Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - 2019-06-29 - Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders

what's stopping you why can't women become priests why do Catholics worship Mary why do I need to confess my sins to a priest are called to communion with dr. David Anders everybody welcome again to called a communion this is the program for our non Catholic brothers and sisters yes indeed a program specifically on Catholic radio for non Catholics if you are not a Catholic yourself maybe you were a Catholic as a kid stepped away from the church for whatever reason or maybe you stepped away as an adult for some reason or you've never been a Catholic but now here we are in 2019 and you've got some questions about the Catholic faith because maybe you're thinking about rejoining the faith of your youth or the faith that you hear so much about here is our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six you can also text the letters EWTN to five five zero zero zero wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply for those of you watching on television today you can participate as well our email address ctc at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com lines are open right now waiting to hear from you Charles Berry is our producer we also have Ryan Penney as our phone screener and Jeff Burton on social media he'll be glad to pass on any questions that you might want to pose via YouTube or Facebook we are live streaming on those platforms right now I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders hey Tom how are you today very very well and you my friend you know I'm doing decent thank you glad to hear that we've got some great emails to lead off with here here's one from Charlie we read that Moses pleads for the people and then God relents well if God is all-knowing and if this and is the same yesterday today and tomorrow how God change his mind God doesn't change his mind God plans from all eternity to affect his plan of salvation using relying upon the instrumentality of human prayer so prayer actually works prayer is an instrumental calls that bring that God uses to bring about his purposes but he has planned from the beginning ordained from the beginning that part of his purpose is to unfold salvation using human mediation including intercession and so you know with respect to us it appears to us that God changes or that because you know you're in condition a you pray off sudden you're in condition B right but from God's point of view in eternity he sees reality as a single permanent instant in which our change of position relative to him and his grace and our prayers is part of this single divine instant of the unfolding of his purposes okay very good and Charlie thank you so much for your email here's one now from Nathan checking in from the UK he says if the Catholic Church is the one true church which I believe it is why do we not show the same zeal as the Jehovah's Witnesses do and go to door to door to bring people to the truth okay thanks I really appreciate the question like it's packed into that question one of them is kind of a presumption that the way to go about doing evangelism is to go to door to door the way they drove as witnesses do I I think that's a presumption that's worthy of of critique perhaps maybe that's not exactly accurate alright you wanna see zeal in the Catholic faith I have to do is look at the Saints you'll find all the zeal you need some of them were the kind that went door to door in pursuit of of converts I think of st. Francis DeSales who was the bishop of Geneva in the 17th century but could never visit his episcopal see because it was in the hands of Calvinists and they would have run him out on a rail if he tried to go in so he stayed in the Duchy of Savion you don't know subway are of civil way the Duchy of Savoy attacked was outside and was protected there by a Catholic aristocrat and there were a number of Calvinists that had kind of bled over into into Savoy from Geneva but he couldn't talk to them openly and again they would kind of throw stones and sticks at him and so forth he tried to engage so what he did instead is he wrote tracts and he would go out at night he would slide slip them under the doors of all the Calvinists and he brought tens of thousands of people back to the Catholic faith through that through that means those tracts have actually been collected into a little book published by Tam publishers under the title Catholic controversy the Catholic controversy by st. Francis DeSales so there he is going out door to door at night sliding tracts under the door but you know there's different kinds of zeal different ways of exhibiting the truth of the Catholic faith I think of mother Teresa of Calcutta is a good example she was very keen actually on not proselytizing I mean it's a big part of her spirituality and identity that she was not doing what she did to serve the poor in India because she was seeking proselytes but because she was seeking Christ and nor was she a social worker you know she would get upset when people said she was engaged in social work she said no I'm not engaged in social work I am a religious I am a religious non-religious I'm not seeking converts I'm seeking Christ in the face of the poor and did people convert because of the zeal of Mother Teresa you bet but her mode of expression was different from your Jehovah's Witness friends who are actually trying to actively convert you through proselytizing you know you look at a John Bosco you look at Blessed Georgio for sáááty I mean you could come up all of them they express their zeal for the faith according