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

those of you who have questions about the catholic faith by golly we are here for you uh perhaps uh you were an act of catholic years gone by uh that has changed now you're looking to reacquaint yourself with the catholic faith but you would like to get a few things cleared up your mind and that's uh perfectly normal perfectly understandable uh so we could answer questions that you have about the faith uh or maybe you've never been a catholic but you are exploring the catholic faith in any event what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's and then 833-288-3986 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and you can always shoot us an email if you prefer that ctc ewtn.com is the address ctc at ewtn.com all right charles berry is our producer i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how was your weekend sir oh tolerable tolerable it was up and down was up and down yeah we had a few health issues that impeded but uh you know there were some bright spots as well let's go with those bright spots here's an email that we received from james over the weekend who says dr anders last week the topic of galileo came up on your show you said they meaning the church were just waiting for the data so they could get on board with galileo's theory you are minimizing the role the church had in persecuting and attacking galileo after all it was the church that put him on trial for heresy and even the pope allowed it and please don't tell me how hard a time the church had during the reformation to justify its actions how can a group which claims such holiness and purity allow this to happen thanks james okay thanks james i appreciate the question so to go back to last week the the question of the of the church's infallibility when that comes into into play in the discussion of the galileo affair it's important to understand what is actually being prescribed and what was not prescribed right and what was problematic and what was not problematic um it is a fact that uh cardinal bellarmine stated i mean affirmatively that if galileo's position could be empirically verified then the church would or bellarmine would uh retool his understanding of scripture accordingly right so galileo's position was not ruled incorrect what they weren't teaching dogmatically that geocentrism was true all right so in that much i'm stand by what i said last week now to the question should the church have discipline to galileo obviously not obviously not it was a bad move it was a super bad pr move and it wasn't great to galileo right now he was a difficult you know kind of prickly guy to deal with and he had a way of provoking authority but no it was a dumb thing to do and i think everybody involved wishes that all the church authority today wishes that the whole galileo affair had never happened of course we would rather not do that it was a dumb thing to do we never said that church the church authority in exercising church discipline acts prudently or wisely i mean there's no guarantee of that yeah there's no guarantee of that right um church is made up of human beings and they can do some manifestly stupid things oh yes i mean you know like declaring war on on italian city-states i mean the vatican's done all kinds of dumb things down through history all right so like becoming catholic or being catholic does not obligate one to believe in the prudence or intelligence of of you know vatican diplomats or authorities okay it doesn't there you go james thank you so much for your email here's one from seth i have heard pope francis as well as other prominent catholics use the phrase we are all children of god this language is confusing to me as it's my understanding that we are all creatures of god and that only through baptism are we made children of god so how are people from other religions and even non-religious people considered children of god when they have not even been baptized yep great question appreciate it so we have to distinguish different senses of the word there is clearly a sense in sacred scripture where we are adopted into god's family through baptism and we receive sanctifying grace that makes us participants in christ and in the divine nature and that is not something that is available to us by nature and so there is definitely a supernatural adoption by grace uh by which we become children of god in a particularly elevated sense um at the same time there is also a sense in which in which human creatures are children of god by natural generation not in the order of grace but in the order of nature and if you look at luke's genealogy of christ for example which goes all the way back to adam adam is described as being a son of god and the the the sense of the context is in virtue of his creation not in virtue of redemption okay so that's a different sense in which we can speak of being children of god uh you know clearly we all share a common humanity we're all made in god's likeness and image and uh um and in our case being made in god's likeness and image means that we all have the capacity for for rational thought and free will right that's what it means to be made in god's light as an image um but uh but in the same way you know we can speak about children being in the likeness and image of their parents by their uh uh by their natural similarity to them right and so in that sense uh the term can be used analogously okay very good well there you go and uh thank you so much uh seth for your email we do appreciate hearing from you now if you'd like to send us an email for a future show here is the address ctc at ewtn.com we try to uh tackle at least one maybe two occasionally three emails uh during the course of our live show that we do every day uh and then we'll do a whole bunch of emails when we do an e uh a uh mailbag program which is generally about once a month so in any event the address ctc at ewtn.com all right when we return from our quick break here we'll be talking with thomas thomas is listening to us