralysis when it comes to ministry to others but how do i know that it's safe to let go and trust the church yeah what a great question so it really boils down to the credibility of of divine revelation and we touched on this a little bit in the last call you know the church actually says that the act of faith requires more than just syllogistic proof right and there are certain things about the faith say for example the dogma of the trinity that we can never independently but rationally verify we have to trust divine revelation which means the teaching of the church to to believe the doctrine of the trinity so is the authority that commands the act of faith is it credible is it worthy of belief and an analogy would be you know my wife might tell me things that i can't independently verify for example what if she calls up and says i've had a flat tire and i'm sitting on the side of interstate 65 and i need you to come pick me up well i can't independently verify the truth of that statement before i've made a decision whether or not to comply with her request so i've got to make a decision about whether to actually comply based simply on the credibility of her witness is she a reliable witness and that's not the sort of thing that i could have sort of mathematical certainty about it but i can have a moral certainty based on my familiarity with her over the years and we're sort of in an analogous situation with the revelation of the catholic faith and with the divine authority of the catholic church what is the credibility of the church's claims down through the centuries has the church in fact fulfilled its job description has it kept the integrity of the faith has it produced saints in sanctity has it been salt and light in the world and had an overall benevolent influence on human civilization and i think we can answer all those questions positively earlier someone asked about the witness of miracles we can bring those in as well so all of these evidences come as sort of converging coherent arguments for the credibility of the catholic faith but then the decision to make the act of faith is in a sense a pragmatic one because we have so much to gain by believing the catholic faith ultimately our salvation and our conformity to christ um and uh uh so there you go and you you you know your the church christ is going to call you to make the decision to follow him just like the rich young ruler that came to him and said what must they do to be saved he wanted a formula christ refuses to give him a formula he gives him an invitation come and follow me michelle writes in dr anders since the church declared galileo a heretic but of course was proven wrong in the end how are we to defend the infallibility of the magisterium to those who use this incident as proof that the church gets it wrong okay thanks so the galileo affair is one of the most misunderstood episodes in church history now uh to be clear the position of the church with regard to natural science and natural philosophy has always been that uh the doctrine of the unity of reason and faith so that if if if something is true in natural philosophy or science it cannot be contradicted by an article of catholic faith it will not be because the same god that wrote the bible wrote the natural world and he's not going to be at odds with himself uh if we think there's a contradiction between natural science and revelation then we've made a mistake someplace in our reasoning and it if we don't prejudge the the error we don't assume that the error was on the side of the natural scientist might have been on the part of the theologian and this this is exactly the way the church operated in the galileo affair so galilee of course following up on copernicus proposed a heliocentric uh cosmology but he had no immediate empirical evidence for that claim he had demonstrated it empirically he had some nice numbers he had some nice theories that made sense of the of the observable data but he couldn't actually prove the reality not for about another hundred years do we have the technology to do that and he brings this information to the holy see cardinal bellarmine and uh and what the cardinal said was this he says galileo your math works the math works i i concede that you have captured the phenomena in a formula right but i'm not persuaded that you've proved the physical reality you've given me a formula that can predict the motion of the planets but your theory about their about their organization i'm not sure you've demonstrated that so i'm going to hold off on affirming your theory right but here's what we'll do if you can prove the theory empirically then we will adjust our interpretation of the genesis account accordingly so i think you're wrong that was his attitude i think you're wrong i think divine revelation suggests a geocentric worldview but if you can prove otherwise then obviously we've made a mistake in the way we're reading the bible and we'll go back and we'll revisit our biblical interpretation so that it accords with the empirical data okay and uh urban the eighth pope irma had the exact same attitude right now the interesting thing is urban the eighth attitude about galileo that you've got a theory that captures the observe that captures the phenomena but doesn't necessarily penetrate to the essence of the to the physical reality uh there's a modern there's a modern uh theory in physics that corresponds to that it's uh it was it's a niels