Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - March 4 2022

what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-2888 [Music] i don't understand why i have to earn salvation this is 1-833-288-3986 to communion with dr david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey what do you know we made it to friday how about that welcome to the friday edition of call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters if you've got a question about the catholic faith and perhaps you want to know what lent is all about perhaps you want to know what ashes are all about perhaps you just have a you know a general question about catholicism but you weren't sure who to turn to well please turn to us here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 my personal recommendation to you on a friday call early because the phones get tied up right away look at this two calls already on the way in and being screened so call early 833 288 ewtn if you're listening to us outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 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 of course you can always shoot us an email ctc ewtn.com the address ctc at ewtn.com all right our mystery producer today michael mccall how about that also uh we do have other members of the team who are still on the job and that would be matt kabinsky our call screener jeff burson on social media if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now put your question in the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you my friend i'm doing decent thank you charles our regular producer not with us today because we have a network retreat going on at the shrine of the most blessed sacrament in hanceville about an hour away from our studios here and we're very glad that charles took the advantage of uh attending that now catholic trivia question for you yes to what religious order do you owe the institution of holding retreats retreats that's a thing in catholic life well it definitely is it definitely is you know but that started at a point in time i would just take a guess and say uh thomas aquinas nope nope the jesuits no kids jesuits you know because saint ignatius wrote the spiritual exercises and they were set out to be performed over a month although you know today obviously they do them in different time frames it was when young men were trying to discern their vocation whether to the religious life or to some secular life of some kind they would go on retreat and try to discern where the lord was leading them really the jesuits brought that spirituality into that practice into the catholic life and then it moved beyond the jesuit order now it's kind of a tried and true part of of of catholic life i appreciate your trivia i'm going to give you a little piece of trivia okay what was the origin of the mcdonald's fellaia fish sandwich do you know no but i'm i'm i'm thinking about that that there was a mcdonald's fillet fish ad that had the the talking fish that would say fileta fish fileta fish do you remember that i don't know i don't remember that but the story that i got and it actually uh was had its origins in cincinnati uh which is a very catholic town and um the local mcdonald's franchisee was rather upset because everybody was getting their fish sandwich at the local uh big boy frisch's big boy and he didn't have anything like that on the menu so he said well how about if i come up with a sandwich he petitioned uh you know ray kroc the head of mcdonald's corporate and uh they they did a little taste test and and you know uh he introduced it a huge sit and then they introduced it nationwide and so there it is you know one time um my wife and i were in a restaurant and she ordered a um uh they had it was a it was it was an ethnic restaurant for which fish they're not well known for fish but there was fish on the menu like with a single a single dish of fish right okay and she asked the wishes what kind of fish is it and he looked at her like she had two heads and she said fish fish just like a generic fish right you know and we're like maybe you don't want to try the fish yeah maybe not we're going to lead off here with a question a question from chris via youtube our sins like apostasy and murder equal in their gravity with the difference being apostates have given given up recourse to the sacraments both are united to church by baptism so are those equal in gravity apostasy and murder yeah thanks so i i typically try to avoid ranking sins by gravity in that way you know um we need casey kasem in here counting them down okay friday getting carried away today i know and you know i don't think that sacred scripture gives us a kind of calculus where we can make those determinations now as a principle the more egregiously we act against divine and human dignity the graver the offense now some of that is objectively in the act itself like you know murder is obviously objectively uh worse than assault all right um although they're both pretty bad but that's not the only thing that can qualify the gravity of uh of an act so the there's the objective act itself they're also the circumstances of the act and circumstances can make a particular uh uh act more or less egregious and we recognize this even in civil law they have you know first degree murder is different from second and third degree mark circumstances make a difference and intent makes a difference makes a huge difference and the extent of a person's awareness of of their actions and you know whether or not they're aware that what they do is objectively wrong all of those things would come into the moral evaluation of an act and so you know i would be very hesitant to pass judgment on individuals and their consciences for example with uh with the case of apostasy because i think that many people in the world that leave the catholic church today do so having been quite badly informed and and not really understanding the gravity of their act now objectively is it bad to walk away from the faith of course it is subjectively i can't possibly know what was in that person's mind and what they understood themselves to be walking away from chris thanks so much for your question via youtube and a little good news for you here our producer michael mccall points this out you can google ncregister.com and then fillet o fish and you'll get more information about that filet of fish story that i