in good old new york city also mary in wenatchee washington listening on her roku device we have a couple lines open for you right now if you have a question for dr david anders along the lines of what's stopping you from becoming a catholic 833-288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion on this monday afternoon here on stay with us [Music] hello journey home family next time we'll welcome father matthew hawkins to the program brother hawkins is a former african-american episcopal and will share what led him to the catholic faith share the journey next time on ewtn's the journey hall the journey home with marcus grodi is seen and heard around the world on ewtn join us tonight at 8 pm eastern only on ewtn radio and television this is janet morena of priests for life with pro-life update in january of 2021 a marist poll showed that three-quarters of americans want significant restrictions on abortion even those who call themselves pro-choice do not want abortion permitted beyond the first three months of pregnancy and a majority of americans do not want it permitted beyond the cases of rape insects or to save a mother's life nearly 6 in 10 americans oppose using tax money to fund abortion 80 percent of americans believe that laws can protect both the mother and the baby within her womb and most americans want to see roe v wade changed to either stop abortion or let the mata be determined by the states obviously most people do not agree with roe v wade you can find this poll at priestforlife.org statistics this is janet morana on the ewtn global catholic radio network [Music] call to communion here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for dr david anders 833 eight six i 288-3986 know if you had a chance to watch the world over or listen to the world over on thursday nights uh and then of course we aired uh several times uh over the weekend uh but if you missed it here's something that may be a very uh very important interest to you don't miss the latest political and cultural reporting and analysis on topics of interest to the catholics and and all people of faith really right now you can get the world over in your inbox every week sign up today by visiting ewtn.com click on the word subscribe you'll get a whole menu of things that you can subscribe to from ewtn including the world over so do check it out again ewtn.com and then click on the button that says subscribe if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we begin with thomas in new york city listening on siriusxm 130. hello thomas what's on your mind today hello doc i appreciate you um answering my call thanks a lot um my question is uh um from an orthodox catholic point of view how do you tell the difference between mental illness and extraordinary um activity with the demons from demonic activity yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so there are some tell-tale signs of demonic activity that cannot easily be confused with natural illness they would be things like supernatural strength the ability to speak in languages that the speaker does not naturally know um uh you know supernatural knowledge of of distant events um you know uh uh an extraordinary aversion to the sacred i mean like really extraordinary aversion to the sacred um and then and then wonders and marvels like physical levitation these kinds of things um you know somebody who's mentally ill is not going to suddenly gain the ability to speak in an unknown human language i'll tell you an anecdote i can't prove this anecdote but it comes to me from highly reputable authority a priest that i knew very well for many years who was not prone to flights of fancy um who uh whose own brother was a dominican priest in um among an indigenous population let's say this priest was from ireland and he he spoke irish or americans call it gaelic but he was an irish and uh he encountered a demoniac and one of his irish confrares said speak to it in irish this was someone who was like nowhere near a native irish person and he you know dressed the demoniac in irish whereupon the demoniac answered in perfect flawless unaccented irish wow and um that's i mean that's not the sort of thing that happens due to mental illness right um so those are some of the signs that uh that a uh that an exorcist would look for are these extraordinary phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise when someone presents himself for an exorcism most of the time they don't need one and and actually the church uses a lot of negative tests right to make sure this can't be ascribed to mental illness and most the time it can most time it can't and therefore they employ psychiatrists and psychologists and uh and they're you know they're not looking for more work so they'll they will offload this stuff onto the psychiatric people if they can right okay very good uh there you go thomas thank you so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it right here on ewtn's call to communion mary's listening to us in one half wenatchee i got it wenatchee washington listening on her roca device a first time caller hello mary what's on your mind today um i have a question um i was married years ago i'm 67 now um marriage was just reap and then um down to what amazing man i was married to for 38 years and we served the lord faithfully not in the catholic faith but um and he passed away uh four years ago since then i've met a wonderful catholic man i didn't know he was catholic but our relationship has developed into something pretty amazing and i'm thinking of joining the catholic faith but i have to admit i i'm very saddened that i feel that reading about adultery through the catholic faith or what they believe in and trying to find it in scripture that have been considered adulterous all these years from a wonderful marriage and i can't understand why um my 38 years of knowing what a true marriage is about is um not superseding um something that's required by the catholic faith and it's a choice that i don't know if i can make uh i have one son who