Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - July 20, 2021

meowing 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 welcome to a tuesday edition of ewtn's call to communion dr david anders is in the house strapped into the control chair ready to answer your questions here on call to communion the number to be on the program 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 your number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and we'll even put you straight to the front of the line at one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five you can always send us an email ctc at ewtn.com that's ctc at ewtn.com or you can text your question text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name and your question message and data rates may apply i'm jack williams sitting in once again for tom price but have no fear he'll be back tomorrow charles berry producing the program your call screener is michael birchfield 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 the aforementioned dr david anders how are you i've never been afro-mentioned before jack but i don't know well you have been you just may not have been identified as such but you have been aforementioned there's no question we've got got an email here from nash in the philippines and she says hello dr anders i'm a cradle catholic but for three years of my life i was an agnostic because of my mother i returned to the church and have happily lived my catholic faith since but as a revert i still encounter doubts that hinder me from becoming a quote unquote full-on catholic here's the question that keeps bugging me how do we know that what we believe and teach in christianity is the truth yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so first of all we have to we have to distinguish what we teach in christianity well that's that's not a single thing like there's a lot of content to the catholic faith and there are some things that catholics believe and teach that are accessible to universal human reason so when we talk about the existence of god for example this is something that we can establish philosophically we talk about uh human nature and and objective morality as it pertains to the flourishing of the human person well that's that's something that's accessible to philosophical reason and as much as people like to to argue about that and say there's no such thing as natural law uh if if you attend to the legal codes and the moral codes of most cultures around the world you find enough commonality i mean like when are you going to encounter a culture that encourages cowardice for example right i mean there are there are things that are universally recognized as tending to human flourishing and that's really the content of the the natural law it stands at the basis of catholic ethical thinking and these sorts of things are available to us philosophically you don't have to be a catholic to believe them now there are other things that are proposed for our belief that we cannot know from philosophical reason or from scientific reason i mean in particular the the kerygma the announcement of the death and resurrection and the ascension of christ into heaven that's not something that i can independently verify i'm dependent on testimony now there are two ways maybe more than two to approach that one of them is when anyone presents something to you to be believed on testimony is the witness credible it's the first question you just is the witness credible now let me give you an illustration my wife calls me and says i've had a flat tire and i'm on the side of interstate 65 and you need to come pick me up i can't independently verify the truth of that assertion but i'd darn well better get in my car and go pick up my wi-fi there's going to be trouble right you know why because she's credible she would not lie to me right that's it the right thing the morally right thing to me for me to do in that instance is to rely on testimony because my wife is credible now similarly when the church when christ when the apostles represent truth to us about jesus are there grounds for believing in their credibility and those are called the motives of credibility and they're quite extensive and we could have a whole talk about the motives of credibility and the in the divine authority of the catholic faith uh but just to mention a few of them the catholic faith in fact delivers what it promises namely sanctity and holiness and union with god the church is like a mustard seed it's it's seed and light and leaven in the world that has in fact been profoundly illuminating the miracles of the saints the fulfillment of prophecy uh good evidence for the resurrection of jesus all of these things are motives of credibility there's another way of approaching the kerygma the message about christ's death and resurrection and that is that it's it it illumines us right the dogmas so the church teaches are like lights they're like lights so less to be approached is some abstract metaphysical truth where you just sign on the dotted line below the doctrinal statement they're actually meant to be actionable they're meant to inform our lives right to give us a criterion for action in the world to think about ourselves and our neighbor and when you approach the world sort of trying on the lens of the catholic faith you try to see the world through jesus's eyes the effect is transformative and so it's it's proved in us by uh by our participation in the inner life of christ who is the incarnate god and that's a different way of knowing so so there are rational truths that we can ascertain philosophically there are those truths that are credible because of the credibility of the witness namely the catholic faith the apostles and the saints but then there are also those truths in which we can participate you know said augustine he writes in the soliloquies one of his earliest theological writings speaks about not so much god as the conclusion of the syllogism but not god in whom who i believe but god by whom i believe by whom i love by whom i judge and his awareness that