Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - 2021-08-21 - Catholic Spirituality

what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests why do catholics worship mary why do i need to confess my sins to a priest where is purgatory in the bible i think the pope has too much authority what's stopping you you are called to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network welcome to call to communion uh here on ewtn radio this is the program dedicated to our non-catholic brothers and sisters and we ask you the question what's stopping you from becoming a catholic if you'd like to give us your answer the number to be on the program is 833 288 ewtn that's 833.288.3986. [Music] if you're outside the united states and canada your number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and if you're outside north america we'll even put you straight to the front of the line at one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five if you're watching us on tv you can participate in the program by sending us an email ctc ewtn.com that's ctc at ewtn.com you can also text us your question text the letter zwtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name in your question message and data rates may apply i'm jack williams sitting in today for tom price who's taking a well-deserved day off on his birthday so happy birthday to tom price and uh charles berry producing the program today your call screener is michael birchfield and jeff berson handling our social media efforts so if you are watching us on youtube or facebook live you can type a question into the chat window and it may find its way to us by the end of the program and the star of the show the one and only dr david anders how are you jack i'm all right how about you you're looking very regal in your purple shirt today well you know there's a reason for this the television producers told me that i wore blue every day and i had to change colors so the nearest color to blue i could come up with so purple you've given away the fact that we taped 64 of these shows in one day and you didn't change clothes right right so maybe not that many but at any rate pretty soon they're going to tell me to change out of purple we've been in the habit of of uh tackling a common objection posed to holy mother church at the beginning of the program and today uh one one that i've come across several times is it more important to be spiritual than religious the catholic church and other religions just sell empty words and are an obstacle to having authentic spirituality um empty and impediment i'm just taking notes here okay yeah uh so i guess it really depends on how you define your terms right um so let me tell you i think one way of defining these terms that's very consistent with catholic theology and that would justify being religious and not spiritual and in another way that may be more to your liking that would justify being spiritual and not religious so from the catholic church's traditional theological point of view every human being is spiritual you're born spiritual you're conceived spiritual insofar as you have an immortal soul and you have a capacity for the knowledge and love of god built into you right but but we don't manifest that we don't actualize that capacity or if we do we do it in ways that are pathological and bring hurt to ourselves and others and just think about the way people in our society today are so given to radical ideologies and how the 20th century was just washed in blood when people looked for transcendent answers from very finite human systems and used that to justify war and bloodshed and and genocide on a scale never before seen in human history well that's those are the acts of spiritual creatures baboons don't do this you know bonobos don't do this turtles sure surely do not do this it takes it takes the the sort of infinite creative capacity of the human spirit to come up with tortures and evils as horrible as uh as as the 20th century foisted upon us and that's that's the those are the acts of spiritual creatures doing that and religion especially in the theology of saint thomas aquinas is the virtue that perfects our spirituality so that we do justice to god and neighbor and the point of the catholic faith is precisely to sort of harness the that natural spiritual capacity of the human person and orient it towards the reasonable love of god and neighbor and so when it's operating properly that's what it does and when you see catholicism at its best represented in its in its luminaries in its saints and doctors you find transcendent wisdom and transcendent charity that's that's catholicism doing what it's supposed to do right uh now let me answer the question from a different point of view there is a way of being conventionally religious where i simply adhere to rights and ceremonies or texts or doctrines as a way of signaling the fact that i belong to some particular group and differentiating myself from some other group and maybe feeling superior about myself because hey i'm one of the elect who holds the elected auctions and holds the elect rituals and i'm marked off from all those tax collectors and sinners and other people in the world who are not like me thank you very much and uh and and that kind of religious practice is very pathological and and can actually lead to to bloodshed and terror in the name of religious faith the way i read the gospels that was just about the only thing jesus ever criticized right i mean almost all of jesus's interactions with his religious contemporaries were to call out that way of being conventionally religious and reject it and exemplified i think what is it matthew 25 where he says you've no not matthew 25 matthew 15. uh oh i've got the quote wrong