Called to Communion with Dr. David Anders - September 1, 2021

what's stopping you from becoming a catholic why can't women become priests 1-833-288 ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation the 1-833-288-3986 global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to 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 or if you'd like to just explain to us what is stopping you from becoming a catholic do give us a call here's our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're listening to us outside of north america the u.s and canada to be specific just 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 send us an email of course the address ctc ewtn.com ctc.ewtn.com all right charles berry is our producer we're glad to have uh michael uh no matt gabinski answering the phones yes matt kabinsky also jeff berson is handling social media so if you want to ask a question via youtube or facebook live we're streaming there right now i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well do you remember uh yesterday i think it was uh during the break i said i've got some big news but i can't tell you because if i did i'd have to kill you are you ready i'm ready we would like to welcome the newest member of the ewtn family today welcome to everyone now listening on am 750 wndz serving greater chicago i mean this is just huge congratulations and yes and a big thank you to our longtime radio partner angela tomlinson she's got a great team there at wsfi in antioch illinois they are partnering with wndz together they will bring outstanding ewtn and local programming just for chicagoland again welcome to am 750 wndz the newest member of the ewtn family you know i spent a lot of time at chicagoland yes i was an undergraduate there i went to seminary there that none of which time was i catholic just think how much how much time i could have saved if i hadn't had catholic radio in chicago back in the 80s and 90s when i was there i know it and this is a blow torch signal that covers the whole metro area that is fine so what a great blessing we're going to lead off here with a question from aaron watching us on youtube could dr andrews please explain the development of doctrine is it that the apostles would hold to all of our doctrine today but we're not asked questions in those terms or do we know more today than the apostles yeah thanks i appreciate the question well uh we to be sure we know more today than the apostles considered in under under a given aspect okay so uh there are there are facts of history and science uh uh you know facts of technology facts of culture that would be entirely unfamiliar to the apostles now in their own day they had to make judgments about integrating the faith with culture and the the most immediate choice they had to make was to figure out okay how do we integrate our understanding of jesus as the messiah who has brought the kingdom of god in our midst with uh with all these gentile converts that are coming into the people of god because the apostles were all jews they they thought in jewish terms they interpreted the gospel in light of their second temple jewish perspective and and of course coming out of judaism there was always this profound antipathy towards the gentile world and one of the most neuralgic issues of the day was you know the sadducees were sort of seen as a high brow elitist liberals who wanted to integrate with the greek world and uh and you know more the hard line jewish perspective was no we can't do that that's syncretism that's paganism we can't go that way and um and a lot of the apostles came out of that point of view saint paul certainly did and so when they uh have all these gentile converts first question on offer is well do they have to circumcise themselves follow the laws of cash root and so forth and of course paul argued that they don't peter was on the fence for a while and then he had a vision from god took a vision from god to get in his thick skull and he said okay no we don't have to make him follow the mosaic law but he had to turn around and persuade uh the the rest of the apostles and elders that were gathered at the jerusalem council and it took some doing and ultimately peter had to bear witness to his uh prophetic inspiration to his divine visitation to persuade them that this really was the mind of god in this matter so they did confront issues about the integration of faith and culture but not the issues that we've confronted and not the issues that we've confronted in every age as the church grows and expands and culture shifts and encounters new challenges new opportunities come to integrate the faith with the wider culture and answer a new set of questions and as we do so yeah we have to continually we're not changing the faith we have to continually look at what are the various permutations that can flow out of that deposit of faith you know this happened in a major way major way in the 13th century in the universities and schools of catholic europe that had been operating within an entirely augustinian theological framework for a thousand years and all of a sudden there is this massive rediscovery of the works of aristotle and of greek philosophy and natural science that did not fit well into the the medieval catholic account of of of rationality and and you know they had what well how do you do this how do you actually integrate the catholic faith with secular philosophy and science they had to rethink that question anew in light of a new intellectual context and so there were ways of formulating the faith ways of answering questions and thinking theologically that were unique to that time now they've become part of the catholic patrimony and they're familiar to us but the scholastic theologians were making up turns and concepts and drawing distinctions that were novel for the time but we're seeking you know in that sort of endlessly self-critical way to integrate the faith with their new cultural environment fascinating to think that we uh here in the 21st century would know more than the apostles it just you know that that that's kind of striking isn't it i don't know i mean like yeah i mean i drove a toyota camry all right i think the apostle paul would like he would he would have no idea what i was talking about if i told him i drove a toyota camry i mean like of course you know just stands to reason okay all right well very good and we do appreciate that thanks for watching us on youtube aaron and if you have a question that you want to pose via either youtube or facebook live just a reminder to put your question into the comments box and then jeff will see that and he'll shoot it to us here in the studio in a moment we're going to be talking with john in decatur alabama also alexis in florence wisconsin got a couple lines open for you right now