he is you know by his own acts of virtue and charity and purity of heart participating in a divine reality that we call god all of these are different ways of knowing and entering into the depths of the catholic faith 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america plenty of time for your phone calls and some open lines for you at 833 288 if you're outside the united states and canada we'd still love to hear from you that number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and if you are outside north america we'll even put you straight to the front of the line straight ahead we'll talk to caroline in albany oregon and there's plenty of time for your calls at ewtn's 833-288-3986 to communion with dr david anders [Music] we want to invite you to pray the rosary with us the rosary is many things but perhaps the best way to think about the rosary is to think about it as a spiritual place as an invisible chapel the holy rosary with father benedict groeschel every night 9 30 eastern on ewtn radio father benedict groeschel some great people have shown respect for god can i read you a little quotation from albert einstein who many times showed a great respect for religion and was one of the great admirers of pope pius xii for his stand against the holocaust during the second world war einstein wrote the fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious it's the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science and knowledge of the existence of something we can't penetrate of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty which are only accessible to our minds in their most elementary form it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude oh my so beautifully said ewtn live truth live catholic [Music] you know ewtn offers the holy sacrifice of the mass from our lady of the angels chapel live every single day at 8 a.m eastern time right after the sunrise morning show and you can be sure to not miss out because we can send a link straight to your in email inbox every day simply visit ewtn.com and click on subscribe two eight 833 ewtn is our toll-free number open phone lines right now for you at 833-2883-986 first up today is caroline in albany oregon listening on the ewtn app caroline thanks for holding welcome to the program hi thanks for having me what can we do for you today um so i was in i'm in the protestant bible study i'm protestant and i brought up that um the cast like the catholic church's view that they were the church established by christ and um a friend of mine brought up that and i was saying like i just don't know if christ plans for denominationalism so many different versions of churches and thoughts and he said that he thought it was like the tower of babel like christ um you know or like god scrambled all the languages to make it more clear or something i don't know and then um so he thought denominationalism was like that like trying to i don't know i guess was he was he was he in favor of denominationalism or was he opposed to it in favor of denominationalism saying that like that's god's plan because something would i guess saying something went wrong okay i think i get it i think i get it so he's he's alleging that that uh that the the the ecclesiology of the catholic church the church is a a assertion that it is the one church founded by christ and in building a visible institution uh to transmit the kingdom of god that that was tantamount to building the tower of babel and that god just he's as he destroyed the tower of babel he destroyed the edifice of catholicism and broke it up into so many different denominations that was his argument right that that makes sense to me okay that's an interesting position for him to hold now one thing i'd like to point out is that is not what martin luther thought and that's not what john calvin thought right so the founders of protestantism the major intellectual pillars of protestantism believed completely in the doctrine of one holy catholic and apostolic church they were they were 100 on board with that now there's actually a text now in the 16th century they didn't have denominations as we understand them today they had sects the s-e-c-t-s they had different groups of christians all claiming to follow scripture or to follow tradition um but they did not regard one another tolerantly they didn't have an attitude that well hey you do your truth and i'll do my truth and the wall just have a nice time that's sort of the way people think of denominations today they're like different flavors of ice cream you know you want to be a methodist christian or a presbyterian or a bad that's fine because we all kind of agree on the essentials that's a very modern idea that's a really uh i i date that idea basically to the 18th century to the first great awakening to george whitefield but but for the first 200 years of protestantism protestantism was completely sold out for the idea of there being one visible hierarchical church now they all thought they had it they thought everybody else was wrong but they were very sold out for that idea and calvin uh actually criticizes uh ruthlessly criticizes what he would consider sectarian protestantism or sectarian christianity different groups popping up with different centers of authority and different interpretations of scripture he just absolutely ridicules that idea and there's one text that he wrote oddly enough against the practice of astrology right there it was against astrology the name of the text and uh in in that he actually makes an argument against what he calls there's so many different flavors of christianity like coins of different denominations he actually uses the word denomination right and says this is utterly contrary to the spirit of christ and to the spirit of the gospel which is to promote visible unity and uh and he made that the sort of the catchword of all of his theology in fact when he moved to geneva in 1537 the first thing he did when he got there was to write a single confession of faith and then insist that everybody in the city subscribe to it on pain of