to their own particular care ISM let me end with francis of assisi France you will not find greater zeal you will not find greater zeal in the history of Christianity of any tradition then you will find in the life of Francis of Assisi and he was not real big on like direct proselytism and the way that you discussing his one attempt at proselytism was kind of abortive he actually went to Egypt and tried to convert this convert the Sultan down there oh yeah and and he said hey what will do you you line up your your mullahs and and I'll line up and we'll all walk into the fire and see who comes out unscathed they couldn't get anybody to try the other side you know he couldn't get any takers on that planet he went home they kind of patted him on the head thought he was a cute little Franciscan and seen him on back to Europe you know and so he ended in frustration has Francis of Assisi ever won any conference through his holiness of life you're not gonna find greater zeal in fact he was so zealous at first the Pope was like I'm not gonna let you do this this is too hardcore you can't be that good of Christian it's not possible and he said try me yeah and they said okay and then you know what happened and by the way there are groups that do go door to door which drinking here of the parish visitors of Mary Immaculate also a famously the Legion of Mary yep yeah quite quite a few so it is being done so anyway thank you so much for your email in a moment here we'll get to Paul in Dayton Ohio we have a line open for you as well eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six it's called a communion here on EWTN the global Catholic radio network do stay with us [Music] it's EWTN s called a communion glad that you're with us today and if you're ready let's get to the phones at eight three three two eight eight EWTN we begin with Paul in Dayton Ohio listening on st. Gabriel radio AM eight to 20 hello Paul what's on your mind today for taking my call I heard your invitation to call in if you know your you're a you know either a new Catholic or have been in the Catholic Church in a way or whatever and I'm kind of actually on the brink of that right now okay Stage two where I feel like I'm walking away from the church and the reason is I feel like my faith is stronger than ever I've been in a catechist for the past 14 years for the confirmation year but I feel like it can't be an advocate for the church these days Church is becoming just completely too liberal for me and not embracing conservative values that I feel like I grew up with especially the only things of sanctity of life not really not advocate you know kind of embracing homosexual ISM and then also just recently with the Pope having donate taking five hundred thousand dollars which is more than I love our tithes in my life and just giving away for a day's worth of food for the caravans pushing up against our border I feel like she's opposing you know the policies and the politics United States and exacerbating a situation okay okay thanks a lot like to speak to that if I could so a couple questions first of all would you do you think you would have had a hard time being Catholic in the fourth century when Saint Athanasius was exiled multiple times for holding to the Orthodox faith of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed and the Pope seemed to be silent and or you think about Pope liberius who had an opportunity to stand up and defend the truth of the dogma of the Trinity instead he was a temporize er who who tried to mollify all sides or what about during the monophyly controversy when anuria spoke penurious seemed by all accounts to be openly supporting the heresy of monotheism whether he did or he didn't actually hold that heresy contemporaries thought he was giving cover to what was you know a position that was definitely heretical and had ruled as such by the councils of the church or Pope John the 22nd what are you having Yom Pope's who lived in luxury and and decadence in having y'all and and and was who seems to be a material heretic on the doctrine of the beatific vision and had to be corrected by practically everybody that the illusions of Paris and the other bishops ins he eventually came around on that and did us a favor canonizing Thomas Aquinas but he had kind of a kind of a rough period or what about the 16th century when julius ii was leading the armies of the papal States into vicious combat to advance the material dominions of of his empire I think it might have been tough to be Catholic at any of these times when some of the shepherds of the church were giving mixed signals about where their commitments lay and yet you know that were there were writers like Erasmus of Rotterdam that renaissance scholar and satirist who wrote the brilliant satire of julius ii called julius excluded that depicts pope julius showing up at the gates of heaven and peter refusing to let him in and the two of them engagement this is fiction of course they have a dialogue about what the julius should come into heaven julius is sitting there laying at all his accomplishments and every one of them are like you know levying taxes and beating back the French and you know and and this kind of business and who are you Peter you were just a fisherman you didn't do anything for the papal States you know and of course Peter doesn't let him in he Julius goes off on a huff and says he's gonna go raise an army you know come back and storm the gates did Erasmus falter I mean like he's not on writing the satire right he had every opportunity in the world to join the Lutheran's but he was Luther's staunchest critic Luther said of Erasmus