would be he's already told me where her relationship would be if that's a choice i make to be for an annulment he understands that it has nothing to do with children but he's he says it is what it is it is what it is and it was what it was so my question would be is um you know um i thought jesus told the lady it's well go and sin no more when she was an adulteress and so i i'm super super confused and and this is what's going to make my decision and whether i can become a catholic or not wow thank you i really uh i'm a i'm sympathetic to your dilemma and uh what a weighty responsibility right um so i will do my best to to help you in so far as the church's law on annulments and validating marriages and this sort of thing uh we do derive this from the teaching of sacred scripture jesus is the one that told us that that the mosaic law on divorce whereby a person could divorce their wife and marry someone else was a concession to human weakness but it was not god's intent from the beginning you can read about that in matthew chapter 19 christ's teaching was what god has joined together man cannot separate and uh and he made no allowances right that for any exceptions and the so-called exception clause in the gospel about except in case of infidelity or porneia in greek we're getting at another time but simply to state the catholic position interpreting the words of christ is that he intends lifelong indissoluble fidelity and particularly so in the case of baptized people who have become members of christ and shared in his grace that they're given the grace to to live a life of marital fidelity um and uh and so when someone presents themself a baptized person presents himself as having been married the church takes that representation very very seriously if i say you know i'm i am married the church says okay we take you at your word you have been married if that is true then you may not lawfully divorce your wife or your husband because that's what the lord has taught and the apostle teaches the same thing in first corinthians chapter 7 saint paul says if anyone has a wife he he cannot divorce her and if he does then they have to remain unmarried or else be reconciled that's the teaching of saint paul in first corinthians chapter 7. so that's where we get the seriousness with which we take lifelong indissoluble fidelity now many times a person represents themselves as married and the church says okay presumptively we assume that's true but the person's actually wrong like they say i'm married but what they mean by marriage is not what the church means by marriage and therefore they're not really married and this also we find in sacred scripture so if you look at first corinthians chapter five for example there's a fellow who's who's taken to into his home a woman to with whom he cannot be lawfully married it was actually his um his uh his stepmother and uh and due to the laws on consanguinuity he could not lawfully marry his stepmother and uh and saint paul says this guy has to separate from that person because it can't be a valid marriage and he's got to do that he cannot validate marry that was an impediment to marrying his stepmother can't do it so he's got a repudiator so the idea of an annulment is also a scriptural idea so what happens is somebody has presented themselves as married and that spouse or presumptive spouse is still living but they want to marry somebody else the church says okay let's let's get to the truth of the matter let's find out if that first presumptive marriage was actually a marriage was that actually a marriage now um if your first husband is not living then this becomes irrelevant all right but if that first husband is still alive and you represented yourself as being married to him then the church has to take that representation seriously and say let's get to the model of this and find out if you were really married all right and the that determination if they if they rule otherwise well it wasn't really a marriage it wasn't really what we mean by marriage then you're granted an annulment okay but that's not really what's hanging you up what's hanging you up is the second marriage right because you had a wonderful relationship with this person now um let me let me tell you something that a canon lawyer told me one time all right and because i was raising these kinds of dilemmas not just about the law but about people's spiritual experience and what about this what about that and very wise canon lawyer told me one time she said look we can lawyers judge the legal question of validity we don't judge the spiritual question of grace is beyond our purview the law is our purview not grace now we need to have the legal question settled yes right but in the heart of an individual only god can discern the presence of grace in your case it's obvious to me that you operated in good faith you were not catholic you were you you were unaware of the catholic teaching on the law and annulments and sacramental marriage you were seeking to realize the genuine good of christian marriage and you experienced it as such a canon lawyer can look at that and make a judgment about validity or invalidity but the canon lawyer cannot get down into your heart and discern the presence of hidden grace we are constrained by the law of the sacraments and we must obey that law for the sake of certainty and the common good and the public witness of the faith god is not constrained in the same way by the sacraments god can place grace in your heart in an unseen way indiscernible to a cannon lawyer and i would never presume to tell you that i could know the essence of the inner experience of that relationship mary is that helpful for you i'm probably just a little more confusing um because i don't know how to i i understand exactly what you're saying i just don't know how to share it with my son who you know um yeah okay so this this is a son of the second marriage no son of my first marriage oh okay i see i see and so he would feel repudiated if if the court found for invalidity in that case