never mind someplace you pharisees clean the outside of the dish but you ought to pay attention to the inside of the dish it's what comes from inside the heart fornication adultery factions jealousy hatred bitterness and so forth that's what really makes you impure and unclean not eating with unwashed hands and so it's not so much you know our ritual purity as it is our interior purity purified from those things that genuinely defile us those things that come out of the inner man our hatreds and our neuroticism and our being closed in on ourselves in a kind of you know narcissism and egotism those are the things that we have to clean out in order to genuinely purify self so that we can see god uh and see god in all things st bonaventure doctor of the church great medieval franciscan theologian said that the world is a ladder ascending to god it's a beautiful image the world is a ladder ascending to god but we don't see it we don't realize it we don't participate in it and christian faith rightly understood has the effect of purifying us and opening us up to that capacity to see and experience god in all things including that dirty unclean neighbor of mine that's matthew 23 for those of you scoring at home 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders [Music] we're asking that question what's stopping you from becoming a catholic plenty of open phone lines and some time for your calls at 833-288-3986 that's 833-288 e-w-t-n we've got an email here from jackie actually she's watching us on youtube and she says as a roman catholic is it a sin to go to a byzantine catholic church if it's a catholic church well first of all it's not a sin to go to any church go right uh i mean i could i remember during the year of faith within reason within reason yeah pope benedict actually announced a a plenary indulgence uh for people who would visit the place of their baptism and say some prayers there and i was baptized at briarwood presbyterian church in the early 1970s and it had since been the campus had been sold to an independent bible church and so i thought this is going to be a real trip and so i visited i went to this independent bible church and sat in their sanctuary and prayed and obtained a plenary indulgence from the pope [Laughter] so it wasn't a sin it was actually no it's actually an act of virtue and piety on my part but no the byzantine catholic church is in communion with the pope and is catholic it's catholic it's just an eastern church that celebrates a different right uh but a a a catholic can satisfy their sunday obligation to go to mass or divine liturgy by attending either the mass of the latin right or the byzantine liturgy or any catholic liturgy provided it's in a church that's in communion with the pope and in fact i would advise you to do it you should go experience the the the sacred divine liturgy according to saint john chris systems beautiful and and they emphasize different aspects of the mystery of christ in the eucharist and i think you'll enjoy it very much 833 288 ewtn it's a free telephone call anywhere in north america 833 i've got a question here that i think came in more than more than a week and a half ago so it it is more poignant than the emailer probably thought that it was going to be but daniel asks how is the new mass better than the traditional latin mass i've heard people claim that people who attend the traditional mass are far more accepting of church teachings than those who attend the new mass but despite this the pope has limited the traditional latin mass in his latest moto proprio which uh what does the new mass have to offer that is better than what the traditional latin mass does oh okay thanks so first of all uh i'd like i would like to point out that there is a logical fallacy uh kumho kergo probe terehoke it means with this therefore because of this right and just because you find two things that are correlated uh doesn't necessarily mean they're causally connected in precisely the way the adherence might specify so i wouldn't draw conclusions about the piety or dignity of the mass based on the personalities of the characters that you find there and necessarily right but i don't want to get into a tit for tat about better and worse i don't think that's productive what i would do is i'll i will underscore some of the values that the fathers of the second vatican council wanted to bring out by the reform of the liturgy maybe that's a better way of doing it right rather than saying better or worse just what is it that they wanted to highlight what did they want to emphasize and the the above all the fathers of the second vatican council emphasized what they called the active participation of the laity now active participation doesn't mean jumping bean activity it doesn't mean running around the sanctuary you know banging symbols and things like that not that kind of activity not frenetic activity it means informed engaged participation now that could be informed engaged participation sitting very still on your knees but it's a conscious intentional engagement of the liturgy that's that's what they were aiming at and uh they wanted it's not a new requirement and that's not a new requirement that's exactly right renewed emphasis yes but not a new requirement in fact if you you know i one of my favorite texts from francis desales who's definitely before the second vatican council when he gives instructions in the introduction to the devout life about how to go to mass he makes precisely this point that you must be their intentionally actively in a participatory way conscious of offering yourself along with the holy sacrifice of the mass now that's that's precisely the note that sacra sanctum conciliate which is the constitution on sacred liturgy