that he alone of all his critics had hit the nail on the head and found the heart of Luther's dachshund and went after the heart which was the question of we can cooperate with God's grace Erasmus said yes he held for the free will of man and LuthorCorp said no held for the bondage of the will so my point in these illustrations is that like Catholic identity and my devotion to the church my belief in the church has never ever in the whole history of the church been about fidelity to the person of the Pope with the bishop or the priest has never been about that and and in any era it's someone is always going to disagree and perhaps vehemently with the actual policy decisions of the Pope or his own Bishop and and and that's that was this this truth Pope Francis it was true of Pope Benedict there's true of pope john paul ii there was truth Paul the sixth true of John the 22nd true of Pius the 12th you keep going you're not gonna find a pope in the history of the church that didn't have vehement detractors that fault that his policies were positively evil and defenders that's that's the way the thing is set up is your act of faith in the policy decisions of the Pope or his personal holiness not at all and when we say the article in the Creed I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church what I am confessing is that the holiness of the church is on display through the the sanctifying power of this institution founded by Christ to bring to holiness and to sanctity those members that in fact cooperate with grace and so in every age you get the Saints you know Bonaventure wrote of Francis of Assisi he and you know Bonaventure thought Francis hung the moon we all do right I'm dressed this really did hang the moon didn't he I think hanging up there right there it's put there unbelievable holiness and Francis of Assisi Bonaventure said of him the servant of God that's Francis had no one to teach him you're eager read his life of Francis Cerveny God had no one to teach him but Christ himself what an astonishing admission from the future Master General of the Franciscan Order Bonaventure that there was no one in the life of Francis who stood for him as a moral example in the so-called age of faith the Middle Ages which was also the age of corruption and so our position as Catholics in the world today is no different than it's always been then it's always been I mean Thomas Aquinas you know Thomas Aquinas was not well liked in his own day outside the Dominican Order he was actually condemned by the Bishop of Paris and he had to go and actually defend the right of the Dominicans to exist it's kind of funny one of the things the secular priests had against the Dominicans is that they were good preachers and you know they said Paul says beware of people that you persuade you with fancy words don't listen to those Dominicans and and and Thomas Aquinas actually had to defend the right of the Dominicans to preach well Wow you know I mean they were just grasping at straws and so your position is not different from that of the Saints in every age the object of faith is Christ Christ is made present for us in the sacraments and it is a dogma of the faith that we profess that the sacraments can do this efficaciously even when administered by immoral and heretical priests now and so like if you don't have that faith the faith that I can receive Christ in the sacraments of the church that he founded regardless of the Prudential wisdom or morality of my leaders then it's not the Catholic faith you're professing it's some form of Puritanism mm-hm and you know for all the good that the papacy has done in the last hundred and fifty years in the world it also has attained a kind of status in the moral imagination of the average Catholic that it never had previously right but papacy has become a public actor a public figure in a way it didn't used to be so that it's to a certain extent it's been assimilated to the culture of political propaganda and the personality cult right and and the media ferments this impression as much as they can you know they cover like the color shoes the Pope wears on a daily basis or and convey this sense that loyalty to the Catholic Church equates with you know loyalty to the policy prescriptions of the personal identity of the of the Pope with a bishop with a priest or whatever and that's a that's a Mis statement of what it means to believe in the Catholic Church and and you know that you're gonna fight you're gonna have someone's gonna have this difficulty no matter who the Pope is sure some would say keep your eyes on the prize which is heaven and we get back to Christ yes indeed Paul thank you so much for your call we do appreciate it that opens up a line for you right now eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's a three three two eight eight three nine eight six it's called a communion here on EWTN Matt is listening in Fargo North Dakota on real presence radio hello Matt what's on your mind today hello thanks for taking my call I really appreciate the show I'm process moving in the direction of Catholicism and I really like the idea that we have the potential to become perfect United to our Heavenly Father perfectly and be without sin on this earth and I think that's a Catholic teaching it is as you know would be very different than my Protestant tradition and so I've been meditating on that and trying to figure out what in my Protestant tradition we still want to do good works we want to be united to Christ we just deny that we can actually become perfect on earth here and that somehow when we're glorified I don't know if God snaps his fingers and then then