is that right okay okay well um clearly he can't believe now that uh whatever the status of that marriage is legally i mean he recognized that it failed right i mean because you're not together you're not with the man's father right right and i mean that clearly it pains him all right and uh would he be willing to concede that like that from from the point of view of the relationship that i mean that it was a failure i mean a sort of manifest right and that doesn't reflect badly on him on the on the sun no okay yeah and he does agree with that so yeah okay well i do appreciate you taking my call today sure thank you thank you mary we will certainly keep this situation in prayer as we do for all of our listeners here on call to communion on ewtn our phone number here 833 288 ewtn we have three lines open at the moment eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six tonya sent us an email over the weekend she says a friend of mine wants me to go have my soul read with her i'm very uneasy about this i can't help but wonder if that would be opening the door for evil what is a soul reading does a soul reading open the door for evil to enter i'm not catholic but i do try to live my life daily in accordance to the catholic church thank you and have a blessed day sonia yeah thanks sonia i appreciate the question um so the only the only reading of your soul that you need to do is what the church calls an examination of conscience because your soul is only open is only clear to to two people you and god right you and jesus nobody else can read your soul and uh uh so if someone claims that they're going to read off the contents of your soul what are they going to do tell you that you like vanilla ice cream you already knew that you already know what's going on in your soul i'm not going to ask you but if i said what are your you know what are your vices what are you struggling with what are your strengths what are your virtues could you not tell me of course you can tell me right you could tell me better than anybody what's going on inside of you you know what you need to work on and we all need to be more honest with ourselves right we like to hide our faults from ourselves but that's why we do a good examination of conscience to go to the confessional and make up make a clean breast of things and reveal what our faults are and ask for grace to get better opening yourself up to some religious charlatan like this is just asking to be spiritually manipulated at best demonically influenced at worst so stay away from that kind of thing and the only spiritual reading you need is uh maybe pick up the text of saint thomas and then you can read your own soul before you go to confession is this kind of akin to sort of you know maybe this is a stretch but sort of like a seance i don't know don't know i'm not signing up for one though oh no no clearly not but i'm not familiar with the term having your soul read it's like what is that like having your fortune read my soul's kind of yellow most of the time oh man hey pal leave the puns to me okay you are the expert well i i try in my own little stupid way thank you so much for that question though in a moment we're going to get to uh phil in scranton pennsylvania listening on jmj radio also vincent on stanz island new york and lots more we have two lines up whoop one line open right now at eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three 833-288-3986 call to communion on this monday afternoon here on ewtn [Music] [Music] catholic [Music] in any language it means the same live truth live catholic ewtn and now the ewtn family prayer with father joseph family a prayer that we pray together is a powerful prayer so please pray together with me our ewtn family prayer [Music] today we pray for fathers heavenly father we adore you all fatherhood has its source in you strengthen fatherhood in our land give men hearts of courage to defend and to protect what is good help them in their sacrifices to provide for their families and console them with good friends bless our fathers reward them for their sacrificial love and grant eternal rest to those who have died let men and women who never knew the support of a loving father come to know that of saint joseph amen unplanned the true story of abby johnson i would be the youngest director in planned parenthood history she believed in a woman's right to choose i've had an abortion myself so i don't have any problem with another woman making the same decision until the day she saw something that changed everything tiny perfect little baby and then it was just gone now she's pulling back the curtain on the abortion industry unplanned available at ewtnrc.com and the ewtn app tomorrow on more to life lost for words having a hard time getting people to listen will help you break through the resistance that's tomorrow on more to life now back to call to communion [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion our phone number eight three three two 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here is phil in scranton pennsylvania listening on jmj radio hey there phil what's on your mind today hello guys it's joe not phil but that's okay uh sorry about that more of a com that's fine um i don't expect an answer to this but more of a comment from dr anders if if he would i was just wondering why jesus um he certainly would have anticipated the dissension in the church in disagreement almost immediately after the resurrection you had the council of jerusalem uh and the jews and gentiles controversy and then currently with uh after the process protestant reformation with the sola scriptura versus the magisterium uh say protestants today would say well the bible clearly says this and and catholics would say yeah it says that but the magisterium interprets it as this and that's apostolic's succession so that's correct so it's led to a lot of problems and i was just wondering what dr anders opinion would be on why jesus wouldn't speak in no uncertain terms as to what the the truth was so there