shared just a couple of minutes ago all right in just a moment we'll be talking with al in destin florida also jane in springfield illinois dan and st louis and uh if you have a question you'd like to get in on today's program here's our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders on ewtn [Music] we live in a world of extreme polarization often consumed by anger and anxiety a climate that is dividing our country and our world a division so wide there is even confusion within our church and today most secular news sources only serve to deepen this divide but at catholic news agency our mission is to be a witness to the truth of our catholic faith providing trustworthy relevant and timely news affecting the global church as well as in-depth coverage of the pope the vatican the church in the u.s and the ongoing battle for the culture of life every day cna's reporters and editors maintain a continuous faithful watch on the people and the events that impact lives and the souls of catholics delivering more news from a catholic perspective than anyone else catholic news agency a service of ewtn news trusted timely catholic engage at catholicnewsagency.com [Music] i am father thomas loyland and this week on light of the east on ewtn throughout their histories the eastern catholic churches have been that the epicenter the some of the most crucial global issues of their day the same is true today with the new global crisis whose flashpoint is a land that is a great center of eastern catholicism on ewtn sunday is at 11 30 a.m eastern [Music] it's called communion on this very busy friday afternoon here on ewtn our phone number when it becomes available for you eight three two 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 want to tell you about a new book from ewtn publishing you shall stand firm preserving the faith in an age of apostasy by father william casey this quite riveting book is a clarion called the catholics to begin to truly understand and live the faith to speak the truth and to share it a little food for the journey if you will you'll find four fundamental facts of our existence and four ways to experience god's healing peace and mercy here's number one challenging and enlightening it exposes the horrors of communism the ideal the ideology that is visibly engulfing the west even as we speak today number two it reveals the truth about critical race theory and its dark objective which is to sabotage america's foundation number three it offers genuine solutions to the church's moral crises and vocations shortage and number four it provides authentic answers to tough questions on marriage and sexuality based on church teachings can't go wrong with father william casey this is this book is a winner you shall stand firm preserving the faith in an age of apostasy it's available right now at ewtnrc.com by catholic shop ewtnrc.com if you're ready now let's go to the phones here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david andrews beginning with al in destin florida listening on i heart radio al what's on your mind today sir yes gentlemen how are you today great great glad to be talking to you al what's on your mind well um at work i have a lot of discussions about faith and i was talking to someone recently you said asking about the catholic church and he watches a lot of youtubes and he says well our modern prophets who are around today are blah blah blah blah and i i my response i had was the last prophet that i know of would have been saint john the baptist closing out the old testament and if we had still have prophets i figured we'd have to be adding to the bible still to this day what is the catholic stance on prophets when did they end did they end how does that work okay yeah thanks i appreciate the question so not all biblical writers were prophets and not all prophecies are sacred scripture so the idea that that you know prophecy is equivalent to sacred scripture is false uh in the same way that some of the scripture passages some some books of the bible were written by poets and songwriters the psalms in particular come to my mind um we still have poets and songwriters today we're not going to put their words in the bible no now prophecy as a cultural form is something that is older than the hebrew bible and older than the nation of israel and so you can find you know groups of individuals uh in the ancient near east and for that matter in many other cultures as well that sort of march around alone or in bands and uh you know claim to have ecstatic experiences or visions or something and speak on behalf of this or that god i mean you can find canaanites that do this you can find babylonians that do this you can find this in a lot of ancient cultures so it's not something that's unique to hebrew society but just like you find poets and songwriters and and kings and and chroniclers you find these cultural forms in all kinds of civilizations but in the case of the hebrew people certain individuals who occupied that social role were in fact guided by the holy spirit so that those you know sort of sociological categories now become revelatory in a unique way right so it's not every instance of of of so-called prophecy that is this revelatory of the true god um and even then there were there we read narratives of prophets in the hebrew bible who were prophets of the true god but whose words were not recorded in oracles like say those of isaiah there are unnamed prophets that we read about in the book of kings for example and they have presumably an entire ministry that was familiar to their contemporaries but not to us because they didn't gather a company of disciples and their words weren't written down as oracles as as was the case with people like isaiah jeremiah so uh all that is to say that there's just not a one-to-one correspondence between prophecy as such and inspired sacred scriptures the scriptures are the writings of the holy spirit led to be composed by the people of god in a variety of genre including that of prophecy but not unique to prophecy not uniquely prophecy as the spirit saw fit right to to provide a record of uh the people of israel and their journeying with god on the way towards the coming of the messiah now from the point of view of the new testament all of that was preparatory to the incarnation in the coming of jesus now jesus is the definitive revelation of god so after christ there