we become perfect or hell exactly that works in my tradition I'm trying to as I'm meditating on this difference wondering what benefit is it to believe that I can fulfill Jesus's commands on this earth to be perfectly United and to be like Christ and what or another way to ask it is what damage or implicit damage to my psyche maybe has my Protestant tradition belief caused me by believing that I can't become perfect thank you I really appreciate the question what a great question it is well and you're right that the that the doctrine of Christian perfection is a Catholic doctrine because it was taught by our Lord who said be be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect he commands us and God does not command the impossible if he commands that he has to make it possible for us to fulfill it in the life of grace he didn't say try to be perfect he commands us to be perfect and you know so there are a couple of consequences one if you hold the Protestant or Lutheran view basically you're accusing God of duplicity that God commands something that he knows is impossible in order to frustrate us that's precisely Luther's position God commands the impossible knowing we'll fail in order to make us despair all right and I I think that Luther did that because he was simply theologizing his own neuroticism he he made normative his own experience of scrupulous neuroticism which is a horrible way to do theology by the way and so it makes God duplicitous and no we don't trust him and then ultimately we don't take the gospel seriously at all and there are some forms of Protestantism like radical dispensationalism that literally think the Gospels do not apply to the life of a Christian which is just a bizarre position to take but that's that's where they're drawn with this kind of thinking also you don't aim for what you know is impossible like I am I have no aspiration to be you know a first draft pick of the NBA probably for the best because I mean it's not I mean I don't particularly like basketball but like even if I did it's not gonna happen you know I'm 510 with a bad back and no talent I mean I'm not gonna do it so I'm not gonna aim there but maybe just maybe I'll get into my next book done for ewtn I think that's a realistic goal yeah all right yes it's I'm gonna aim for what I know I can achieve and God asks of us ask something of us that is naturally impossible but not impossible to help of grace that's Christ's you know with men this is impossible but with God all things are possible if I know that it's possible I'll aim for what I would think otherwise would be impossible and so it psychological has a powerful impact now how do you actually get there now this is the whole realm of spiritual theology in the Catholic tradition addresses how we get there and ultimately you can't get there without a vigorous life of prayer and that includes mystical prayer contemplative prayer and and and purgation from sin and being filled with the holy spirit and an illumination that that radically changes the way we think about ourselves in reality and ultimately the union of our wills with God and charity is the path to perfect holiness I'm gonna give you some resources and this is the heavy stuff okay this is the heavy stuff the best book ever on the question of Christian perfection and the contemplation of God is a two-volume book I mean this will take you a year to get through by Reginald Garry gue Lagrange and it's called the three ages of the interior life and it's its start to finish like the complete picture of the church's theology and Christian perfection as it connects to contemplation and the mystical life a couple others you might consider shorter book Christian perfection and contemplation by the same author Gary gulag Ron's father are in Tarot a are int ero also Dominican and it's called I think it's the evolution of the spiritual life something to that effect but you look up Ontario you'll find it okay and kind of a much simplified version father Dube Thomas do BAE's book fire within all great which is kind of a summary of the writings of teresa of avila john with across great introduction it's you know much more kind of for the guy in the street and in fact all of father Thomas do Bay's works treat this topic he might look at his book on the Saints for example I think he has a book on I forget the titles but he has a number of books mm-hmm that that all treat this question of perfect sanctity Thomas to be a great author who will help you in this path as well of happy memory well we thank you so much for your call Matt and do keep listening to real presents radio it is a great companion for you there in Fargo in a moment we'll be talking with Gordon in Florida who's listening online we have a line open for you as we speak 8 3 3 2 8 8 e WT n that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six four call to Communion it's called a communion here on EWTN glad that you're with us phone lines are open right now for you at eight three three two eight eight ewtn if you have a question for dr. David Anders here's your chance to call eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six back to the phones now for Gordon in Florida listening online ewtn.com hey Gordon what's on your mind today hi can you hear me yes go right ahead okay my question regards vatican ii recently I've heard from some traditionalist Catholics that vatican ii wasn't intended to be infallible or at the very least not intended to be accepted by all catholic as an act of the universal ordinary Magisterium with that being said can we ignore teachings of the universal an ordinary Magisterium since all the six