excommunication right luther had the same attitude like he did not tolerate dissent from dogmatic lutheranism and when people disagreed with them he tended to write them off as agents of satan he once said of earlwick zwingli swiss reformer one of us was with god and one is with satan and i'll give you a hint i'm not with satan right so that was that was early protestantism now where modern denominationalism enters in is that that insistence on you know there's there's one visible church but the but the rule of faith for that church is the bible that was the protestant idea that the bible is the rule of faith well the bible's not the rule of faith for the church and it's not it's not intended to be and so if you try to base your religion only on the bible you're going to come up with divergent interpretations and so protestantism was fractured from the beginning with multiple interpretations of the sacred text and they just kept on fracturing and fracturing many of them mutually exclusively many of them mutually exclusive right i mean from the beginning they were mutually exclusive and so by the time you get to the 18th century the the claim that there is going to be one visible hierarchical christian church governed by the bible alone was just no longer tenable and so you had to give up one of those polarities you either have to give up the idea of the bible alone or you have to give up the idea of the unity and catholicity of the church you have to you can't have them both and what protestantism opted for was to give up the visible unity and catholicity of the church and cling to the bible and so the the idea of denominationalism was born okay now the idea that this is somehow a benefit right that this that this is somehow an expression of the gospel or something i find that in a very very modern idea it's not reflected all in the attitude of sacred scripture right because saint paul really deals with sectarian christianity in the first century in the letter first letter to the corinthians and his message first corinthians chapter 1 verse 10 is that it's an it's horrible like that sectarianism is terrible factionalism in the church is terrible and that we have to agree on everything i mean it he's more hardline about it than the catholic church is to be honest with you agree on everything now the church would tell you now agree on the dogmatic teaching of the church but you can disagree on say like you know whether or not we what was the color fig leaves adam and eve right exactly do i have to like the beatles or something you know you don't understand everything we just agree on the dogmas of the church um and uh uh and then he actually says that this this kind of sectarianism is a scandal to the eucharist which is supposed to be the sacrament of the church's unity and so because jesus of course expresses the same expectation in john 17 he prays that all those who believe in him will be one so that the world can recognize his divine authority so we're talking here about a visible unity one that would be evident to non-believers so that's the intent of christ it's the attempt of saint paul it's it was clearly the intent of the catholic faith from the beginning was even the intent of the protestant reformers so i think your friends your friend's justification for denominationalism is very much a post-hoc rationalization like he's confronted with the fact of denominationalism and he has to come up with a justification so he's concocted a theory but it's not a theory that's reflected either in bible or in sacred tradition does that help you caroline yeah thank you for responding so eloquently to my not eloquent questions that's perfectly eloquent and i appreciate the opportunity thanks a lot caroline we appreciate it 833 288 ewtn it's a free phone call anywhere in north america what's stopping you from becoming catholic is there is there one thing that has kind of hung up on you do you think that denominationalism was god's plan all along because of our rebellion and maybe that's what's uh what's holding you up perhaps you have a a scripture alone mentality that you don't think the catholic church uh bears witness to anything at all or perhaps you're in conversation with someone who has posed a question to you that you're just not sure not quite sure how to defend we can i'm sure david would be fine doing just a little bit of apologetics in a situation like that 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number tony is watching us on youtube and he wants to know is the rejection of the reforms of the mass and i'm assuming he's referring to nineteen seven yeah where's your friend as a different lex credenti a tenable position or does this position lead one out of the church yeah thanks i appreciate the question maybe a false dichotomy here all right first of all right um but i i believe we have to hold that the second vatican council and the reforms it initiated are a legitimate exercise of the ordinary magisterium of the catholic church right so there are no infallible dogmas that were proclaimed but it was a teaching and pastoral council that articulated a vision of catholic pastoral ministry and identity and then put that vision to work magnificently and and quite pervasively and extensively across the whole range of the church's evangelistic and catechetical outreach i mean one of the fruits of the council was the production of the catechism of the catholic church and this was the catechism according to the teaching of the second vatican council and it was promulgated by pope john paul ii and made the authoritative norm for catechesis within the church now i'm going to have a really hard time with the idea that a that wholesale rejection of the reforms of the council is consistent with catholic unity when the teaching of the council is officially declared to be the standard or norm for catechesis and evangelism now that uh to to to dissent from that that doesn't mean you have to think that everything the council did was perfect or every word of the catechism is inspired or something like that we don't have to hold that level of