need be no revelation uh no additional revelation to inform us about you know what we publicly need to know in order to be united to god in charity through his son jesus christ and so the record of the teaching of christ uh his life and example and those of his apostles we call the deposit of faith this is the culmination and the fulfillment of the old testament both the prophetic texts as well as the narrative and wisdom books and so forth and uh and the job of the church is simply to faithfully hand on the deposit of faith delivered to us by christ and the apostles that's the job of the church now what is the catholic church's position on the continuing gift of prophecy right as something distinct from holy scripture are there or could there be prophets in the world today so prophecy in scripture is not it doesn't mean foretelling the future per se it really is somebody who speaks authoritatively for god and so the hebrew prophets generally didn't talk about the future they talked about their contemporaries they did so with a kind of divine mandate now we don't have prophets today in the sense of somebody standing up so much and saying thus saith the lord you know that way isaiah jeremiah did but the new testament does contemplate the possibility of somebody having a prophetic gift even even today and one has to approach that saint paul says in first corinthians with a great deal of discernment and the church actually has to evaluate such claims and have there been such individuals who have spoken a mighty word from god in a way that was you know an admonition perhaps to the people doing wayward things i i will give you an instance from church history that i personally regard is probably tantamount to the gift of prophecy okay and that would be saint catherine of siena saint catherine of siena when you read about her life you recognize that she wasn't any big thing she didn't have a noble family she didn't have money she didn't have much education she was a dominican tertiary which means she took religious vows and you know lived a a life according to vows but she lived at home with her family she didn't live in a convent but she was just incredibly bold for the lord and the form that that took in her life was she would go out and confront power she would confront kings and dukes and emperors and bishops and popes yes and she would give him what for and her most celebrated accomplishment was rebuking the bishop of rome for living in avignon france rather than in rome and her personality was so compelling so overwhelming that pope actually listened to her which is just it's nearly unthinkable it's really unthinkable if you can imagine somebody who would fit that social description walking into the vatican today and telling pope francis what to do you know or telling the president what to do and for them to listen to her i mean she had to have just been an absolutely astonishing individual right so that's i think that's maybe an instance of the way prophecy might work now i i think i know these prophets of whom your friend speaks and there are denominations in the world today that make the continuing use of these charismatic spiritual gifts like tongues prophecy and healing integral to their conception of the church and ecclesiology and christian life and i myself am profoundly skeptical very very very skeptical of those kinds of prophets and their claims to prophecy and you know i think it's not not hard to see why um you know in the last election cycle some of the pentecostal charismatic magazines carried a lot of coverage predicting the outcome of the election and they ascribed their conclusions to the gift of prophecy they said this is the way it's going to turn out because thus saith the lord yadda yadda and of course it didn't turn out the way that they thought you know and so you had this whole class of people who have egg on their face and i think it shows that we weren't really listening to the spirit of god and then we were listening to their own enthusiasm and an ideological agenda yeah you know before which they claimed a divine warrant that was not there yeah al thank you so much for your call of course david i know you know a lot about profits from your work in the stock market um and losses too yeah profits and loss especially lately all right that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 let's go to chris in loveland colorado listening on the ewtn app hey there chris what's on your mind today hi um i have several non-catholic friends and even relatives who are all a flutter about the invalid words of baptism topic and can you concisely explain the reasons for the precise wording in the performance of sacraments um sure so i'm going to give you two answers and one of them is going to sound like a dodge but it really isn't and the other one is going to be a bit more in-depth um the dodgy answer but it's not dodgy it's really valid but it's they're not going to like this answer this is what christ told us like this is the formula we've received by apostolic tradition right and in some instances we have more precise rubrics from jesus himself for the celebration of the sacraments like the words of consecration for the eucharist example are pretty pretty obvious there but for most of the sacraments we don't find in sacred scripture a written out rubric you know a set of detailed instructions about how to correctly perform the sacraments um that doesn't mean that they don't exist it just means that we're not limited to the bible alone to derive the content of christian faith and we know these things from sacred tradition going back to the apostles so that you know sacred tradition carries the weight of of revelation it's it's equal in sacred scripture to authority it's different in form but it's equal in authority because it is revelation from god and so we we cannot lightly depart from sacred tradition any more than we can depart from the words of sacred scripture uh but then that raises the second question which is well why these words and not others right and so we are kind of left to try to discern using human reason well why did the lord do it this way i mean he could have done it anyway i mean he could have given any form why did he give this formula and i think in the case of baptism you asked me i baptized you in the name of father's holy spirit the the singular pronoun there indicates the way in which we come into