regarded body can do it god okay thanks I appreciate the question so I think we have a slight confusion of categories here the Second Vatican Council did not define any dogma which is to say it did not proclaim some teaching as divinely revealed to be held definitively by all the faithful and that's that's where the charism of infallibility is most on display in the way that say the first the Council of Nicaea defined the dogma of Christ's divinity nothing like that took place at the Second Vatican Council nevertheless is quite evident that the Second Vatican Council was the most extensive act of conciliar teaching of Catholic doctrine that has ever happened I mean the documents are voluminous and some of them were promulgated as dogmatic constitutions and that's the language of the promulgation the dogmatic Constitution on the church not as if it was defining a new dogma of the church but rather as a teaching of the dogmatic trees of the Catholic faith regarding the church so the Second Vatican Council most assuredly was an authoritative action of the ordinary Magisterium of the church the extraordinary is when the Pope or the council together with the Pope define a dogma up solemnly that's an extraordinary act the ordinary Magisterium is the regular teaching work of the church so when your priest gets up on Sunday morning and preaches a homily he is exercising the ordinary Magisterium of the church okay so how should we regard the activities of the ordinary Magisterium well it depends it depends on how that activity is being exercised so for example when your pastor preaches a homily on Sunday morning that has some authority but it's it's pretty low in the scale of authorities in the Catholic Church right I mean like it's possible for your priests to make a mistake and say something silly and you don't have to believe I'm a problem if he does right what if it's all of the Church Fathers in concert all of them agreeing on a particular topic in theology or morals that's actually infallible the Council of Trent defined the moral consensus of the fathers is you cannot contradict the moral consensus of the fathers in the interpretation of Catholic faith even though that's an exercise of the ordinary magic cerium it takes such a character that it's infallible right you cannot disagree with that in their interpretation okay what about when when all of the bishops throughout the world and all the Catholic faith will concur in a dogma and an adoption that's never actually been formally defined again infallible infallible take an example ordination of the male-only priesthood but it's it's never been defined as a dogma of the Catholic faith but you're not going to find anything that's less controverted in Catholic history I mean the divinity of Christ provoked more controversy than the ordination of men only there just is no exception to that rule in induction teaching or practice anywhere right until you know the 1960s mm-hmm right infallible by the ordinary Magisterium of the church the the the illicit a the the impermissible 'ti the immorality of contraception of contraceptive intercourse among between spouses again no dissent on this universal acclaim up until the nineteen til the invention of the birth control pill basically and it's been constantly repeated by the ordinary Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops for 2,000 years infallibly taught by the ordinary Magisterium of the church so one of the ways that we rank order ordinary Magisterial teaching is by this note of agreement another would be by the solemn manner of the teaching itself an ecumenical council with better representation that from across the Catholic world than any council in the history of the church called by a pope and promulgated as authoritative and accepted as such and the basis of the church's katha catechol enterprise going forward is a pretty weighty intervention of the ordinary Magisterium of the church kind of a big deal yeah now does that mean that we regard propositions from conciliar documents as infallible no no that's that's not the character of the thing but but does that mean you can dismiss the entire counsel out of hand not at all I mean the counsel is the expression of the church's mind on how the faith is to be understood and taught going forward okay and so I would think the work of a of a faithful theologian who who may find difficulty with some expression of the counsel is then to do the hard intellectual work of trying to understand how my understanding of this may be faulty mm-hmm or how I might reconcile it with what I understand the tradition to say you know st. Thomas Aquinas said when faced with the contradiction and I'm not alleging contradiction here I'm just stating a rule Thomas said when faced with a contradiction draw a distinction pretty good rule yes it is Gordon a great call thank you for checking in with us today here on EWTN is called a communion our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six Katie's listening to us today in Atlanta checking us out actually listening and viewing on YouTube hello Katie what's on your mind today yeah hey thank you so much for taking my call today this is actually my first time tuning in with you guys for an entire show so thank you so much fantastic um yeah and I'm so excited so I did have a very personal and vulnerable question for you guys I am 26 years old and I have been in the Catholic Church of the convert since Easter 2016 and I have been dealing with a big issue of just sort of a lot of rejection and a lot of loneliness and the fact that I am the only Catholic in my family and I am one of very few believers in a creator