bohr neil bohr's niels bohr's theory of the atom right that that we never really penetrate to the essence we just have sort of instrumental knowledge of the of the the abstract patterns that we can observe right and uh and we're kind of agnostic on the inner essence of the thing david murman a theoretical physicist was once asked well what is the stuff and his response was we'll just shut up and calculate like we have we can't go there so urban the eighth attitude sort of instrumental view of of uh scientific epistemology is actually fairly forward-looking it's a very modern way of thinking about about science and uh and and philosophy and of course what galileo got in trouble for was not proposing a heliocentric worldview but insisting that it was an empirical fact right which had not yet actually been demonstrated scientifically so it wasn't he wasn't condemned as a heretic for teaching something that was contrary to sacred scripture he was actually in trouble for disobeying not not not his belief but his behavior that he was told don't go out and teach this as a physical fact until it can be empirically confirmed because it'll be very socially destabilizing right the world might lose faith in divine revelation or they might not know what to do with this so just teach it as a as a hypothesis for the time being well he he was uh he didn't do that right so he got in trouble now in retrospect i think we can all admit it was uh it would have been better off if the church hadn't taken that disciplinary action but nothing in the doctrine of infallibility is really at stake in this question and and the church did a a wiser job than they're given credit for eight three 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 kathy is in huron ohio she's listening on annunciation radio kathy thanks for holding you're on with dr david anders hi there thank you um i am catholic i have a friend who was catholic and one of the reasons he is not catholic is because he doesn't believe in the judo canonical the apocrypha because he says jesus or paul do not speak of or mention any of those books in the new testament but they do speak of the non-do canonicals in the new testament and he's and i looked up and i saw where protestant authors it says listed 340 places where the new testament cites the septuagint but only 33 places where it cites from the hebrew canon rather than the septuagint and i know the septuagint had the apocrypha and it or the deuteral canonicals in it what do you know are the deuteral canonicals quoted in the new testament by either jesus or paul they're alluded to many times they're alluded to many many times and you can just any any internet search for new testament citations of the deuterocanonicals will give you hundreds of illusions now uh this this question is is interesting and nuanced there's several facets to it so the most important question the most single most important question we have to ask about the biblical canon whether the old testament canon or the new testament canon is this how do we know what the canon is that's the most important question now your friend has proposed a rule he's proposed a theory if the new testament cites it then it's canonical that's his theory well the new testament does not cite all of the hebrew texts in the hebrew canon let alone let alone the deuterocanonical texts so you're going to have to throw out a lot of the hebrew bible based on that rule here's another thing the new testament doesn't cite the new testament the new testament books don't give us a comprehensive list or citations from the other new testament books you're not going to get a citation from matthew and john you're not going to get a citation of peter by paul you see my point right so that can't be how we know what the canon is now there's really only one objective rule that can define the canon forest and that is if there is some extra canonical authority something outside the canon itself that possesses divine authority that can define the canon otherwise the canon could never be an article of faith and protestants put it forth as an article of faith you pick up the westminster confession of faith presbyterian confession of faith it lists the candace here's what we think the canon is here are the books right they put it forth as an article of faith well if it's an article of faith it has to have divine authority as a list there's only one institution that has the authority to define a canon of the bible and that's the magisterium of the catholic church because christ gave it deputized it with that authority whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven if you throw out the authority of the catholic church you've got to throw out the idea of a biblical canon you've got to throw it out now when it comes to citations of the deuterocanonical texts there are many citations and and many more illusions of the deuterocanonical text the book of wisdom is all over paul's book paul's letter to the romans for example and come up with many other references book of revelation chapter 5 makes a very overt uh uh allusion to tobit chapter 12. um the book of hebrews when it enumerates the those who have who are models for us in the life of faith references the deuterocanonical text as well i mean you can you can look up the citations for yourself and to your point not only does the new testament cite the deuterocanonicals specifically but in about 95 percent of the cases when it