relationship with christ is through personal relationship and each individual christian is in fact a bearer of christ saint paul says whoever has been baptized has clothed himself with jesus and so each of us is an agent of redemption in the world and that's our personal vocation is to go out there and to be other christs and to manifest christ to the world and that is an individual vocation that comes to each of us and is our own that's our job and so it only takes while you are baptized into the church baptism is the right of entrance into the church you don't need but one catholic to make the church present which is why you know you could you could you know baptize somebody in a prison cell i started to say in siberia but that's maybe a little bit too close to home these days maybe you know in yeah some far-flung corner of the world right um you could because you're there and you're the church now take is a passage in saint paul's letter to the corinthians this may seem a bit far afield but stick with me for a minute where he's actually admonishing the corinthians not to engage in prostitution that's the context of his remarks and he says don't go to a prostitute because if you do you you unite the body of christ to a prostitute and you have to read that two or three times so strong let the weight of it really hit you obviously this person who would do such a thing is not in the state of grace stands to reason they're not in the state of grace otherwise they wouldn't be engaged in that activity but paul says even the loss of grace does not separate you from being a member of christ's body which is the church right we talk in the catholic sacramental theology about baptism placing an indelible mark on your soul even if you go to hell you still oh there's a catholic in hell look at him you know he's got that indelible mark on his soul ordination does this too right and uh and and so every christian walk every baptized christian walks around with that indelible mark on their soul marking them out as a member of christ and and that's that's that's all you need to bring christ to the world and so baptism really sort of underscores while it is a communal right in one sense that that the that the community is represented in a single person right you're not the whole church but you are the church uh now that's that's human speculation trying to discern the logic of the lord's words like why does sacred tradition hand it to us this way and i think that makes sense now uh more generally why should we be concerned about details when celebrating the sacraments and that might be a better way of looking at this question the other day i gave the instance imagine if i were marrying and i promised my my fiance i will you know love honor and cherish you until next thursday i only changed one word i only changed one word but i radically changed the meaning of the right another way people monkey with baptism is to say i baptize you in the name of and they give something other than father son and holy spirit and increasingly this is a popular thing to do among those who are concerned about the use of gendered language they don't like to use father and son in reference to the godhead because i think it suggests biological sex when it does no such thing it actually it reflects something about the internal relations of the trinity one to the other it's not biology that's being referenced here it's relation and so they'll sometimes substitute something like creator redeemer and sanctifier but of course those aren't relations those are functions yeah and so that shift of language though it may be meant benevolently has profound consequences for the way we understand trinitarian theology likewise i versus we has consequences for the way we understand ecclesiology and now and by saying that a baptism is invalid or any sacrament is invalid is not to say that god can't extend to this person grace we don't make that claim yeah we're just saying the invalid sacred means we don't have a guarantee of grace having been conveyed through this right and a valid sacrament gives us that confidence in that hope and that certainty so we we we need to stick to the rubrics of the sacraments as out of pastoral concern for the people involved so like your friends i'm also concerned about this problem makes me very upset but enough of the reasons they're upset i'm upset because these people were not well served pastorally chris thank you so much for your call in a moment we're going to be talking with jane in springfield illinois who also has a a question about language here and and these two could actually be related also be talking with dan in st louis joe in hamilton ohio jane in springfield as we mentioned adam a first-time caller in fort wayne irene and iowa busy phones on today's call to communion with dr david anders the catechism of the catholic church has a great quote from saint john chrysostom on prayer in paragraph 2744 it reads quote nothing is equal to prayer for what is impossible it makes possible what is difficult easy for it's impossible for the man who prays eagerly and invokes god ceaselessly ever to sin close quote that's the power of prayer so what are we waiting for let's get to praying [Music] 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 atheists and agnostics [Music] o holy spirit spirit of truth we worship you we pray for those who either do not believe or who believe wrongly enlighten their minds with your light and inflame their hearts with your love give the gift of the faith to atheists and agnostics humble their pride and inspire their souls with your grace burst through their blindness with your radiance and use ewtn as an instrument of salvation for many amen you can be a part of call to communion text ewtn to 5500 wait for a response then text us your first name and question it's that easy message and data rates may apply matt swaim here monday on the sunrise morning show will celebrate the feast of saints perpetua and felicity and mark the anniversary of the founding of the diocese of saint augustine on this week in catholic history now back to call to communion [Music] hey what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about that here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders very glad to be uh having busy phones on a friday this is how it usually works out we're very glad to be talking with you on this beautiful friday