in general among my friends and a lot my co-workers I'm really just alone you know and I'm very outnumbered by the world and basically the only people I really have to talk to are either in seminary or are married and have lives of their own so what advice would you guys have for just somebody that feels like they're alone in the world like I go to Mass by myself what would you say is you know just the biggest advice that you all would have and just trying to kind of just do this by yourself and you know just keep going pursuing the Lord you know oh wow what a mazing question I really appreciate it and first of all I am so sorry I am so sorry I mean I kind of want to cry right now because that's such a such a sad place to be in life and I really my heart really goes out to you and it also goes out to to you because I have young adult children that are not far from your age and I have young adult Catholic friends and my own diocese and yours is not a unique problem all right this is a common problem and it's part of it is is endemic to your generation right I mean the culture of your peers that you've described I mean that is that is your culture and so your decision to become Catholic is a countercultural act now and so you're a witness and of course the Greek word for witness is martyr you know you're um you're in a sense a martyr to loneliness to profess the truth that your Catholic faith and so one thing I'd like to encourage you with is take heart that's heroic that's heroic that's the path to heroic sanctity and and we we serve God by offering up our sufferings and sorrows along with our joys and prayers and works and in doing this perhaps you make you do what Paul did in Colossians 1 when he says I make up in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body the church and you're in one since you're alone in another you're in good company because so many of the Saints have been in your situation even those that lived in or pious ages have felt alone and alienated in their service of God because those around them lived a much more worldly life even those that were nominally Catholic you know you've read the book of Hebrews chapter on the on the heroes of the faith and those that had to hide out in caves of the ground even as you know other members of people of Israel even were chasing them down to put them to death and so forth so you're in good company earlier in the show I mentioned Bonaventure st. Bonaventure when he wrote the life of st. Francis he said the servant of God that is Francis had no one to teach him had no one to teach him right and and he was an outcast in his own community for quite a while so you're you're in good company in that sense now in terms of practically what can you do about it I don't know if you've had occasion to look into the young adult ministries that are promoted by by your diocese I see you're calling from Atlanta Atlanta's got a pretty robust diocesan ministry office and and I know that I know young adult Catholics in Atlanta and I know that there's some there apostolates that are available over there they may not be necessarily connected to your parish maybe something that's promoted at the diocese level so I would get on the phone and call the Dawson office and ask for the office of young adult ministry and and say you know what is there what's going on and you know sometimes you might find circles of people that they're not going to emerge in the parish bulletins because it may be you know Bible studies or a theology on tap or something that's taking place in another venue and you just you just hadn't run into it yet and so there are young adult Catholics out there you can run around with and they'll feel just like you do yeah you know what they he'll feel just like you do and I was chuckling one time when I walked in to do radio because we were had been discussing young adult ministry in my own diocese and there were a group of the young adult Catholics that work here at EWTN gathered in the break room right outside the studio and I stopped to speak to him and I said like you know which of these ministries do you guys--do to and they they chuckle and they said well we are the young adult Catholics of Birmingham like we're working in the basement at EWTN in it and and you know we got some working on this show actually yeah yes supports the effort called a communion so they're there they're out there for you to find another thought would be if you have not explored the religious communities and I'm not saying you should become religious right listen no you hear me out but if you haven't spent some time with the religious communities in your diocese men's and women's communities that's another thing to do sometimes I find that around monasteries and convents and and in friar ease and priories that you know sometimes you'll find the faithful kind of hanging around and that's always the way it's been in the Catholic Church or the Benedictine monasteries in the Middle Ages were great centers of culture and learning and and trade and and just good old-fashioned fun the earliest theology on top in history yes was was the Benedictine monastery they used to you know we'd invite people in they'd spend the night and they'd load him up with monk made beer you know and and and you might find some friends also even among even among some of my best friends when I became Catholic were among Catholic religious I wouldn't have thought you know I wouldn't have thought that that was the case so there are places for you but you got a hunt-and-peck a little bit and in the meanwhile you're living a heroic life you know and God will reward you Katie the radical