cites the old testament it cites the septuagint which contained the deuterocanonical texts and when the church fathers who understood that there was both a hebrew and a greek canon of the old testament when they deal with this question and they ask explicitly should we advert to the hebrew canon or the greek canon of the old testament and augustine does this for example in his book on christian doctrine they they say well explicitly we should we should advert to the greek canon not the hebrew because the greek one is the ecclesiastical candidates the canon of the apostles and i think you've you've quoted many times i believe a a protestant scholar that you're somewhat fond of who acknowledges that there's no real logical way to assert anything other than the catholic church establishing the canon of scripture sure you know i remember i had a debate one time it was a it was a kind of ad hoc debate i got invited to a dinner party and uh by a catholic family who's whose next-door neighbor had brought their ringer you know their their baptist pastor over and the guy had a phd in patriotism he was a knowledgeable fellow and i said well let's just have barbecue and just talk you know and have a nice time and uh and they say fine well in the middle of dinner this guy pulls out a notebook and he's like you know licks his fingers like let's get going and he begins about a 15-minute lecture on the authority of the deuterocanonical text and he's citing from theodore mop swepstia and all these early church councils and he's making this big historical argument about which fathers did and didn't uh didn't acknowledge these particular books as canonical and he's he's very erudite i mean he knows more about the patriotistics that i do and uh he got done and i said let me ask you one question he says what's that i said is this an article of faith and he says well yeah it has to be because you have to have certainty i said okay who has the who has authority to define an article of faith every edition apart you know that's the only question that really matters that's right straight ahead we'll talk to tom andrea julian hopefully we'll talk to you it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders [Music] for register radio i'm matthew bunson this is monsie alvarado from ewtn news in depth hi i'm brian patrick with the catholic sphere get trusted catholic news every day on ewtn television and radio now not only can you watch ewtn anywhere but anytime with ewtn on demand get on-demand access to more than 12 000 ewtn programs including live shows and specials all in one place all free just go to ewtn.com forward slash on demand there's nothing to fill out no memberships required and no fees to pay all you need is an internet connection and you're good to go ewtn on demand fast easy and free 60 seconds with archbishop fulton j sheen in the history of the world only one tomb has ever had a rock roll before it and a soldier set to guard it to prevent a dead man from rising and that was the tomb of christ on the evening of the friday call good what spectacle could be more ridiculous than armed soldiers keeping their eyes on a corpse but sentinels were set lest the dead walk the silence speak and the pierced heart quickened to the throb of life they said he was dead they knew he was dead they said he would never rise again and yet they watched they remembered that he called his body the temple that in three days after they had destroyed it he would rebuild it the people you know and trust are on ewtn matt swaim here tomorrow on the sunrise morning show we'll celebrate the feast of our lady of mount carmel and look ahead to the mass readings for the 16th sunday in ordinary time now back to call to communion with dr david anders [Music] 833 288 e wtn that's our toll free number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six next up is andrea in cedar rapids iowa listening on kmmk radio andrea you are on with dr david anders hi um my question is about terminology can we use words like metaphysical and supernatural when we're talking about divine catholic realities yeah i appreciate the question so the church has a pretty uh specified vocabulary going back for thousands of years and so you can use these words if you use them people that you speak to if they're educated catholics are going to have a very particular understanding of what they mean so i think it's important to know how they're used in a catholic context so metaphysics is a branch of philosophy so we don't usually use the word metaphysical to refer to the supernatural necessarily it's a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being right so what's the structure of reality like things like you know causation and change and substance and uh these sort of categories of of of being that would apply to anything that exists you know dogs cats uh astronauts and and astrophysics all those would fall within the scope of metaphysics as a as it examines the nature of being as such and catholics are very interested in metaphysics because we think that the science of metaphysics the philosophy of metaphysics can ultimately can lead us to god and also to truths about the moral life and the human person so it's an important category in catholic thinking now the word supernatural means something that is above nature all right and it's different it's different in catholic usage from the word miracle right and a lot of people use the word supernatural