afternoon at least here it is beautiful in alabama isn't it david it is gorgeous today i mean this is fantastic so thank you lord uh here is jane now in springfield illinois listening on the great covenant network jane what's on your mind today hello hi there hi i had a question um about wording um and i understand sacramental wording might be different than maybe wording in the psalm but i don't know um i am a liturgist and a music director at a church here in springfield and i noticed that the 23rd psalm used to say i will dwell in the house of the lord forever and then several years ago it was changed and i was well in the house of the lord for years to come and i wondered why they changed that because you were saying makes a difference uh what what it means and years to come does not mean forever in my eyes at least anyway please expound on that please yeah thanks i appreciate the question so uh the the when we're reciting sacred scripture in mass we're obviously using an english translation um of the underlying biblical text the biblical text in question here is hebrew and also the septuagint version of the old testament which is in greek so english translators are doing the best job they can to try to capture the sense of the underlying base text and translation is not an exact science and you have to you have to go for the nearest equivalent and there are also different translation philosophies you try to capture word for word or do you try to capture you know a kind of dynamic equivalent where you think you've got the the gist of it but you may not be tied to a word to word you know which might appear in uh in a translated document so all those things come into translation now when it comes to decisions about the sacred liturgy the church uh you know transl pays great attention to the care with which people perform translations and language changes over time and so from time to time translations of the liturgy will be updated to reflect changes in the vernacular and when that happens they may they may new new exegetical conclusions maybe have arrived at the scholarly literature on a particular text and that may also influence the translation at particular time so there's a certain degree of fluidity there um and you're right words do matter and that's why the sacred conjugation for for divine worship takes such great care in these things and publishes rules and laws and rubrics so people don't play fast and loose either with the words of the bible or the words of the sacred liturgy now these things are different than the question of the sacraments because the reading of scripture while profoundly edifying and definitely a spiritual practice we're all meant to engage in does not have what the church calls the ex oprah operato efficacy of the sacraments so scripture can be a source of grace in our life but it not simply by working the work are we guaranteed the offer of sanctifying grace in the way we are in the sacrament so um you know if i if i if i don't get a translation just right um you know i'm not somehow deprived of certainty about the offer of grace in the way that i would be if the words of the sacrament were mangled we do appreciate that and jane thank you so much for your call blaine is watching us on youtube this afternoon blaine says was the washing of feet the point of ordination for the apostles at the last supper and was this ever in the ordination right also why don't we take off our shoes and churches if it is holy ground like moses sure now by the point of ordination i'm assuming you mean the moment in time at which ordination was i think not like the goal of ordination no okay uh no it would have been when christ gave the command in the upper room do this in memory of me so when christ instituted the holy sacrifice of the mass he also instituted uh the sacrament of holy orders by the command that the the the apostles do this in memory of him um and uh uh and so that is why we actually celebrate the gift of ordination on holy thursday right which is the the feast celebrating christ's first supper uh the last supper with his apostles on that on that thursday that's what we do and and it's also by the way when the priests take off their shoes and wash people's feet and get their feet washed sure is so that's when that takes place why don't we take our shoes off in churches if it's holy ground like moses well christ excuse me god commanded that moses take his shoes off at that time and we are we are required to perform relevant acts of reverence but what counts as a reverential act is somewhat culturally determined and there are circumstances in which taking off your shoes might be perceived as disrespectful rather than respectful in the latin church typically kneeling is the preferred posture of reverence in the eastern church standing is the preferred posture of reverence and so to you know you you have to kind of go with the liturgical right and with the cultural traditions the idea you know piety reverence ultimately is not so much a matter of dress or bodily posture as it is an interior disposition uh you can go through all the external motions and yet not have the virtue of reverence in your heart but those external forms can definitely help remind us you know depending on their cultural context of the need to have that interior reverence blaine thanks so much for your question via youtube this afternoon call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn radio let's go to st louis and talk with dan listening online ewtn.com hey dan what's on your mind today sir well i first of all i really appreciate your program dr anders i'm calling for my aunt she's a methodist and she wants to know who assembled the bible put the books together in that and and the order that they're in and uh what gave them the authority to do that what a great question i love this question so the the final form and compilation of the bible was the work of catholic bishops uh in particular at the the synods of rome and carthage and hippo in the fourth century under the guidance of saint augustine and also pope damasus and saint jerome these are all key figures in that time and they had authority to do that from jesus who gave the apostles the command to make disciples of all nations and the promise that he would accompany them that he would forever until the end of the age and whatever they bound on earth would be bound in heaven so if