scrutiny or that it was implemented in the spirit of the council sure you know it doesn't mean they're not imperfections right but but on balance to reject the council you know per se or the fundamental teaching articulated at the council and and promulgated in in documents and catechisms and liturgies and the like to reject that is really of course you're you're not affirming the faith of the church or the bishops or the pope and and not just this pope but every pope since john the 23rd right and uh so you really have to question what is the meaning of christ's promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church what the church binds on earth will be bound in heaven who promised that i think that was jesus okay you know but um look let me just i'm going to move into personal anecdote land here for a second okay i i approached the vatican council for the first second vatican council for the first time as a protestant i didn't come to it as a catholic came to us at a protestant and of course i was not fully aware of all of the internecine conflict all of the in-house infighting within catholicism over the interpretation or application of the council knew some of it but i didn't really much of it but i had been reading the fathers of the church i've been reading the fathers of the church i've been reading some of the great theological luminaries of the 20th century as well guys like andre de lubbock for example as well as gary gould lagrange who's sort of the opposite camp for mario dulubach great neo-scholastic and a great nouvelte yeah right and uh and so i had my head all full of theology but not a lot of wisdom in sort of the practical life of catholics and when i picked up lumengencium which is really the core doctrine of the second vatican council the church is teaching about itself it's the it's the dogmatic constitution on the church right and i read that i said yes yes this is beautiful i find in here all of the wisdom and insight that i've been encountering and the fathers of the church and the great scholastic theologians and the great modern theologians whether they are neo-scholastic or or small theologians i'm finding all of that insight and wisdom in evidence in this document presented in a coherent and beautiful fashion that i found luminescent and attractive and so the council was for me a really meaningful bridge from where i was as a protestant have been raised kind of fundamentalist to a much more expansive beautiful call to the vocation to holiness and participation in this 2000 year enterprise that we call catholicism so i i didn't having been schooled in the fathers and the doctors and the scholastic theologians as a scholar when i came to the council i didn't encounter radical discontinuity i found beautiful development and expression and pastoral application of wisdom that i had been picking up that i honestly did not find when i was looking at the early 20th century and 19th century sort of scholastic articulation and things like the baltimore catechism not to fault the baltimore catechism but that that way of teaching the faith did not fire my soul with the same sense of continuity down through the ages that i found in the council documents i mean i was i became catholic because of saint augustine i would encourage anybody go read augustine go read the soliloquies go read on true religion go read on the teacher read on christian doctrine read the confessions read the city of god uh and then and then read the council documents and see if they do not breathe the same error i would suggest anybody just read the council documents that's a good place to do this because if i was a betting man i'd say the overwhelming majority of card carrying catholics especially in america have not read the documents yes and i think that if a lot of them did read the documents they'd be shocked yeah i think you're right eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america 833-288-3986 let's go to dave in cincinnati ohio and uh he's listening on sacred heart radio um dave you're on with dr anders i praised your ministry i went back to the church after 30 years of staying out of the church after finding your radio station in ministry on terrestrial radio it wasn't even the internet and i've been back in and and i've been evangelizing uh you know and using some of your responses to questions and a big response i've got from two different men uh lately is i don't have to confess my sins to another man you know and i'm i'm not gung-ho about you know challenging that but i would love a response in it specifically what do you have to do in order to be saved because there's a lot of confusion that is a terrific question dave we're going to get to that in one moment we'll also talk to mark also in cincinnati ohio you're number one in cincinnati today and we've got plenty of time for your calls as well 833 288 ewtn it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders [Music] raymond arroyo dr david anders father mitch paqua the leading catholic voices are on the largest catholic media network in the world you're listening to the ewtn global catholic radio network this is brian kemper a priest for life with pro-life update the dedicated believers who work each day to protect the lives of children in the womb from abortion want to see their clergy inspiring and blessing their efforts the clergy are not to do our work for us but are to sound the trumpet of god's word and strengthen us with god's grace so we can do our work now priests for life has issued new brochures to help you encourage and equip your pastors to be more active in fighting abortion one of these brochures talks about catholic priests and deacons and the other is an interdenominational version you can find both of them at prolifeproducts.org dr bernard nathanson launched the abortion movement and said the clergy were asleep let's make sure they are awake today in defending the unborn this is brian kemper of the ewtn global catholic radio network [Music] here's today's quote from mother angelica's perpetual calendar we all have some aspect of our