and miracle in the same sense well they're not the same in catholic vocabulary even though some catholics themselves get that confused a miracle is a as a visible or sensible wonder something that can be perceived by the senses uh for which no natural explanation can be provided for example the sort of the premier miracle in catholic history is the resurrection of jesus from the dead we have no natural way to explain how a dead body could come back to life and ascend into heaven that's a miracle it's visible right supernatural is something that transcends nature but but it may not be visible to the eye and an example would be the domain of sanctifying grace in the soul this is a supernatural quality that's infused into the soul making us like god fitting us for heaven but you can't sense it you can't you can't feel it you can't taste it or see it or smell it or touch it um you can participate in it but you can't actually sense it so we'd call that supernatural but not technically a miracle because it's not sensible and all of these words are used in catholic theology and catholic philosophy 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833 next stop fredericksburg virginia tom is a first-time caller listening on siriusxm channel 130 tom welcome to the program thank you jack thank you dr anders really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you in a great show really gain a lot of insight from it so my question is regarding the prayer the our father and the part where we ask our father to lead us not into temptation it seems a bit odd that that our father would be inclined to lead us to temptation just wonder if we're suffering from a little bit of a translation challenge there i'll hang up listen yes i really appreciate the um uh the question now uh interestingly it's not a translation error at all it is at it it says what it means and it means what it says now there is a movement afoot in some segments of the catholic world to tone this word down because it's difficult word and well how we can't have god lead his invitation that just seems to implicate god and evil we can't be thinking that way maybe we should get rid of this word and use some other word and i'm not a fan of that movement because jesus said what he meant it meant what he said uh the word in greek is iceforoa and it's only used a few times in the new testament it's the very same word that is used in the account of the paralytic when when uh the men brought the paralytic to jesus and they carried him in and placed him you know through the roof at the foot of jesus and jesus heals the guy and he gets up and takes his mouth and goes home right they were carting him into the presence of jesus that's that's the sense of lead here it's a very strong word picking jack up from one place putting jack down in another place that's a pretty strong word now does god does god ever lead anybody into temptation well let's see what the holy scriptures say about this in matthew chapter 4 verse 1 we read then jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil in order that he might be tempted by the devil so the spirit of god intended that christ be tempted by the devil intended that he'd be tempted now he knew he wouldn't sin he didn't intend for christ to sin and christ christ did not sin but did intend for him to be tempted so how do we make sense of this well saint thomas aquinas in his commentary in the lord's prayer gives three reasons why god would lead us into temptation number one to strengthen us in virtue no no pain no gain right you grow in virtue by by practice right uh you you strain against what's difficult or arduous and you strengthen those those those virtuous muscles so one would be to to tr to uh to strengthen us in virtue all right or to test us in virtue same thing um another one be to give us the opportunity to acquire merit before god because if you resist temptation you do the arduous good that's meritorious i remember one time i went to confession and i said to the priest well i'm really struggling with this temptation he said well did you do it i said no i just want to and he said oh well then that's meritorious you know i was all kind of down on my so i'm a bad guy because i want to do i'm tempted to do this bad thing he says no you're not a bad guy at all you're a human guy and the fact that you're not doing the bad thing means you're actually acquiring merit before god right so what a revelation what a delight too you know in the catholic view of things concupiscence which is the immoderate desire for bodily pleasure or something like that concupiscence and and uh all the other the other sort of roots of wounds of sin are not themselves sins they're occasions of sin but if you resist them you actually acquire merit before god and that's praiseworthy so that's another reason god might lead you into sin a third reason would be as a scourge or punishment for your actual sins right because sometimes the punishment of sin is more son sin is nothing other than an irrational act is nothing more or less than an irrational act saint thomas aquinas says virtue is life according to the rule of reason and sin is deflecting from the rule of reason what is the reasonable good when you don't do the reasonable good that's sin now why is it the reasonable good because it it it affords our flourishing right it's it it helps us to be healthy happy holy live flourishing good human lives that's what virtue