the second vacant council is precisely the note that the the council fathers strike that the lay people are to be instructed that it's not only the priest who offers the sacrifice offers the immaculate victim but the church the whole church also along with him offers this sacred sacrifice and so that conscious participation is what they wanted to emphasize now how could you make that more visible more more recognizable in the form of the liturgy itself well one way you could do it is you could specify rubrics for the laity that they could that they could pray parts of the mass what we call the ordinary of the mass those prayers that are consistent weekend and week out like the sanctus and the anus day and the gloria this sort of thing those are not specified those parts are not specified for the laity in the traditional latin mass now if you attend a latin mass today it's very common for people in the latin mass to pray the prayers of the ordinary out loud but that's actually something where the the new right has enriched the celebration of the old right right because that's that's not specified and it wouldn't have been the case say in the middle ages you wouldn't have found the laity praying the ordinary out loud but in the in the the the ordinary right of the mass it's it's specific i mean it's specified that the laity are to do this obviously the most well i should say the most obvious change is having the mass in the vernacular now i understand that if you are brought up in the culture of the latin mass and that's been the way you've always celebrated and you're well formed that the latin may not be a barrier to your understanding and in fact i have i i once knew a gentleman who was let's say rather feeble-minded and but had grown up he was pretty old guy so i asked him about his experience of the mass before the council if he had any trouble understanding what was going on he said you know none whatsoever and this was not a fellow who was deeply conversant in classical latin it's just someone who'd been well enculturated uh but naturally it requires that kind of deep enculturation so for someone sort of walking in off the street so to speak latin does pose a barrier an impediment to their act of participation or understanding the vernacular celebration of the liturgy removes at least that right so those are some of the emphasis obviously more scripture more scripture reading more scripture recitation and the the corporate participation in that act uh is also indicated and i think that's that's very important and it it it it's something that the church had done actively in antiquity before the invention of printing and even more importantly before the invention of silent reading reading for the first thousand years of the church's history was almost always out loud and communal and participatory and that's something that the council really wanted to emphasize and bring back the role of the word of god in the celebration of the eucharist so these are some of the values they wanted to highlight in the reform of the mass 833 288 e wtn is our toll free number 833-288-3986 [Music] susie is in louisville kentucky a first-time caller listening on holy family radio susie you're on with dr david anders i would ask you to talk on predestination i heard him say that god knows where we're going to heaven or hell before you know he knows it so if if he would predestin know that you're going to hell how would you save yourself yeah i think so i really appreciate the question so uh the scriptures do talk about predestination it's a biblical word and the word in sacred scripture means to mark out in advance and so god does he he has for knowledge of the future and he knows who will be saved and he he he cooperates with that right but he doesn't do this in a way that contradicts human freedom on the contrary god in his providence and foreknowledge cooperates with human freedom and he knows all things uh he knows how our human freedom will interact with his grace right so it's a it's a providential care for creation that works in and through human free choice not in opposition or competition to human free choice 833 288 ewtn that's our toll free number a couple of open phone lines and plenty of time for your calls at [Music] caller he's 833-288-3986 cape may new jersey listening on sirius xm channel 130. michael welcome to the program you're on with dr anders thank you i just had a discussion with an evangelical friend of mine who's getting there he's beginning to understand but he i asked if i'm born again i said i'm born again at baptist but then on the way home i started questioning why did jesus have to be baptized yeah it's a great question i really appreciate it so let's go to the context of jesus's baptism he was baptized by john the baptist in the jordan river so we to understand the significance the meaning of christ's baptism i think the first place to start is what did john intend what was john doing out there in the wilderness and john tells us he he the placing himself in the wilderness and by the river jordan was a deeply symbolic act because the wilderness is where israel came from and the jordan is what they crossed when they entered the promised land and what was john's message his message was do not say that we have abraham for our father for god can raise up children for abraham from these very stones rather bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance and then he baptized them with a baptism of repentance what john was doing as the herald of the messiah was correcting a misunderstanding about what it meant to be israel the people of god the children of abraham at least in john's telling many of them were relying on their ancestry to make them right with god we are accepted by god