lord's life that we're attracted to and if we're attracted to it then we try to reflect it is that all to reflect like a mirror no we all grow brighter and brighter for what reason to be turned into the image we reflect mother angelica's perpetual calendar is available from the ewtn religious catalogue at ewtnrc.com tomorrow morning on the sunrise morning show we'll be celebrating the feast of capuchin doctor of the church st lawrence of brindisi and mike aquilina will tell us about the dramatic final years of another doctor of the church saint john chrysostom now back to cult communion [Music] 833 288 ewtn is our toll free number 833-288-3986 we're talking to dave in the queen city cincinnati ohio and he has converted to the catholic faith and is evangelizing and has run across the objection of confessing one's sins to another human um yeah so uh he said that some of his friends have charged that i do not have to confess my sins to another man so first of all it's interesting that the bible actually says the exact opposite so if you read the st james epistle chapter 5 he says confess your sins to one another no no qualification no ifs ands and buts it is not optional it's not optional okay now uh the business about confessing to a priest now i want to make a distinction here saint uh in sacred scripture jesus tells the apostles receive the holy spirit whoever sins you forgive are forgiven and in that promise christ does not necessarily attach the power to forgive sins to auricular confession right it's something that he gives without qualification to the apostles he says you have the power to forgive sins or to retain them period and so the church has some discretion over how she will exercise this power to forgive sins right so there are instances when the church will exercise the power to forgive sins without the condition of auricular confession here is an example you were on an airplane the airplane is going down it does not look good for the passengers there is a catholic priest on board in that instance the church gives him the power gives him the faculties to stand up on the plane and absolve everybody who's properly disposed even in the absence of private confession and actually i was a i was boarding a plane one time to washington and i and i looked over in in in there was one of our ewtn friars on the on the plane with me and we weren't going to the same place and it was just an accident that we were both on the plane and i said i said father it's so nice to see you on the plane you know the only time the church allows you know one of the only times they allow general absolution is like when the plane goes to here you are if we go down we can you can absolve us all and everybody on the plane turned to me and they were like shut up you don't want to think about that right so it's not that the confession part is we have to confess our sins and the church has the power to forgive them both of those are scriptural teaching now the church in her wisdom has brought those two mandates together under one head so to speak and said the most fruitful way for the church to exercise this power of forgiveness is in conjunction with auricular confession all right and but that's not absolutely necessary there are exceptions and for the first several centuries of the church's history uh the way the church exercised the power of absolution was not in the private confessional was actually in a public context people would do public penance and receive public absolution and you know that lasted for about a thousand years and then eventually the church said you know we think this is probably done with more discretion if we do this privately in the so the pro the institution of the private confessional was an evolution a development in the church you know harsh businesses so three hail marys through our fathers is a lot easier than it used to be right and so the real question you have to ask your protestant friends and neighbors is not what do i have to confess my sins to another man scripture says that very clearly yes you do okay but does the church have power to forgive sins that's really the most important question and the answer is very simple christ said whoever sends you forgive or forgiven whoever sends you retain or retain boom there you go it's in black and white or red and white does it work so here's another question why do this thing why do it why do it often people will ask well can't i confess my sins to god well yes of course you can and you should and you can be forgiven confessing your sins directly to god as king david was in psalm 51 right you can do that but christ by attaching the power to forgive to a human institution namely the sacrament of penance like with all of the sacraments gives us a visible tangible audible sign that the grace we hope for has in fact been offered to us so the person who goes to auricular confession and receives a verbal affirmation in the form of absolution knows with certainty that's the point of a sign knows with certainty that he is in fact forgiven so there is a prophet in addition to the grace extended you can have grace and not know it see god could give you the grace of forgiveness and you wouldn't know it in addition to the grace that's extended we also have the profound benefit and comfort of knowing that we are in fact forgiven that's the point of a sacrament so my response was why do i have to go to confession is rather i get to go to confession i am this is a gift that jesus gave to the church it is in my own personal experience look at my favorite sacrament and i wouldn't i mean i would i would give up all the other sacraments before i give up confession because it's peace of mind and it's piece of soul you know and just anecdotally uh as a convert like you uh you know my experience has always been that whatever i needed in the moment from the sacrament of reconciliation our lord has provided for me yep yep you know if i've gone in there trembling and ashamed and ready to crawl under a pew i've gotten the most comforting pastoral counsel that you can imagine and if i've waltzed in there