you remember in the bible acts chapter 15 an analogous problem emerged it wasn't the contents of the bible but it was namely the interpretation of the bible that was at stake and there was a major controversy splitting the early christian world about the inclusion of gentiles into a largely jewish church some wanted to impose the law of moses some didn't they needed an authoritative decision so the apostles met in council in acts chapter 15 and they said it seems good to the holy spirit and to us to lay upon you the the following and then they gave out the official answer which has you know the weight of of of the holy spirit behind it and so when when the church does that when the church acts with the full authority given to it by christ to determine a matter of controversy in a way that would be determinative for all the christian faithful it's christ who guarantees that decision when he said whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven dan thanks so much for your call let's go now to joe in hamilton ohio listening on i heart radio hey joe what's on your mind today hey uh uh hey thank you guys for taking my call dr david anders first off i think you would make a wonderful uh permanent beacon well you're very kind i appreciate that if my bishop agrees you know one day maybe we'll see but we'll see for now i'm happy doing what the lord's got me doing all right oh yeah oh yeah well anyway um i have a question i have a son who has same sex attraction and he has gone through um the old testament and he read the part about adam gomara and he said that um the way he believes um that the sexual act is not a sin uh because back then they were forcing themselves on people and uh and he said if it's consensual and if it's after a quote uh marriage that it would be okay and um i'm like i didn't know what to tell him yeah i appreciate the question i think i can help so i'm gonna i'm gonna do some theology for you i'm not necessarily saying that this is what you need to say to your son because the process that he engaged in the process of discovery and discernment sounds a lot to me like a post hoc justification he he knows what he wants to do he's got the outcome determined in his mind now he's going and looking for ammunition to defend his decision to his father i don't think is he is he genuinely open in truth-finding to say what what is the fact what are the facts of the matter here and i will change my behavior accordingly and that process let me just point out that process is nothing new i mean people have been doing that for as long as there have been people i think yeah you know there's a social psychologist named jonathan height h-i-i-d-t um who has a book called the righteous mind this has nothing to do with our current topic except in this respect and and having done enormous research into the topic of sort of like folklore moral reasoning came to the conclusion that about 99 of people's moral reasoning is actually post-hoc justification of prejudice right that's just how we roll we make up our minds what we want to do then we go looking for an argument to defend it right that's that's not just your scientist we all do that i do that you do that right um so this doesn't sound like you know he's engaged in sort of genuine exegetical discovery of the old testament he's trying to rationalize a decision so if you come to him with argument um is that going to win his consent right is he entering into this dialogue in a frame of openness to truth and reason or is he gonna become oppositional and just try to gain say everything that you propose so pastorally bleeding with argument is not always the best way to go but because we i need to have good catechesis on this i'll do my best with the theology first of all from an exegetical point of view i think he's just dead wrong right um on several counts one of them is that the the the teaching the church is teaching on homosexuality is not based strictly on an exegesis of the old testament i mean that's just that's the that's problem number one right this is the apostolic teaching this is jesus's teaching right it's not it's not just drawn from an analysis of a single passage in the book of genesis christ himself gives us the model for human sexuality uh several places in the gospel when he tells us that it is immoral to even look at a woman with lust in your heart that that's a grave offense right and that the proper sphere for sexual activity is marriage and he talks about that in matthew chapter 19 and he's asked the context of course is whether men can divorce their wives and christ says they cannot and the pharisees say well then why does the law of moses permit it you see the law of moses was not the determinative factor here so why does moses permit divorce christ says because of your hardness of heart but it wasn't like that from the beginning in the beginning god made them male and female instead let them become one flesh and what god has joined together man cannot separate so theologically this is not grounded in just an exegesis of of the narrative of sodom and gomorrah but in the created ordinance the way god made the world in the beginning in male and female being the proper sphere of human sexual activity and marriage being the right context with that activity and christ says what god has joined together man cannot separate and that remains the teaching of the apostles so when saint paul talks about sexual immorality and which he does at length in first corinthians he says there are two options you can marry or if you're not able to control your sexual appetite excuse me you can be celibate like i am or if you can't control your sexual appetite you can marry those your only options and he specifically singles out in a number of places um uh homosexual activity as uh as as intrinsically immoral arsenal cotes is the greek word first corinthians 6 9 for example uh is one of the places where christ or saint paul says people engage in this activity will not inherit the kingdom of god and it has nothing to do with uh with with rape or violence it's just it's just the activity intrinsically in itself now let's back up from the exegesis and the theology and let's look at it from the natural law point of view which is really where the church ultimately comes down this is something that's not you don't have to be a christian to know this right this is something that's discernible from