we're in the covenant we're his elect because we are children of abraham and john's message was don't rely on your relationship to abraham rather exemplify in your actions the justice that abraham taught you that's the way to really be reckoned as god's people you pass through the jordan river out of the wilderness right into the promised land and you think you've got it made well you need to you need to pass through again so to speak and do it right this time right and so we're symbolically standing out here in the desert by the by the river so we can do this thing again pass into the promised land anew but this time reconstituting ourselves on the basis of righteousness and obedience a different way of conceiving this is deeply symbolic and deeply connected to israel's history and in doing that what john is really trying to do is prepare the people for the new covenant of the messiah when when all things will be renewed and the law will be written on the heart now jesus who is associated with the person of john the baptist places himself at the head of that renewed israel now you know jesus in aramaic is joshua now there was a guy named joshua who led the people of israel across the jordan river into the promised land and jesus goes and says that's me i'm the guy i'm going to lead the new covenant people across that river jordan again so to speak into the new promised land but this is the new promised land of the kingdom of god which is within you and is experienced and participated in by inward renewal and not that outward washing of the gut but that inward renewal and i am at the head of that so christ participated in john's baptism not because he himself needed to be cleansed but because he was identifying himself with this messianic call to renew the whole people of god of whom he is now the head like the new joshua 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number couple of open lines at to 833-288-3986 radio margie thanks so much for holding welcome to the program thank you what can we do for you today um i i am actually catholic and what i'm concerned about is some people that i know have died suddenly and they were not living very good lives and i loved them very much and i'm afraid they went to hell and that bothers me a lot okay protestants protestants seem to feel like when you die you go to heaven i don't think that about catholics so much yes yes thank you i appreciate the question so here's what we know about god's character we know first of all that god is love god is mercy and god desires that all people be saved that's the explicit teaching of sacred scripture we know that we have to cooperate with god we have to repent of our sins and and change our life and cooperate with him and that's the way in which he saves us but we also don't know how that is taking place in other people's souls and appearances can be deceiving righteousness can what appears to be righteousness can be wickedness and wickedness might say reverse at the last minute in ways that we are unaware of there's a famous story by leo tolstoy the death of ivan ilich and it's about an egotistical narcissistic man who lives only for himself and comes to repentance at the very last second of his life and no one in his family is aware of his change of heart only as a as tulsa puts it um you know he who needed to know knew right god knew right but no one else knew and so you really can't despair for the salvation of anyone and it is reasonable to hope that your loved one might be saved and of course you know if they have if they had the the disposition to know and love god um and died that way right it it perhaps even reconciled to him then you can of course further their uh their passage to heaven by praying for their repose of their soul and so there's something you can do right in their life actively you can participate in their salvation by praying for the repose of their soul so don't despair of their salvation know that god loves everyone wants them to be saved you don't know what was going on in their hearts really most of their life probably and especially not at the moment of their death you know we pray to the blessed virgin mary pray for us now and at the hour of our death and we could probably kind of split some hairs and say and at the second of my death right and so don't ever despair and don't give up and and hope in their salvation and pray for them 833 288 ewtn that's our toll-free number 833-288-3986 [Music] it's ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders [Music] welcome back to ewtn's call to communion with dr david andrews we're asking the question what's stopping you from becoming a catholic 833-2888 is our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six plenty of time for your phone calls and some open lines for you at 833-288-3986 [Music] pam is watching us on youtube and she says how do you best refute a non-catholic who insists the catholic church is an invention of constantine that's easy you just you just study the documents of the catholic church before constantine that's very simple you know starting with the new testament roll out of there enroll in year one did he no you start with the new testament where jesus says thou art peter and on this rock i will build my church the gates of hell will not prevail against it whoever hears you hears me whoever rejects you rejects me whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven go into all nations make disciples teach them everything i've commanded you and i'll be with you to the end of the age so i mean christ gives us the foundation of the church in its constitution the governance by the apostles the power of binding and losing possessing the keys the command to teach celebrate the sacraments and the unity