does for us when we don't do that we suffer it's like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer what's the punishment for hitting yourself in the head with a hammer you've hit yourself in the head with a hammer right so sometimes the punishment of sin is in fact more sin right so for those three reasons god would in fact lead us into temptation now god never intends that we sin and god does not directly cause evil but he will put us in situations where we have to confront evil even as he does his only beloved son 833 288 ewtn we've got a couple open phone lines for you at 833.288.3986 next stop is central valley california julie is another first time caller she's watching us on facebook live today julie thanks so much for holding welcome to the program oh thank you very much i appreciate the opportunity this is a question that has been haunting me for a while i'm a cradle-to-grave catholic we've been catholic since st patrick was a group gleam in his mother's eye and recently i'm doubting my choices and i have two questions the first is i was raised to believe and had heard many times that catholicism is inclusive and it is always written with a small c to show that we are welcoming to all and i was also raised to believe that there are many paths to god we have chose catholicism but others may choose a different path and they are not wrong this is our path that we believe in but we welcome we welcome all recently i've been told that i was misinformed as a young catholic and i was due to vatican too the teachings were completely incorrect and there is only one faith and it is only catholic and the rest of the people that i love that are not catholic um cannot experience an afterlife okay just concern yes first question yeah so i i think that you have been misinformed in many ways because what you have proposed to me is a false dichotomy right you've presented me with two options and you've said well it's either a or b well i don't i don't think either one of those captures the fullness of the catholic position right your main concern is are my non-catholic friends condemned to hell and i'll give you the short answer to that question that the short answer to that question is no not necessarily right so just because someone is not a card carrying catholic does not mean that they are ipso facto condemned to hell that's that's fault so if anybody has told you that repeatedly the church has rejected that opinion it is not absolutely necessary to be a card-carrying catholic in order to get into heaven so that's wrong okay you're misinformed about that on the other hand we are not relativists or indifferent to the question of of religious faith or practice so you know catholicism is not say one flavor of ice cream and all the other religions are just another flavor of ice cream and whatever flavor of ice cream you like is fine for you that that's not true either right otherwise there wouldn't have been any reason for christ to come to be incarnate and to be crucified and die and rise again from the dead if if if moses had been sufficient if confucius had been sufficient if buddha had been sufficient then there would have been no point in the revelation of jesus and the missionary call uh to the entire world right so there's there's something unique about christ so let's kind of spell this out for me for us a little bit now to begin with i i'd like to just dispel right away the idea that all religions are fundamentally the same and i think it can be seen quite easily and all you have to do is consider most of the religions of the bronze age most of the religions of the bronze age so for example uh if you go to uh carthaginian religion which is basically phoenician before the christian era we can find large archaeological digs that contain the burned bones of infant children that were sacrificed to ba all right to the phoenician god and i think you would probably agree with me that you would not be you would not think that a religion that sacrifices children by burning them to death in honor of a pagan deity is on a par with the christ's message of love and self-sacrifice right human sacrifice of that kind is is is not fundamentally the same religion that that jesus teaches us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us and similarly uh the aztec cult the priestly cult of the aztecs was an imperialistic colonialist cult that that conquered other nations in order that they could take slaves and cut their hearts out and feed them to the sun god and then their bodies were cannibalized by the aztec priests and their and their families and their skins were made into uh clothing and things of that sort so i don't think anybody would contend that the religion of jesus or even the religion of moses for that matter uh is fundamentally the same as the aztec cannibalistic human sacrifice cult right they're not fundamentally the same very different and many of the bronze age religions around the world uh had this level of barbarism in them okay now it's a little bit different when we get into the religions of the axial age you begin to move in human history say period 800 bc to say 300 bc you begin to find a more humanizing influence in in some of the major religions of of india china uh the hellenistic era and the hebrew people and more of an emphasis on say changing my behavior rather than rather than killing my neighbor and the church's position on these religions is to the extent to which