a little high on my horse sometimes our lord has not been reluctant to knock me down a peg or two and it's really interesting how what you need is what you get sure but i you know there is such a thing as pastoral skill right and and i i have encountered some priests that are more gifted you know in in the human side of the confessional that others and you know some of them are the vending machine you know in search sins out comes absolution you know others are more gifted with you know encouragement and pastoral counsel in that sort and and uh and so it's it's nice to have a skillful confessor but it's most important to have a valid right that's right that's right we had a we had a um in the in des moines uh where we spent 12 years our family yep we had a vietnamese priest okay who had studied underground yes in vietnam yes i mean this is a hardcore yes young man right and finished his studies uh was able to get out finish his studies in the united states and uh he didn't have a a complete and total mastery of the language yes but he was a he was at the the cathedral parish for a while as the parochial vicar and i used to love to go to confession him at noon time they had confessions there downtown right in des moines and instead of saying make an act of contrition was beyond his english repertoire at that point and he would say okay you tell jesus you're sorry [Laughter] and i always i always loved that 833288 ewtn is our toll-free number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six wide open phone lines and plenty of time for your calls here on a tuesday edition of call to communion um jack writes it he says hey dr anders first thank you for the work that god does through tom and yourself we'll pass that on to mr tom and secondly he says i'm considered considering marriage with my girlfriend who is an evangelical protestant can you clearly describe the catholic position on justification specifically in regard to a life of charity and the sacraments how can catholicism point to action while the centrality of the interior life is surrender to god are there any books or resources that are worth reading to help us understand this yes thank you i'm sorry i think you misstate the catholic position all right so the catholic position is not that we are justified by actions in fact saint paul is emphatic that we are not justified by actions and no place more eloquently than first corinthians 13 when he says if i give all i possess to the poor surrender my body to the flames and have the gift of knowledge and can fathom all mysteries but i have not charity i am nothing it is not our mechanical actions it is not the the sort of the physical posture of our body or our donations those things do not justify since sacred scripture is emphatic and the catholic faith is emphatic about that right uh what justification accomplishes saint paul teaches us in romans chapter 5 verse 5 when he says that the love of god is poured into our hearts or in romans chapter 2 verses 25 to 29 when he says the real jew is not the one who is a jew outwardly through the circumcision in the flesh done by the hands of men but the true jew is the one who is circumcised in the heart and this is done by the spirit and to the one so changed in heart he naturally fulfills the righteous requirements of the law namely to love god and to love neighbor and so that's why you know take for example the baby who leaves the baptismal font well he's he's never fed the poor or clothed the hunger clothed the naked or or sheltered the homeless or something like that but that child is justified because he has the love of god in his heart right love is a habitual disposition right to will the good of your neighbor for the sake of god and many people have that but are impeded by circumstances from actually carrying out good deeds it's not the good deeds themselves that justify it is the infused righteousness of christ infused into us whereby we are born again into his likeness and image that makes us acceptable to god and so the difference with protestantism it's not a question of good works versus no good works protestants do plenty of good works and catholics don't think you necessarily have to have them right the difference is how are we accounted righteous this is the key difference between the traditions for most protestants we are accounted righteous because of what jesus has done and what is imputed to us so god looks on the believer as if he had done the righteous deeds of jesus that's the way protestants conceive of it catholics say no we become christ his love is infused into us so that we are inwardly transformed and the love of god is poured into our hearts so that we are in fact loving god and neighbor it's on that basis that god accepts us sanctifying grace is the basis whereby god imparts his own nature to us we become participants in the divine nature and he adopts us as his children so it's not it's not the imputation of christ's righteousness it's the infusion of rice christ righteousness we actually become a participant in his divine nature right we die and are born again with them 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number time for your phone calls at david 833-288-3986 for holding you're on with dr anders hey thank you for taking my call sir um i was reading about the gospels and the unforgivable sin is is the sacrament sacrament of tennis is it does it forgive all sins even a blasphemy sin or is that like a different condition yes thank you so much i appreciate it yes potentially any son can be forgiven in the sacrament of confession now the unforgivable sin is final impenitence and so by definition if you've committed the unforgivable sin you have not sought forgiveness in the confessional anything that you've gone to the confessional about is is not final impenitence and that's the only unforgivable sin that means the guy who dies without without saying he's sorry well he's committed the unforgivable sin final impenitence nothing nothing else is unforgivable does that help david does thank you sir sure you're very welcome um next we