wouldn't be so much uh division among christians thanks jesus spoke in absolutely no uncertain terms so that there wouldn't be any division among christians and there's no question about it whatsoever at all it's as manifest and clear and evident as the nose on your face and i believe that with every ounce of my being and i i mean i mean every what i just said christ made exceedingly clear provision for uh the authoritative teaching of the christian faith made he made it so obvious what he intended for the transmission of christianity he said to the apostles go into all nations make disciples teach them everything i've commanded you that was all oral tradition none of it was written down he gave them a tremendous amount of authority luke chapter 10 he says whoever hears you hears me whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven i mean could you imagine using that kind of language nobody no human authority would say such a thing imagine me telling tom price tom go buy me a sandwich whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven i mean it's unthinkable to use that guy i give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven whoever hears you hears me whoever rejects you rejects to me who whoever sins you forgive are forgiven whoever sins you retain are retained i mean this is this is unbelievable what jesus said the kind of authority that he invested in the church to teach teach them to obey everything that i have commanded you it's it's unimaginably clear and in terms of the content of the of the holy life jesus is teaching again it's as clear as the nose on your face blessed are those who mourn blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are the meek blessed of the pure in heart blessed are the peacemakers blessed are those who hungered and thirst for righteousness blessed are those persecuted for righteousness sake when you give alms give in secret and your father will reward you you will merit that's what the word reward means when you pray pray in secret your father in heaven will reward you when you fast fast in secret your father in heaven will reward you if your right hand causes you to sin cut it out if your left eye causes you to sin pluck it out don't last after a woman in your heart who will have committed adultery don't divorce your wives love god above all things in your neighbor as yourself and go into all nations and teach them to obey everything i've commanded you and i'll be with you to the end of the age i mean it cannot get any clearer it's manifestly obvious what jesus said all right when did jesus say if you have a question about the christian faith here's a list of 27 books do your best never not once didn't even know about the 27 books never mentioned them never mentioned them they weren't written until decades after he rose from the dead decades when did jesus say you know like sit down and learn greek and try to execute exegete the book of hebrews and then actually end up with a theology the opposite of the book of hebrews right and never never all right 1500 years in the world 1500 years christianity goes to africa it goes to asia minor middle east europe goes all over the world syriac greek latin coptic assyrian chaldean sir malabar byzantine roman irish in all over the world for 1500 years they had the bible they had in greek and in hebrew they had in latin they had syriac how many people in all these places in the christian world thought up lutheranism none not one it took 1500 years before martin luther thought up his utterly novel interpretation of the christian faith it wasn't manifest or evident from scripture as he claimed it was something that nobody had could possibly have anticipated for 1500 years alistair mcgrath leading protestant historian of luther's doctrine of justification says luther's position was a complete theological novelty nobody in the history of the world had ever thought that jesus would actually mean the opposite of what he said until luther clear as a nose on your face all right so i became catholic yes you did appreciate your call phil thank you so much for it it's called a communion here on ewtn let's go to vincent now he also anticipated the division which you asked about which is why he said in john chapter 17 may they be one as the father and i are one that's what saint paul said in first corinthians 1 10 you have to agree on everything very good can you say most things you have to grab everything everything vincent is in new york listening on ewtn a first time caller hey vincent what's on your mind today yeah hi i'm i'm watching you on tv okay here's a question uh you know the two thieves on the cross one who had told uh jesus uh uh if you're the chrysler you know save yourself and save us the other guy says no i'd have you no fear of god he says uh this man has done no no nothing you know we're criminals and he says uh jesus remember me when you come as king and then uh he turns around and he says jesus and jesus said i promise you today you're going to be with me in paradise i said that that's a good that's that's i guess beautiful paradise that's for abraham and lazarus might be so my question is you know a lot of people believe that christ's life our sins i believe the same thing what i don't understand the people in church that i talk to they say you're going to have to even if you're saved you're born again you have to go into hell and be perishing your sins these are people that like some of them are priests and some of them tell me a different story where do they get this purgatory if christ paid for our sins and i'll let you do the talking now yeah thanks i really appreciate the question so first of all the thief on the cross saint dismiss uh he went to paradise with christ as jesus promised he didn't need purgatory not everybody does saint dismiss didn't all right not everybody does uh where did people get the idea of purgatory from well from sacred scripture of course from sacred scripture of course so the idea that that we have to do penance for sin is the biblical idea and