they begin to approach the love of god and neighbor as the highest moral goods of the human person well in in that extent to that extent they're sort of mirroring the truth of the catholic faith and the church fathers early christian theologians when they looked at these axial age religions especially they were very fond of greek philosophy like plato and aristotle socrates when they looked at those religions they saw intimations hints they thought of what would eventually be made more manifest in christ and they had a very optimistic attitude towards those those religions and those philosophers so justin martyr who is a second century christian theologian considered socrates for example to be a sort of christian before christ because he believed socrates was inspired by the same divine logos the same divine word who had become incarnate in jesus they had a very optimistic attitude towards them and uh and and and so the way the church understands this today and this you do find in the second vatican council is the fullness of divine truth divine revelation truth of the love of god and neighbor and all the means of grace has been made present to us in christ in the church that he founded which is the catholic church but there are to be sure other religious traditions that have elements elements of that truth and sanctification and the people the participants in those religious traditions by laying hold of those elements of catholic truth in their own traditions may find in them means of sanctification and redemption and so it's not simply that you have to be catholic but neither is it true that that that all religions are fundamentally the same no there's a there is a truth about god god is love he calls us in his likeness and image to mirror and imitate that love to seek forgiveness to seek healing and to love god and love neighbor that's the way of salvation the catholic faith manifests that fully and has witnessed that to history to the profound benefit of humankind down through the centuries but to the extent to which other traditions also can lay hold of that truth even in an encode manner then an opportunity is afforded to them as well to participate in the grace of god 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 plenty of time for your phone calls july meets a couple of new offerings from ewtn publishing living the scriptures it's a collection of some of mother angelica's best on-air presentations and some of her extemporaneous meditations you'll discover that scripture is not a complicated puzzle that's meant for scholars but it's a divine guide for our everyday spiritual life and also the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume the grand master of the equestrian order of the holy sepulchre of jerusalem cardinal fernando filoni he reflects on the life and beliefs and values and the choices that the members of that order the knights and dames uh of the holy s the equestrian order of the holy sepulchre uh learn as part of that group uh again living the scriptures and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume and i'm guessing that that title rolls off the tongue a little better in either latin or italian or however it was it was it was written but you can find both of those now at ewtn's religious catalogue that's ewtn r dot by catholic shop ewtnrc.com next stop for us is newport rhode island anthony is in rhode island listening at ewtn.com anthony you're on with dr anderson thank you so much for taking my call i appreciate it with ref in all respect all due respect what is the official uh church position vis-a-vis some of the uh horrific acts that have been perpetrated in terms of heretics burning at the stake it it's fearsome horrific you know it seems to contradict everything that we hold dear and i'm just wondering has the church officially condemned those acts and what is the position presently yeah thank you i appreciate the question so john paul ii was very explicit in his pontificate that he would personally apologize for the sins of catholics down through the centuries and acknowledging that catholics had done both individually and collectively have done horrific things in human history and he apologized for the sins of catholics and i don't believe the church has ever taken the position that catholics either individually or collectively were not capable of committing a grave sentence on the contrary we we that this is sort of integral to our to our religious doctrine that humans are uh sinful wounded fallible creatures that can do awful things is why we stand in need of redemption right and uh so so that's the position that's the position now at any given point in time it can be obscure what what reason the natural law and the law of charity uh demand in in prudent decision-making right and so uh there are times we may get wrapped up in a kind of political ideology or a theory of social organization that's dehumanizing and would seem to justify horrific activity and it can be maybe hard to see that in the moment and then a generation later you look back and go oh my goodness that was a dumb thing to do right and we're all still guilty of this today we do it all the time right and you just think about uh you know how many times in history the pope has said well don't do this thing it's terrible like don't enslave the indigenous people so don't conduct transatlantic slavery don't do these popes calling out don't do these things don't do