of the church and we see that unity exemplified in a in a bureaucratic conciliar fashion in acts chapter 15 when the account when the apostles meeting counsel and give out authoritative decisions that are universally binding on the church we see it in saint paul's celebration of the liturgy and he says the tradition that i receive from christ i hand on to you and then he specifies in first corinthians 11 that you have to hold to the catholic practice like catholic liturgical practice the practice of the whole world as a binding norm it's not what every congregation wants it's what the catholic church does that's the binding number all these catholic principles doctrines ideas are all all evident in sacred scripture and then they're explicitly drawn out and commented on by the fathers of the first four centuries so beginning with ignatius of antioch who's a contemporary of the apostles and he says wherever the bishop is there is the catholic church this is his language would indicate a universal reality that christ had established teaching on the eucharist teaching on the episcopacy teaching on the bishop of rome we find all of it in the catholic fathers of the second and third century you know constantine is converted in the early fourth century the council of niceas in 325 and uh but it's it's following up on the advocacy of catholic bishops and saints like athanasius who are agitating for such a solution and constantine is responsive i mean constantine himself didn't see the big deal with the aryan controversy he thought ah what's a diphthong hamoi use yes homos yes what's the big difference let's all get along please right and it was precisely because the catholic bishops themselves were advocating for a conciliar solution that had imperial backing that constantine gets involved he wants to bring peace in his empire but he didn't create the catholic church he was responsive to the needs that the bishops themselves had made him aware of it was a layman he wouldn't even baptize till the end of his life 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america is roger in 833-288-3986 washington another first time caller listening on sacred heart radio roger you're on with dr david anders yes my question is uh why do i have to become a catholic to go to heaven yeah thanks so i'm i i appreciate the question but i don't really accept the premise right uh it's not it it may not be the case that you have to become a catholic to go to heaven uh it was the case that i had to become a catholic to go to heaven and if you find yourself in my situation then it'll be the case for you too what do i mean by that uh is in my journey to the catholic faith i became persuaded in conscience that the catholic church was founded by jesus and intended by him as the sign and instrument of reconciliation with the world now there's a funny little thing about conscience once your conscience persuades you of something you kind of have to do what conscience persuades you of you have to obey your conscience you know martin luther once said uh my conscience is held captive to the word of god um i can do no other here i stand now luther said a lot of things that were not catholic but that wasn't one of them that was one of the most catholic things he said so once you become persuaded in conscience that christ intends the catholic church as that sign and instrument then you have to become catholic to go to heaven because otherwise you'd be disobeying your conscience many people have not yet come to the point that they can see the catholic church was founded by christ and intended by him and because they don't see that they're not aware of it their conscience has not yet persuaded them of the moral necessity of becoming catholic and for many people it is because of their own invincible ignorance that they're not catholic because simply because they they haven't yet come to the point that they see that as being true about the catholic faith and if you if you don't think that the catholic church was founded by jesus if you haven't done the research read the documents and been persuaded of the arguments if you don't see that then like you shouldn't be catholic just you know like because you think it's a great way to make money or something i mean that'd be let me tell you something it's not a great way to make money right but i mean you could have all sorts of false motives for associating yourself with the church if they're not based on the untruth and charity then there would be bad reasons to become catholic and and joining the church wouldn't save you all right so that's the situation um the church is is objectively necessary i mean jesus created it for a reason he put it in the world in order to pers to to perpetuate his message and his presence so it has a job description in the world it's kind of like a big big light bulb that's how the second vatican council has a there's a document from the council the church the light bulb at paraphrasing is called the light of the nations the church is like a giant light bulb that's supposed to shine the truth of christ's love and mercy and wisdom throughout all the world and illuminate the world it has that job but some people haven't yet been touched by the light and so their consciences haven't persuaded them and for them it might not be necessary for them to be catholic to become to get to heaven however becoming catholic will sure help that process along because you're going to get flooded with light if you do 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number still a couple of open lines at 833 288 judy is in orange connecticut she's listening on siriusxm channel 130. judy welcome to the program you're on with dr anders uh thank you for taking my call and the reason i'm