this is god forgives us but then we still owe a debt of reparation in the same way that like you know your wife can forgive you she says please take the garbage out you don't take it out didn't you then i asked you to take the arm shot oh i'm so sorry what do you do you go take it out yeah what am i going to say i'm sorry and then leave it stinking in the kitchen i just go take it out i'm sorry oh it's cool i forgive you out goes the garbage right same thing if i if it's something i owe god oh god justice or love or worship or you know or what honesty or and i fall short what am i i'm sorry he forgives me i'm gonna get busy rendering what it is that i was supposed to render the first time that's doing penance right king david perfect example of this psalm 51 david says against you o lord i have sinned done what is evil in your sight god says it's all good i forgive you david says now i will go make sacrifices now i will go make sacrifices on you've forgiven me now i will go make sacrifices on your altar second samuel 12 second samuel 24. god forgives david jesus it's all good you're forgiven david says great now let's go do some sacrifices let me do something to make it up to you god can i really make it up to god of course not but in the order of love and the order of charity you know maybe i didn't get garbage out on time i'm still gonna do my dead level best to get the garbage out right that's human common sense and biblical wisdom does that relationship endure after death well yeah of course it does the bible says so so second maccabees chapter 12 for example see the people of god on earth offering prayers and sacrifices for the dead who owe god a debt of reparation why would they do that if there weren't some intermediate state where the souls of the dead could benefit from such prayers and intercessions timothy saint paul prays for his friend anissa forrest who's dead god praise saint paul praise that god will be clement merciful to this dead guy why would you pray for a dead guy if he couldn't benefit from it so the church reasonably infers an intermediate state from that practice in which such prayers and sacrifices are efficacious where penance is being done where purity of heart is being attained christ himself says blessed are the pure in heart they will see god god be pure in heart what if i'm not all the way pure in heart when i die but i'm still god's friend well you know how do we obtain purity of heart well generally through suffering that's the way it works that's the way it works so uh this has been the prayer practice of the church based on sacred scripture and tradition for 2000 years that's where we get the idea christ's death does not christ's death does not absolve me of the responsibility to do justice on the contrary because of christ's death i'm reconciled to god given his grace and enabled to live a just and holy life it doesn't absolve me of the obligation to do justice it empowers my obligation to do justice so where we get it from vincent thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn let's go to arlene right now arlene's in herndon virginia listening on ave maria radio arlene what's on your mind today hi my question is what is the origin of indulgences and what is the church's position on it on them now sure appreciate the question so jesus teaches the obligation to impose discipline on some members of the church he teaches us in matthew chapter 18. he gave the power of the keys to the church i'm sorry uh the power binding and loosing i take that back gives the power of binding and losing to the church and in the context of what do you do with an unrepentant sinner jesus says you kick them out that's what you do until they come to their senses all right and i give you whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven christ says so church discipline taught by jesus saint paul the apostle uh we see him exercise this in first corinthians chapter five there's a character in corinth who's not living like he should and paul says kick the guy out actually says hand him over to satan for the destruction of his flesh whoa that's the language paul uses so that his spirit might be saved on the day of judgment all right this is a pretty harsh way of talking about it but the imposition of church discipline and then we turn over to second corinthians chapter two verse six and uh and paul says all right he's had enough let him back in and he's repentant now he's had enough the punishment imposed is sufficient paul says let him back in so the idea of imposing church discipline and penance and then remitting that is a biblical idea it comes to us from christ and the apostles and it's curative i mean it's it's for the sake of the the good of souls right um and uh and so that's the idea now in in the ancient world these penances that the church imposed on people who had you know fallen astray gone astray were public they're no longer public now they're private but they used to be public and it was actually an order in the church called the order of penitence people be excluded from the sacraments excluded from communion they might have to sit in the back of the church you know wear sackcloth and ashes sometimes they would be at the back of church for a long time i mean they were serious in the ancient church they were serious so you might like years right yeah you might be in the order of penitence for years in fact the council of nicaea the canons of the council of nicaea in 325 specified make sure you readmit people to communion if they're in danger of death and if they've been back in the order of penitence for 25 years and it looks like you know they're getting towards the end just let them back in like don't keep them out there forever they have to actually say that right wow and uh and so in this context particularly when um you know why would somebody be in that order of penitence generally big things like apostasy they denied the faith and persecution or adultery or murder that sort of thing um uh there were others who were holding up pretty well