head to columbus georgia john another first time caller is listening on siriusxm channel 130. john you're on with dr anders hey y'all thank you for taking my phone call you're very welcome uh i i am a protestant um who has has been catholic curious for a long time and i'm also orthodox curious uh i went to a catholic high school so i i got a pretty good dose of catholicism while i was there and um one of the things that as a protestant i've always missed out on is just some of those um what i know you all consider sacraments and and what i certainly would probably would too and now y'all were talking about confessions before and uh and i wanted to just talk from from a protestant perspective um how is it possible for us to participate in that that act of confession um and or or or is there some guidance on how protestants who want to go about that what whether how we could participate in it yeah i will tell you just real quick i will tell you this real quick i had uh i had the opportunity about 15 years ago to go spend a few days over at the monastery in conyers georgia yes um the temp was it monster holy spirit over there i guess no i can't remember what the name of it is right now um but i had an incredible time and i was able to actually sit down with one of the monks and and do a face-to-face confession which was weird because i thought there was supposed to be a door and stuff like that but you know it was one of the most incredible experiences uh just to sit down with this guy and i was as honest with him as i've ever been with anybody in my life and he laughed and i cried and then you know i laughed and it was just an amazing experience and i i've always kind of felt like you still there at home anyway i know that's a lot yeah sure i can i can certainly help you so obviously the the the best way i think and the easiest way for you to fully participate in the sacrament of confession is to become catholic right um because see confession is is a beautiful part of your of our spirituality and it is is powerful for helping us in our interior lives but it's not only a private act it is a private act but it's not only a private act it's also a a juridical act a judicial act on the part of the church it that admits us to communion in the church you know when when saint paul in 1st corinthians 5 tells the church at corinth that they have to exclude the unrepentant from their midst and exclude them from communion he says unless the guy comes to repentance and then you forgive him and then he comes back into the communion of the church so it's it's ordered towards communion in the body of christ which is the church and of course if you've read second corinthians you know the guy comes to his senses and paul absolves him and he comes back into fellowship so yes it's about our own private spirituality but it's also about being brought back into fellowship with the church confession is it's uh you know baptism is the is the the door into the catholic faith and um you know when you're when you have little toddlers like little kitty doors you set up to keep them from falling down the stairs confession is kind of like the kitty door you know you're already in the house but you have to come back into the kitchen right and uh and so you can't think of it in in abstraction from the question of participation in that in that larger body of the catholic faithful so the the best and easiest way for you to participate in confession is to actually become catholic now there is another way that protestants can lawfully partake of the sacrament of confession but i don't advise it and that is if you are in danger of death right if you're in danger of death then the church will absolve you of your sins if you have catholic faith in the sacraments and you're properly disposed right but apart from those two situations normally a priest is not supposed to absolve a protestant of sins because the church doesn't claim jurisdiction you know like like you know we we're not the boss of you right that's the whole point and so the church is not gonna exercise the disciplinary power of the church over someone who's not a member of the church um so there are a couple other things that you could do um if a protestant goes to a catholic priest and says i am a protestant i am not a catholic but i feel the need to confess my sins the priest can say well you know you can certainly unburden yourself but i don't have faculties don't have the right to absolve you but i can pray for you and so you know it won't really be sacramental confession but it'll be more like pastoral counseling and you know a sort of good-natured prayer for for unity and and for forgiveness and so forth but you won't really receive absolution um and then the final thing is that you know there are within some protestant churches a kind of analog to the catholic confessional that doesn't have the power of a sacrament but does have some aspects of this sort of pastoral comfort that you've already experienced but i guess my question to you would be what's stopping you from becoming a catholic so you can get the full picture boy that's a big question um you know i don't know um i i'm i am not sure about so much i guess i'm just gonna say that um and i certainly know that i don't need to be sure of everything in order to uh to become catholic um and and so you know i don't know i i do i do feel like that in in some regard there is a lot of of dogma that i would need to wholeheartedly really believe and profess um and i would never want to to try to sneak my own version of catholicism um in the door sure sure so let me ask you a question about that right i assume if you're a practicing protestant you believe the bible right absolutely yeah have you independently verified every doctrine of the bible no i probably have a few left that i haven't done right right i mean and it'd be impossible to do right i mean the bible teaches a lot of things that fall beyond the scope of our ability to verify at some point you have to take the authority of the bible for granted and believe something not because you've independently