these things and yet catholics disobey the pope and they run alpha and enslave indigenous people and engage in transatlantic slavery and they have some ideological justification that based on spurious theories of you know race or whatever it might be but the real motive is they want to line their pockets with gold and so they come up with a convenient reason to disobey the pope well this still happens today pope stands up and says don't kill babies read my lips do not kill babies don't kill them no baby killing we are against killing babies you cannot do it and what do catholics today do some of them some of them well you know he's old-fashioned and he lives in rome and he doesn't understand women and he doesn't understand the economics of the thing and what and they come up with some ideological justification to kill babies right and uh and we've been doing it for 2000 years but the fact of the matter is is for two thousand years the church has been teaching the dignity of the human person has been teaching that the prophet motive is corrupts right has been teaching blessed are the poor church has been teaching these principles for 2000 years and uh but individual catholics even collectively catholics may be more or less deaf to that message as as their own as their own selfish motives uh so inclined them uh we head next to st claresville ohio gene is a first time caller listening on light of life radio gene you're on with father or father how am i doing i just ordained you dr david anders hello dr david hi how can i help you i have well i was listening to your discussion about uh our father and my question is who is who do we refer to as the great tempter the tempter would be would be the devil that's that's my opinion also is if there's temptation happening most of it is from the devil and that's who leads us astray and and why would jesus put something in the our father that would be a very rare temptation okay thanks so i really appreciate the question what jesus prays in the father is that god not lead us into temptation right he doesn't pray god don't tempt us see that would be that would be very contradictory the prayer is not god don't tempt me the prayer is god don't lead me into temptation now we know that that sometimes happens right because i quoted earlier in the show matthew chapter 4 verse 1 the spirit of god led christ into the desert so that the devil might tempt him now the devil was doing the tempting but the spirit of god moved christ into the circumstance where he would be exposed to that so that christ could acquire merit it's meritorious that jesus resisted that temptations how he merited salvation for us in fact his whole life was meritorious for our sake it also gives us an example to follow and all these ways he redeems us by exposing himself to temptation now um or letting himself be exposed to temptation does the spirit of god ever cause us to be exposed to temptation well we're all tempted by the devil and god is in control of all of human history down to the every sparrow that falls from the sky and so it clearly falls within the permissive will of god that we should be exposed to temptation why why well so that we might also like christ have the opportunity to acquire merit so that we might grow in virtue by resisting temptation maybe perhaps as a scourge as a punishment for our sons but it's not god who's doing the tempting it's the devil who's doing the tempting kim is watching us on youtube and she says she's a protestant uh in the process of converting and her husband's pushing back by uh especially against the eucharist by saying if jesus meant this as literal why don't we take his other words literal like if your hand offends you cut it off great question great question so in a nutshell how do we understand any passage of scripture how do we interpret any passage of scripture because i could arbitrarily say of any text well that's not literal i can pick anyone at random that's not literal i i just assert that this is some metaphorical or allegorical interpretation that means that you know like burritos from heaven are going to fall or something i can just assert that how would you disabuse me how would you disprove me well that's this is why we need an interpretive authority and the truth about the eucharist is i think there are contextual reasons to take him seriously but more to the point even from the first century the church has always understood these words in literal not the word i'd use realistic it's the real the true presence of christ that's indicated this has always been the way the church has understood the text the the doctrine of the eucharist precedes the gospel narratives the church already had the practice of worshiping the body and blood of christ in the holy eucharist before the text of the gospel is even written these texts were written in and for and by the community that gave us the the orthodox understanding of the eucharist on behalf of our host dr david anders our producer charles berry our call screener michael birchfield and our social media maven mr jeff person i'm jack williams again sitting in today for tom price here on ewtn's call to communion check us out every day monday through friday two o'clock eastern time right here on ewtn radio god bless [Music] i'm janette demello

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: 586TS0fNp7s

Length: 54min 10sec (3250 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 15 2021