under persecution they were being martyred uh maybe they were imprisoned for the faith and the people of god said these guys over here at the back of the church not going to communion but um you know here's tom over here he's in prison he's languishing he's he's suffering nobly that's pretty meritorious stuff over there tom what he's doing in prison um and the guys who were at the back of the church said i wonder if i can get me some of tom's merit what if i can get me some of that like he's he's earning all kinds of reward with god for his suffering and i'm back here at the back of the church so the penitents started going over to the prisons this is in carthage in around the 250s a.d uh they start wandering over to the prisons and they tapping on the gate and going uh tom you're in here suffering for christ and earning all kinds of merit could you share some of that with me could you pass me some of your merit in fact would you write a letter to the bishop and say for your sake could he let me out of my penance and let me back to communion and here's the funny thing that some of the martyrs and the confessors in jail did that they started writing out letters to the bishop sending them back to the church and going hey bishop cyprian anders here has been at the back of the church you know i've been languishing in prison for christ how about letting some of my merit count on his behalf and letting him back to communion and you might think that that saint cyprian bishop akarsha carthage at the time would say well that's a crazy idea but he didn't because he understood the doctrine of the communion of saints that we share in one of those prayers and merits and cyprian says yeah i see the logic i see the logic makes sense yes i agree we can do that provided the bishop is the guy that dispenses with these things that disposes of them it's not up to the decision of the guy in prison i get to decide but yes we can do that so in that was the origin of the practice of indulgences the idea of an indulgence is that we who do penance can benefit by the cooperation of the saints the martyrs the confessors the noble ones who share some of their merit with us it was not something invented by the hierarchy of the church to raise money it was something invented by the lay faithful born from the sense of the church itself of the communion of saints it was a delightful practice where the where those who were doing penance appealed to the merits and the nobility of those who were martyrs and confessors on their behalf in the church agreed and so the basic logic of the thing works has always worked and the church still of course encourages and and approves of of indulgences we appeal to the merits and prayers of our older brothers in the faith the saints on our behalf to diminish or or lessen the penance that we must do for sin uh what we don't do is we don't sell them right i mean uh oftentimes in order to gain an indulgence the church say okay will you do some nominal penance pray ten hail marys or pray a rosary or go visit or shrine or something and in exchange for some nominal penance will grant you this indulgence well you know one of the traditional forms of penance is almsgiving i mean that's a reasonable thing to do give alms to the poor right and uh but that's also easily corrupted and the church could say okay you do a nominal penance give some give some alms and we'll give you an indulgence and then some unscrupulous person thought we could make a buck out of this yeah that's what happened in the middle ages they started selling them that was a gross abuse and led to all kinds of scandal and the church doesn't sell indulgences okay there you go arlene thank you so much for your call today sold out phones here on ewtn's call to communion uh brian has a quick question on facebook he says you ask what is stopping me from becoming a catholic well it's the coveted pandemic stopping me i've been waiting for over a year as classes had to stop due to covet i'm praying to be accepted soon yeah thanks gosh i really i'm sympathetic i'm sorry really am i i got a couple things to say on that one is that if you're a if you're a catechumen or a candidate in the catholic church you really are in an extended sense catholic like you belong to an order within the church you haven't been yet been fully initiated through the sacraments but you're you're kind of in the orbit of the catholic universe and so it's not like you're excluded from the prayers of the church or the life of grace even uh you are you are a participant in the way that is appropriate for for candidates and catechumens yeah and that's a good thing so like you know get down on that groove on being a catechumen or a candidate that's a neat thing right and for whatever reason in god's providence this is the season of your life where this has happened and the lord obviously has something in his in your spirituality that he wants to accomplish through this sort of delayed entry now on the other hand if it looks like it's just interminable and you're quite eager to be received into the church look you mean you can always seek out an extraordinary concession i did yeah i mean i got i was received into the church in november privately not this november but i mean like 17 years ago in november yeah so you can always reach out to some priests and say i'm tired of waiting how about confirming me i've read the catechism six times during this pandemic very well could be there you go brian hope that's uh helpful for you here's darrell in houston listing on sirius xm 130. darrell what's on your mind today yes um good day um dr andrews um just a brief question uh uh as a student i mean as an aspiring student of christian studies uh something as i browse different pieces of information i came across something that i i wonder if you could maybe just kind of touch on that for a second in studying theology i i heard this term called dispensationalism yep i know all about it yeah and it's similar to systematic theology and then catholic theology and could you touch