reason um what is morality what is morality now your son is proceeding on a very modern concept of morality which is morality is limited to uh you know anything that is that operates under consent or if i if i'm freely consenting to an activity and it you know it stops at my skin or the skin of the people who are consenting with me then it's okay that that's what morality means that's just what morality means that's not what morality means um because good or bad right aren't matters over which i have freedom to decide right uh if i if you said to me you know andrews i've got a good watch you don't have i don't have to say well what do you mean by that right i know what you it's a watch that keeps time it does what it was made to do it operates according to the form imprinted on it for the purposes of which it was made um you know if i uh uh if i tell you you know that that's a that's a healthy horse well that that's not a matter of debate what i mean i mean i'm talking about a horse that can run and eat grass and reproduce and maybe carry a rider and gets along with other horses and it flourishes according to its horse nature you know it doesn't you know it doesn't it doesn't try to go snorkeling right i mean it it does what horses do and it does that well if you tell me that's a diseased cactus plant i don't have to i don't have to guess it what you mean right this is a plant that's not flourishing it's not going to make it as a cactus plant but the same thing can be said of a human being you know that human being is going on well they're flourishing what is that what does that look like what means you're flourishing according to your human rational nature right and the reason that cactuses and horses are not moral agents is because they lack that element of rationality it can go well for a horse it can go well for a cactus plant but it goes well for a human in a different way in a better way namely that we have the ability to rationally deliberate about our nature and our ends and to shape our activities accordingly when it comes to the sexual domain when we look at our own sexuality we discern some things primarily that it's for making babies that's what sexuality is for and that when we deflect from that end uh it is not good for ourselves or for society and that's going to bring me now to the marriage question that your son raised that somehow or another a piece of paper from a courthouse or maybe even a pledge of fidelity somehow renders sexual activity morally acceptable morally neutral and that that's just not the that's not that's neither true it's not the way marriage works right um if i said to you uh you know i've i've got a tennis partner and we play every tuesday morning at six that used to be the case a long time ago and it's you know it's a lot of fun it's a great time we really enjoy one another so we've just decided that we're gonna go to the courthouse and tie the knot because our tennis game is so satisfying right that's what that's what marriage is to us it means it means the eternal tennis game right you would go well i don't have a problem with you playing tennis even like forever but why should the state dignify that relationship with all of the trappings that it affords to marriage like typically we give people tax breaks you know we sure we we hallow this relationship with various kind of ceremonial why single out tennis players and say that's the relationship that society has the greatest interest in protecting there would be no reason to that'd be kind of absurd right but historically not just catholics but all civilizations at all time with very few exceptions through history through you know all of recorded human history have singled out the male female procreative union as needing and deserving a special kind of reverence that's not due to any other kind of coupling whether it be tennis playing or other kinds of sexual activity why and not just catholics why do all civilizations through history single out men and women in their sexual union for a particular type of reverence that's not afforded to other relationships well the answer should be bleedingly obvious to anyone it's because only men and women coupling that way make babies and it's not for the sake of the men and the women themselves is because of the social significance of replenishing society through childbirth kids are very important to the maintenance of civilization you have to have them no kids no civilization and so it's because kids come into the world vulnerable and needy and helpless there has to be an institution there to take care of them to meet their needs and to see that they grow up to become responsible individuals so they can contribute to civil society now the people who are most obviously responsible for bringing them into the world are the ones that should should bear that responsibility and the the ones whom society should support in that in that task and biology conspires with us in this in the way that parents bond with their children even hormonally right in ways that other people are not going to do now um one of the societies in history that was most permissive about homosexual activity and notoriously so and of course this is ancient greece yeah right you've ever read the platonic dialogues you know half of them have homoerotic content in it i mean they're just they were just very very profligate and open about homosexual activity largely because they were so sexist they had such a low view of women that men could not in that society think about having emotionally intimate relationships with women right because they didn't think much of women so they they maintain that sort of thing with their with their guy friends right um even a society like greece never dignified homoeroticism with the term marriage right so it had nothing to do with prejudice against homosexuality had to do with even the greeks understood marriage is what you do to protect your offspring you see and so what this this modern language has done this attempt to legislate like a change of nature right in the so-called gay marriage movement um this has happened because prior to this people forgot that marriage was for babies and this was the result of the romantic movement and people absorbed this idea that marriage was somehow to make me happy that the point of marriage was that i would find my soulmate in this ideal union i would you know meet the girl of my dreams