calling is i just wanted to thank you both for your show um i came to my catholic space later in life um through mother angelica watching her show so i didn't have um the benefit of being educated about my faith and you know priests are very busy nowadays so you know they don't have the time to you know get you know ask all these questions and i've learned so much from your show that's just been so beneficial towards growing closer in my face and growing closer to god so i just wanted to thank you both for doing this show i really appreciate it well you're so kind and let me tell you something judy if you were to turn other people on to the show right or onto shows that involved mother angelica and if someone that you encouraged to do that had a dramatic life-changing conversion experience that may have made the difference in the disposition of their eternal soul guess what mother angelica didn't do any more to affect that than you did that's good how about that that's a good point sorry all right i want to say a word about those priests that don't have time all right and we all know them we know the parish priest the pastor who's you know he's he's preaching the gospel celebrating the sacraments but he's also making sure the light bill gets paid and the insurance bill gets paid and he's keeping making sure the wednesday afternoon classes don't don't overlap in the same classroom he's got a lot of administrative duties that do occupy him and when i became catholic i found some priests who were taken up like that and maybe they didn't have the time or inclination to get down into the nitty-gritty with me but i did find those priests i found those priests who would get down into the nitty-gritty and in my case a lot of times it was the religious the ones who who didn't have a pastorate who weren't pastors of of churches and whose whole vocation was about being with the laity and answering their questions in particular the franciscans and the dominicans in my own diocese were tremendously valuable to me and i have i consider them some of the greatest luminaries of christ making him present to me in their person so i just want to nod to those priests that have that have been present to people in their pastoral need and they have been to me and how much i appreciate them awesome thanks so much for the call judy we appreciate the kind words eight three three two eight eight ewtn is our toll free number eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six next up is chuck in barge kentucky listening to us on holy family radio today chuck you are on with dr david anders hi dr andrews and i appreciate you guys show i listen to it every day thank you i do believe in the catholic and the father and all that and my question is with all the things that happened through the last few years with the priest and everybody in the molestation of the of the kids and money that's been spent it's that's what's keeping me from becoming catholic and is there a reason why that happened yeah how do you guys deal with that situation yeah i think thanks i appreciate it so when when i'm sympathetic by the way to your concern when i became catholic i became catholic in 2003 2002 was when the dam broke in scandal on the catholic church and so i my inquiry into the church coincided perfectly with the worst media storm that the modern church has ever faced and so i i was confronting the same questions that you're confronting and at one level it was very important to me but at another level it wasn't important to me at all and the reason why is that you know i did not become catholic so that i could go to mass with some corrupt prelate in boston i i really didn't really want to go hear him say mass or hear my confession that's not what motivated me to become catholic in fact i didn't become catholic because i was motivated to spend time with any living catholic personality none of them and i met some great people but like you know i remember i talked to dr scott hahn once before i became catholic and he's awesome but i didn't become catholic so i could go hang out with dr han i became catholic so i could worship the same god he does so that i could know the same christ he does so that i could partake of the same communion that he does so that i could i could fellowship with the same saints and not just dr han but but all the great catholics that i've known in the world right i i wanted to have the same experience of christ that the saints had and uh and the priests as an institution are necessary for that they make christ substantially present in the eucharist for me they bring me christ in the other sacraments and so they have a role they have a function they have a vocation in the church but it's not dependent on any of their specific personalities it it requires the institution of the priesthood as such but it doesn't require this or that priest now individual priests just like you and me in my vocation as a married person their vocation is priests they have an obligation to be worthy priests and if they are faithful to their vocation they are worthy priests they can be sanctified become very holy and go to heaven but a priest who's not faithful to his vocation is not sanctified and is not holy and and does not perform his duties in a worthy manner can fail to become sanctified can become very vicious and can go to hell it's really important to know that that being a priest does not guarantee your holiness any more than being a married person or being a religious guarantees your holiness it's a vocation it's a it's a way of being of service to one's but if you don't live up to that then it'll be your damnation not your salvation okay so uh i i knew i could encounter christ in the catholic faith i knew i could find i could go to