on that for a moment absolutely absolutely so first of all what is theology what is theology theology is the scientific study of divine revelation right that's what theology is when we try to bring the power of reason the power of our intellects to give a coherent rational account to the data of the christian faith that's it's just that's what the discipline of theology is all about okay and there is catholic theology there's protestant theology there's jewish theology there's islamic theology any any tradition uh any theistic tradition where practitioners seek to bring the power of reason to bear on the content of revelation to understand it make sense of it give a rational coherent account they're engaging in the practice of theology and of course there's a deep and rich catholic theological tradition that goes back 2 000 years now the term dispensationalism refers to a branch of protestant theology not catholic theology that was invented in the 19th century by a man named john nelson darby and dispensationalism is the belief this is not a catholic belief not a catholic belief at all is the belief that that biblical history is divided into very determinate dispensations or periods of history and that god operates in different ways in different periods of history and dispensationalism is motivated by a kind of fundamentalist literalism about the bible in particular dispensationalists are very interested in the apocalyptic prophecies of the old testament regarding the future history of israel and because many of the prophets speak of a time in the future when jerusalem the city will be exalted among the nations and the nations will stream to jerusalem and all kinds of glorious things will happen to the jews dispensationalists take those prophecies literally as applying to the the nation the ethnic uh entity of israel and the jewish people and they imagine some future this future relative to us in which those things will be fulfilled now historically christianity has not read the old testament that way historically christianity has seen the old testament fulfilled in christ and in the christian church and does not look forward to a sort of national ethnic israel having this sort of glorious heritage uh dispensationalists regard the church therefore is kind of an interlude in god's in god's plans actually they use the term of a parenthesis and so it leads to some pretty counter-intuitive and bizarre consequences scofield cyrus schofield who was responsible for the scofield reference bible in the united states was a major fundamentalist thinker and highly responsible for for disseminating dispensationalism in the united states believed for ex for instance that the teaching of jesus did not apply to christians what you asked what he thought all right he thought that it applied to the first century jews to which christ spoke and then this future dispensation when when christ would come back and reign from israel that's a very counterintuitive conclusion that runs flat contrary to the catholic faith so catholics would hold for example that the teaching of jesus is paramount and this is exactly the ethic that we base our life on so we don't we reject dispensationalism which concludes that jesus is irrelevant to the christian life or at least he's teaching us right yeah so we're not big fans of dispensationalists around here in the catholic church very good there you go darrell i think we have time for one more call let's go to uh sarah in virginia listening on wjpn sarah what's on your mind today hi thank you so much for taking my call um i have a question if two baptized catholics were married uh in a christian church not a catholic christian church um are they considered to have been living in sin and that marriage not valid thank you so to be clear if two baptists get married in a baptist church their marriage is presumptively valid if two catholics got married in a baptist church it would not be valid it would not be valid it would be invalid and they would have to have their marriage convalidated in the catholic church the catholic church requires her own members to marry in the presence of a catholic minister in a catholic church and there are exceptions to that they can seek an exception they can seek a dispensation from their bishop but they are acquired by the law mary in a catholic church in front of a catholic minister okay very good and i think we can squeeze in lynn from connecticut lynn we've just got about 30 seconds what's on your mind today hi um as a catholic i grew up learning that the ten commandments uh mortal and venial sins and i have a born-again christian friend who tells me that no sin is greater than the other so i don't know how to answer that yes stealing a candy bar and torturing babies to death are not the same and anyone who says otherwise needs their head examined yeah i mean if you can't if that is the most man i mean one causes gravely more harm than the other and against a you know a a much more undeserving object if you can't see that then your theology is is just profoundly corrupted there you go lynn i'm glad we could get your call in and uh we did it got got through a whole bunch of wonderful uh calls emails uh text messages facebook youtube you name it we did it well you did it dr david anders thank you sir thank you tom don't forget we do the program monday through friday here on ewtn radio live at 2 pm eastern with an encore at 11 p.m eastern we also bring you a best of show on sundays at 2 p.m eastern of course the program is available via podcasting anytime by going to ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless hello this is father john trujillo find out how you can better defend your faith open line monday is next on most of these ewtn stations what a great grace it is to have the opportunity to use the airwaves for the honor and glory of god to be able to talk to the

Channel: EWTN

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: F86ISgOlO_o

Length: 53min 40sec (3220 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021