right you know she is Katie thank you so much for your call be not afraid you've got that great support system right there not far from where you are it's called a communion here on EWTN our phone number eight three three two eight eight EWTN that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six now I want to tell you for just a moment something that you really ought to consider as a big part of your own life as it is a part of my life and that is ewtn s National Catholic Register what a great news source it is for you America's most trusted Catholic news source if I may say so myself with a comprehensive view of the world from a distinctly Catholic perspective and right now you can try six free issues with our compliments and if you like it you can subscribe later on you'll get 35% off the newsstand what a deal that is so to get started visit NC register.com today that's NC register.com it's the National Catholic Register fantastic here's a text we just got from mark today on call to communion I bet you hear this a lot David are Catholics even Christian their their Christian they're not always very even rim shot for you very you know so that the followers of the way of Christ were first called Christians in Antioch that's what the book of Acts tells us that's the city where the word was first used to describe those who followed Christ who was being identified there as Christian in Antioch well we can read a lot about the church in Antioch there's quite a bit about it in the in the book of Acts and as well as in other other New Testament letters like st. Paul's letter to the Galatians and it was it was precisely the the International flavor of the group right that stood out that Jew and Gentile greek-speaking Syriac speaking Aramaic speaking all gathered together as one in Christ and they were conscious of being participants in a worldwide enterprise and that's that's actually what Paul's writing about there in Galatians right that we're all there's no slave free male female rich poor we're all one in Christ and whether you live in Jerusalem or Antioch and the the third Bishop of Antioch after Saint Peter was Ignatius of Bishop a Ignatius of Antioch he's actually the first person to ever use the word Catholic in reference to the to this universal body of Christian believers came then out of that same community Antioch the word Christian the word Catholic were used you know come extensively in that era because it referred to all those believers throughout the world that that that followed Christ st. Ignatius also said followed the bishop as you follow Christ followed the bishop as you follow Christ in the Eucharist which is his body and blood this is the bond of our unity as Catholic Christians throughout the world and and so you know those very same apostles met in Council and they would give out rulings about here's how those Christians throughout the world are - they lived lives and they should all follow the same practice Paul writes and first Corinthians if anyone has any other practice has any other opinion know that we have no other practice nor did the Churches of God and he pointed to that universal consensus throughout the world that catholicity as a mark of a true follower of Jesus so catholicity and Christianity are are coextensive right and it's not until centuries later you begin to huh well you have a few little groups splitting off here and there and of course the split offs just multiply over time and we can we can have a category now of Christianity it's broader than Catholicism like there are groups that claim to follow Jesus that are not participants in that one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but it's because they've broken off from the root they've gone their own way but the church founded by Christ was the Catholic it was that that one society founded by Jesus United in faith and governance and worship and the sacraments and the bishops that's been in continuous existence for 2,000 years the original Christians there you go all right and we do appreciate that mark thanks so much for your text it's called a communion classic coke and new coke oh please let's not even talk about new coke okay now is Diana in Kansas City Missouri she's on the Missouri side of Kansas City listening on the EWTN app and she's a first-time caller Diana what's on your mind today oh yeah thank you gentlemen for taking my call I have I deal with the Protestants and the answers you know and not an apologetic like you dr. David Anders but I'm doing the best I can here and I can't seem to find this answer okay I was doing a study with the Protestant and she says were All Saints down here we're all Saints and the only thing I could say was cuz I know you say on EWTN if we don't know the answer just say I don't know I'll get back to you okay so the only answer I could come up with was no we're not all Saints so I've looked up these scriptures you know it says Holy Ones some translations as Holy Ones or Saints but the part is it's you know st. Paul and all that I'm sure he's you know speaking about you know holy ones that live on the earth but how do I respond to we're all Saints yeah thanks so the I appreciate the question so there is just kind of an equivocation here on the word st. the word Saint means different things in different contexts I in in the sense in which Sacred Scripture speaks I'm perfectly willing to concede that all baptized believers are Saints in in scriptural terms st. Paul says whoever has been baptized has clothed himself with Christ and and so we're all made holy we're all sanctified in virtue of our baptism right we participate in the holiness of the