mass with saint augustine i could receive the same christ that he received i could participate in christ in the same way that augustine did or thomas did or teresa of avila did or therese of lizio did i could try to find my path to holiness like they did in the catholic church that's why i became catholic not because of some particular personality now uh in terms of the question how does the priest handle these people and and why did these things happen well i mean look there's we can absolutely criticize the the bureaucratic methods of catholic governance absolutely this is not beyond criticism at all we can absolutely criticize it and we can point to many human failings in the way people advance through the hierarchy and internal church politics and in you know the culture of the clergy or the hierarchy we all those human things that we can very reasonably criticize as as as symptomatic of and occasions of profound abuse and sin and all the rest of it we can totally do that that's not a new thing however in either not only catholic history or human history and the company of the apostles itself was not spared this kind of corruption remember judas was the treasurer of the original company of the apostles and he was into the corruption game at the very beginning he was taking money out of the pot and using it for himself and then of course ultimately he betrayed the son of god so he is a kind of type if you will an allegory for every corrupt priest and bishop that ever followed him they are priests like judas was what a scary thought right and if christ didn't eliminate that from the company of his own apostles we're not likely to get rid of it in a hurry and and all the saints that i just mentioned the augustines and the thomases and the teresas and the teresas they lived in times when there were priests of exceeding holiness and priests of great corruption now can we as the people of god change some of those administrative structures bring greater accountability and use the kind of tools and wisdom of human administration to improve it yes have some strides in those directions been made yes i think especially in the united states i think the culture of the protection of youth is much much much better now than it was 20 years ago insofar as you know now to do any ministry in the catholic church whatsoever at all in the united states whether you're a priest or a layman you have to be vetted you have to be trained and you have the protection of children drilled into your brain ad nauseam and i mean i know because i work for a catholic diocese and we're in this stuff up to our eyeballs every day teaching and training people and making people aware of this and at least in my limited experience the problems that we have today at least at the local level are not primarily with priests they are with laypeople in the church who think that hey i'm a good guy i'm immune to this i don't have to worry about it that's that's that's what you have to watch out now i mean not the priest don't have to watch out but in my tenure in the catholic church i haven't seen priests in my diocese get into trouble in these ways i have seen lay people a couple of new offerings for you from ewtn publishing this month living the scriptures by mother angelica this is kind of a compilation of some of her on-air presentations as well as some of her meditations and you'll discover in this little book that scripture is not a complicated puzzle meant uh for biblical scholars but it is divine guidance for our everyday spiritual life and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume by cardinal fernando filoni he is the grand master of the equestrian order of the holy sepulchre of jerusalem and he shares some of the beliefs and values that help guide the lives of the knights and doms of of that order both available now for you at ewtn's religious catalog that's ewtnrc.com next stop is wichita kansas rick is another first time caller listening on the catholic radio network rick you are on well let's see if we can get uh rick going rick you are on with dr david anders hey rick rick rick are you there well we'll work on rick and in the meantime we've got an email here from danielle she's also watching us on youtube and she says do you have to do you have to have complete do you have to have completed i i read english occasionally do you have to have completed the annulment process for marriages prior to entering the church if you're divorced and not currently engaged to be married in the church okay thank you i appreciate the question uh now you know whenever i give an answer about a legal question i always issue the caveat that i am not a canon lawyer nor the son of one and so you always defer to your pastor who will guide you in these matters but my understanding is what an annulment does is it declares that your marriage was not in fact a marriage and so there it is no longer an impediment to you marrying again right because you're not actually married now let's say you are a you are a married person uh but you are not currently living with your spouse there could be a lot of reasons for that one of them could be the relation has ruptured in some way or it's become morally impossible for you to live together probably somebody send someplace and and if you're maybe you may be innocent i mean sometimes people are abandoned by their spouses no fault of their own but if there was some fault that you committed that led to this rupture uh then the appropriate thing to do is to seek forgiveness you go to confession and be forgiven for whatever it was you did that led to the rupture and and if you know the rupture is beyond repair that is no longer within your power and so you you don't have a moral responsibility there and as long as