or the guy of my dreams and i would that person would make me happy forever and and that's what was being dignified by marriage that like this this you know this romantic hollywood image of finding my soul mate that that's the ideal that's great that's wonderful that's a fiction that's a fiction people get divorced right and left they say well i didn't meet the right one no you didn't make it the right one marriage is a vocation to give yourself to somebody who is going to get fat and old just like you right to give yourself to somebody to death right to build the society that is the family the first cell in the larger civilization now uh that doesn't mean that homosexual persons like dignity or that we should treat them unjustly or that we should treat them in any discriminatory way it just means that there is a uniqueness and a dignity and an importance to procreation that cannot be casually assigned to any other kind of coupling there you go joe thank you so much for your call hope that's helpful for you call to communion here on ewtn we'll get to as many calls as we can today you know i don't care if you're three years old or 90 years old when somebody says once upon a time you just kind of um settle back and you're going yeah tell me that story there is no better storyteller around than our wonderful friend sandra mcdevitt who does a great program on ewtn radio called stories from the heart and you'll hear it right after the sunday mass approximately 9 15 a.m eastern this week she's going to talk about a friendship between a leper and bishop fulton sheen a fascinating story you're going to enjoy it and that's coming up sunday morning 9 15 a.m eastern right here on ewtn radio let's go now to uh irene now let's go to a summer looks like summer summer is a first time caller in saint louis listening on covenant radio summer what's on your mind today hi um i know that the priest is in persona christie during the mass or at least during the canon and my question is when that starts and when does it end is it um the first prayer of the mass or is it when the canon begins or when does that begin right it begins in ordination and it never ends right so the the priest is operating i mean sacramentally in persona christi from the moment of his ordination forever he's a priest forever in heaven and hell he never stops being a priest right his soul is configured that way now liturgically uh liturgically i don't know if i've ever read a description about you know precisely the way in which the priest figures christ at each and every moment of the liturgy i suppose we could probably assign a significance we could we could do that but it strikes me that the most significant aspect of the mass at which the priests um standing in the role of christ is precisely from from the beginning of the eucharistic liturgy the liturgy of the eucharist right from the preface all the way through because it's the priest that effects the sacrifice of the mass the whole church offers the sacrifice of the mass but the priest is the one that is affecting it right this is the sacrament of christ's body and blood given for you and that's the language of sacrifice the language of offering up and so it's it's precisely jesus's own priesthood that's in view here priesthood of course is it configures you to offer sacrifice so the ultimate priestly act is the offering of sacrifice in the catholic right in the catholic church uh the the the the sacrifice of our worship is the sacrifice of the mass and it is in fact uh the eucharistic prayer that is the the high point of that for which the priests configuring to christ is the most significant summer thank you so much for your call now let's go to irene in iowa irene what's on your mind today my nephew is getting married to a boy and shall i go to the wedding and or send a gift okay thank you he's not getting married to a boy number one all right because marriage is something that can only happen between a man and woman but he's celebrating some kind of union with a boy and he's calling it illegitimately marriage that's what's going on uh should you go should you go that that's a toughy now uh obviously you do not consent you do not consent if your presence would indicate you think tacitly to the people around you that you give your consent and that you think this is a good thing then i would definitely not go right um and uh uh you know you have to gauge that with how what do you i wouldn't send a president either probably right what do you need to do to maintain communication with uh you know your brother and sister or brother and sister-in-law whoever's whatever the family is uh is you know you're not you're not obligated to cause offense at every turn right so you can operate with a kind of prudence and a kind of sensitivity um but but i'd be pretty wary about giving a sort of tacit approval right because you don't approve you don't approve yeah so there you go irene uh we'll be praying for you and uh and for him as well thank you so much for your call we could not get to adam and fort wayne couldn't get to trish in washington or debbie in saint louis i am so sorry however you can either hang around for uh open line friday with colin donovan which is coming up next on many of these stations or you can call us back next week mention to our phone screener matt that we couldn't get to you on friday and we'll put you at the head of the line dr david anders have a great weekend thank you tom hope everybody has a great weekend especially if you're enjoying weather like we are here in birmingham don't forget we do this program monday through friday 2 p.m eastern here on ewtn with an encore at 11 pm eastern on behalf of our wonderful team here including our producer michael mccall i'm tom price along with dr david anders see you on monday and have a great weekend god bless this is conversations with consequences where we delve deeper into issues affecting our church our country and our core the family as catholics we need to be informed aware and able to talk through some of the tough topics that we're facing in our culture and our world conversations with consequences gives us the tools to do so it's not enough to pray we have to be a light for the world conversations with

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

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Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022