verified it but because you trust in biblical authority right so my point is we're in the same position with respect to the authority of the catholic church just like you know i can't prove that esther should belong in the old testament there's no independent rational or scientific test that i can exercise that can prove to me that esther is an inspired book and left to my own judgment i might conclude otherwise right or that the content of esther was inspired and in the same way i'm not never going to be in a position no one is of independently verifying every catholic dogma so the one dogma i have to consider is did christ establish the church he said he did i will build my church and did he in fact give the church authority to teach whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whoever hears you hears me go therefore and make disciples and teach them everything i have commanded you so i i would that's where i would start consider the intent of christ in founding the church and his mandate to the church to teach and his promise of divine assistance get that question clear and then you can put yourself in the same position with respect to the church's authority that you would with biblical authority namely i don't have to independently verify everything because i trust the testimony of christ thanks john we appreciate the call today join us tomorrow for catholic connection at 9 00 a.m eastern time teresa tomio discusses the news items of the day from a catholic perspective that's catholic connection tomorrow morning and every morning at 9 00 a.m eastern time 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number we have an email from basil and he says in scripture jesus says that the son of man will be in the earth three days and three nights from friday to sunday morning is only one day and two nights can you explain yeah he doesn't count the way you do friday he's counting friday saturday and sunday is three days so he's just reckoning time differently than you do he's allowed to do that he's not on a uh 24-hour slave calendar slave clock for uh for the for the calendar over here right right you know the only time we have to account absolutely the same is when we're all playing monopoly together i have i have one one child that's a little bit crazy you lost me there he's a little creative in the way he counts you know tom writes in i was told maybe you could answer this and he doesn't want to be a bother but do the nativity narratives of luke and matthew synthesize with each other and what he means is luke we have the presentation of jesus and the purification of mary though she did not need it but in matthew the holy family flee to egypt because of the slaughter of innocence and he was curious about that yeah uh you know this isn't the question you asked but i want to say something about the purification of mary right and the there's a there's i think there's a mistake in your in your argument and that is that you're assuming that the old testament purification rights were were there to purify moral faults and they weren't right the old testament ritual about purification was a ritual purification not a moral purification now the gospel calls us to interior purity purity of heart but there's no contradiction between mary being utterly pure in heart nevertheless following the prescriptions for ritual purity imposed by the mosaic law so no contradiction there at all now in terms of your your question about harmonizing the gospels of course many catholic theologians and biblical scholars down through the centuries from origen and augustine to st thomas and modern commentators have done just that they've worked to harmonize the account of the gospels you know from my way of thinking what modern biblical scholar scholarship has helped us to see is that the individual gospel writers have their own theological agenda they have their own perspective that they're bringing on the story of christ and so they shape their data they do their research and they shape their data according to their particular theological priorities now in matthew's gospel he's very keen to to display christ as the fulfillment of old testament prophecy and israel's messiah that's that's what the message that he wants to teach luke is more interested in christ as the son of man and uh the savior of the world who cares for the poor and so they're selecting their data and they're crafting their narrative to teach those complementary but different visions about christ's ministry it's significant that there are four gospels because you know there are potentially an infinite number of ways to approach the mystery of christ you know it god only gave us four to contend with but i mean it's an inexhaustible richness to the person of jesus he can be approached from any number of angles and just in the last couple seconds we have here zach would like to know is disobeying one's conscience the worst possible sin that a person can commit well every sin is a form of disobedience to one's conscience but one's conscience can command you in matters both grave and venial so you know my conscience might tell me you know not to eat that second piece of pecan pie and not to leave my family and you know one of those is slightly more uh of slightly more gravity than the other in each case i might disobey my conscience but the consequences would be much worse in one than the other exactly david thanks for being so gracious with your time and thanks for putting up with me for the last several days i've enjoyed it very much thanks for being with us 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 thanks so much for tuning in to ewtn's college communion we do it every day monday through friday right here at 2 p.m eastern time with an encore at 11 pm eastern time um it's been fun tom will be back tomorrow a lot of people are applauding right now at that prospect until we get together tomorrow god bless you

Channel: EWTN

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Id: ZuTJhJFXI8c

Length: 54min 0sec (3240 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021