you are not seeking to marry again it is not intrinsically a sin necessarily a sin to live apart from your valid spouse and therefore is not a barrier to you becoming catholic now the only way in which it becomes a barrier is if you want to enter into the ecclesial state of marriage well okay now you've got an impediment because it seems that you may already be married to somebody you say another is if you're living together and you're engaged in conjugal relations well then you have to raise the question am i am i lawfully engaged in conjugal relations or in fact am i committing fornication and so that becomes pertinent to the whole annulment business 833288 ewtn is our toll-free number are you ready charles thumbs up all right we're going to go to rick in wichita kansas there he is rick sorry for the confusion welcome to the program well thank you very much and dr anders i certainly have enjoyed your teaching and your explanations i i'm a non-catholic but i've been listening to the network now for a while and i just wondered if you would explain what salvation means and what it means to be saved as a catholic how does it happen and what does it mean yeah thanks i appreciate the question a lot um after all this is kind of what the whole thing's about right so at one level jesus speaks about salvation as something that will happen to us in the future whoever perseveres to the end will be saved that's matthew 25 and what he means by that of course is that we'll be saved from the coming wrath that we will not be punished for our sins that we'll go to heaven when we die that will be raised from the dead with christ and enjoy him forever and we'll experience the beatific vision eye hasn't seen ear hasn't heard what god has in love for those who who love him and we will know him even as we are fully known when he appears again in glory that's what being saved means it means being the beneficiary of of those future promises but i think maybe your question's a little bit different you want to know well how do i get there how do i what do i need to do now to ensure my answers what must i do to be safe there you go that's really the question what do i do now to see that that happens to me then and christ was asked this question mark chapter 10 a young man comes to jesus and says good teacher what must i do to be saved christ says ha why you calling me good you know what to do you know what to do keep the commandments keep the commandments and at a simple level the answer to the question is keep the commandments now the guy had a problem he didn't detachment issue he didn't feel like that was sufficient that a kind of mere outward conformity to the letter of the law he he sensed he intuited that didn't really look jesus i know there's something else you're not telling me something and jesus okay sell it give it to the born come follow me come follow me come participate in my way of being in the world because it is not mere outward conformity to the letter of the law it is participating in the love of god in the agape of god being inwardly transformed so that his law is written on my mind and written on my heart and the love of god is poured into my heart that's that's how to really participate in god saint peter ii peter chapter 2 speaks about we become participants sharers communioners in the divine nature we are deified we are transformed saint paul says i pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened that you may know the height and the depth and the width of the love of god that surpasses knowledge we want to know how to enter into a deep participation in that love of god jesus says if you love me and keep my commandments my father and i will come to you make our dwelling within you how do i experience that indwelling presence of christ that is my ongoing participation my ongoing deification that will result in my glorification in the next life and to do that you must be born again that's what christ says to nicodemus comes to him says what what do i need to do jesus says unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of god i have to inwardly transform right can't can't live like the old guy have to live like the new guy not like adam but like christ now christ presents that possibility to me in baptism saint paul says whoever is baptized has clothed himself with christ and there's that ongoing participation is exemplified and made possible to me through the sacrament of the holy eucharist whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life it's not the ritual performance of the action as such it's what the sacrament conveys to me supernaturally spiritually by the power of the holy spirit when i bring my own faith and charity and repentance to these things and they become for me a means of ascent right rising up to where christ is seated at the right hand of god continuing persevere in that way christ says and then you will be saved dr david anders it's a wicked culture that we live in wicked and uh we certainly appreciate everything you do to try to push us towards uh the salvation that rick was asking about and you do a fine job and we'll do a fine job of it tomorrow huh thanks jack yeah on behalf of our host dr david anders our producer charles bury our call screener michael birchfield and our social media maven mr jeff berson i'm jack williams thanks so much for tuning in to ewtn's call to communion where we ask that question every day what's stopping you from becoming a catholic until we get together next time god bless you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 870

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Keywords: clc, clc16221, ytsync-en

Id: jB6rFUB0jxg

Length: 50min 29sec (3029 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 26 2021