church and the holiness of Christ in that sense Saint means holy we're all we're all sanctified made holy by our baptism so that's true in one sense everyone who's been baptized has clothed himself with Christ and become holy there's another sense that we give to the word Saint and that is those who have finished the race and gone home and being it been admitted to glory and to the vision of God not everybody ends up there not all of the báb not all of the saints in quotes right not all of those who have been made holy by baptism persevere to the end and make it to that greater sanctity of heaven right so you just have to differentiate which sense of the word you're using okay Diana thank you so much for checking in using the EWTN app we do appreciate that here now is Paul in Orlando Florida listening on Sirius XM 130 hey there Paul what's on your mind today my question is regarding the timeframe whenever the Pope's left Rome and took up residence and France we take up we have the beauty to follow the so to accept the Bishop of Rome as our leader and if the Pope's we're living in France did they continue to be Bishop of Rome or was there somebody else supported as Bishop of Rome while the folks were living in France and not at all work out as continuing to be the the head of the Catholic Church even though yeah officer if they were considered the Bishop of Gras when they were living in France or not yeah thanks I appreciate the question you know how pope john paul ii used to go snow skiing in the Italian Alps I'm sure you know that right did he stop being the Bishop of Rome when he's on ski slopes don't think so what about when the Pope goes and hangs out at Castle Gandolfo which is outside the boundaries of the you know of the city when he stopped he stopped being Bishop of Rome because he's in Castle Gandolfo or when you know when Pope Francis hops on a plane and flies to South America or when he was in the United States you know he spoke to the US Congress I think he's the first pope in history ever to come speak to the US House of Representatives it wasn't he I think so I think did he stop being the Bishop of Rome when he was in DC yeah I don't think so he was still a bishop for him even though he was he was overseas at the time and the bishops of Rome did not stop didn't cease to be bishops of Rome just because they were hanging out in Avignon and in fact having he'll came to be attached to the papal States it was actually part of the physical patrimony of the sea of Rome I owned it okay but yeah so they didn't stop being bishops of Rome just because they took a trip now it happened to be very extended trip there's a like a 70 year trip yeah kind of an imprudent trip and history's looked back not very smilingly on the fact that the bishops of Rome decided he was you know cooler and more fun in having you on which you probably was then then in the hot and been politically hot climate of Rome but they didn't stop being bishops of Rome just because they were physically outside the boundaries of their si okay very good and Paul thank you so much for your call it's called a communion here on EWTN Whitakers checking us out today on youtube he says what is the Church's position on marriages outside the church between two non Catholics does the church regard them as valid potentially they're valid yes so let's say to to Jews get married in a synagogue to a Jewish people get married in a synagogue in front of a rabbi that that's potentially a valid natural marriage mm-hmm let's say to Buddhists give me you know or to Shinto Zin a Shinto temple it's potentially a valid natural marriage you know to atheists get married in front of a justice of the peace potentially a valid natural marriage what about what about to Protestants to baptize Protestants to get married in their Presbyterian Church potentially a valid sacramental marriage because they're both baptized not only valid not only valid but also potentially sacramental now what about a Catholic and a Protestant who get married in a Presbyterian Church not valid mmm not valid because it didn't follow canonical form to which the Catholic is obliged what about a Catholic and a Protestant marrying in a Catholic Church valid in sacramental what about a Catholic and an unbaptized atheist marrying in a Catholic Church valid natural but not sacramental fascinating what about a Catholic and an atheist they get married in a Catholic Church valid natural marriage and the atheists subsequently converts and is baptized whoops sacramental aha and off you go no if you go all right and we thank you for your question there Whitaker thanks also for checking us out today on YouTube a very fast moving hour dr. David Anders thank you sir thanks Tom we do the program Monday through Friday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern right here on EWTN radio we also encore that same show for you the same evening at 11:00 p.m. Eastern also on EWTN radio we give you the best of the week Charles picks that out for us you will air that for you on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern you can get caught up that way as well and of course the podcasts available anytime by going to EWTN radio net EWTN radio net on behalf of Charles berry Ryan Penney and Jeff verse and I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders thanks so much for joining us today here on EWTN call to me again we'll see you tomorrow or next time god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 1,179

Rating: 4.818182 out of 5

Keywords: ytsync-en, clc16119, clc

Id: whxX8hyhkI4

Length: 50min 30sec (3030 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2019