here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 3986 for call to communion stay with us [Music] the ewtn home video highlight for september is the pilgrim the soldier in this inspiring story a soldier tormented by an atrocity he committed thinks all hope is lost when he encounters a pious pilgrim he learns the mercy of god is greater than his sin this ewtn original film shows the power of personal witness to bring people to conversion order your dvd at ewtn ewtnrc.com or call 1-800-854-6316 hey this is michael o'neill the miracle hunter i'll be delving into the fascinating world of miracles and taking you on a hunt that explores the greatest mysteries and marvels of the catholic church i'll be examining what constitutes a miracle how miracles are investigated and approved and the world they play in the lives of the faithful we'll look at the miracles of the gospels in early christianity considering the claims of the miraculous in our own modern age the miracle hunter saturday at 1pm and 7 p.m eastern on ewtn radio st hildegard of bingham was a mystic an abbess a botanist a saint and a doctor of the church matthew bunsen and the doctors of the church hildegard had her first visions at the age of three which he called the shade of the living light she later wrote about them in works declared by saint bernard of clairvaux to be from god pope benedict xvi agreed when he named her only one of four doctors of the church who are women in 2012. for more about the doctors of the church visit doctorsofthechurch.com [Music] it's called a communion here on ewtn our phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six tom price here reminding you that ewtn's religious catalogue is your online destination for catholic books dvds rosaries devotionals holy reminders as mother angelica would say and so much more by catholic shop ewtnrc.com today and you can receive regular emails from the ewtn religious catalog what a great idea that is visit ewtn.com and click on subscribe if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn and we're gonna begin this time with john in decatur alabama listening online ewtn.com hey john what's on your mind today uh yes i'm a cradle catholic and i've got got serious about it about eight years ago and anyway my son he went to confession yesterday for the first time in a long time but anyway he asked me how can all good loving merciful god have people spend eternity in the netherworld or yeah yeah thank you okay i really appreciate the question so first of all i'd like to say that the doctrine of hell is a mystery what i mean by that is it escapes our our rational awareness in the same way that the dogma of the trinity is a mystery i can confess the mystery of the trinity but i don't and i can i know how to phrase it i know what the terms are but i cannot see with my intellect the the manner in which god is one essence and three persons i confess the truth of it i recognize there's no intrinsic contradiction but i have no experience of a reality of a of an essence that is three persons right right that's something that's mysterious to me in the same way many of the doctrines of the faith transubstantiation the eucharist two natures of christ these things are mysterious to me uh and the church proposes them to me for belief because when i engage them in all their mystery they have a transformative effect on my consciousness on my self-awareness on my aspirations so when i think about the mystery of christ who who does transcend my reason uh i find myself sort of drawn beyond myself saint paul says set your heart on things above where christ is seated at the right hand of god and when i do that when i contemplate the mystery of christ even though it's something i can't fully understand it motivates me it draws me out of myself and leads me to seek the higher things so it's it's there for the sake of inwardly transforming me to be in christ's likeness and image the catechism of the catholic church says that the dogmas themselves do not save us it is the reality to which they point that saves us so i i hold to the dogma about christ not because you know affirming this proposition will save me no no but holding the proposition affords me the opportunity to strive for those higher and greater things and it is in that striving in that loving in that hoping and believing that i come to know and experience the god who will save me now in the same way when i confront the mystery of the doctrine of hell which is the flip side to the mystery of heaven now saint paul says eye has not seen ear has not heard what god has in store for those who love him right the the blessing the expectation the hope of eternal life of the vision of god exceeds what i can rationally understand but it motivates me to seek god in the higher things in the same way the doctrine of hell eternal loss exceeds the power of my rational understanding but in the same way when i when i when i let my mind dwell upon the reality that my moral activity has serious serious consequences that i have to take my own moral decision making very seriously and i have to live in a way that i'm striving for the highest and the best rather than giving myself over to you know wanton pleasures and dissipation that will in the same way it affects the way i live and so this the doctrine is there to motivate my behavior and my spirituality not to engage me you know in a philosophical conundrum that i can't solve that being said there are some things we can discern about the mystery of the doctrine of hell one of them is that god doesn't want to send anybody there that's good news first timothy 2 4 says god desires that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth and christ was appointed for this to reconcile all things to himself so the book of ephesians chapter 1 verse 10 speaks about christ in the the time when christ will reconcile all things and there's a you know god made the world to be the reflection of his glory and he made the rational person to be a participant in his divine nature and christ came to effect that and so we have a basis for hope uh the the universal salvific will of god and the incarnation of christ to be the second adam and redeem the human race give us a profound basis for hope and so i don't look at any soul and say of that person well you're going to hell like that's not my job i don't i don't form that judgment rather i look at any human person with the hopeful expectation that they might be saved even in ways that transcend my understanding because i know that's the salvific will of god so my orientation is not one of fear and anxiety but one of hopefulness and and love and accompaniment right so that's another aspect finally scripture teaches catholic faith teaches that hell is only full of volunteers right when i was at the university of iowa as a teaching assistant they said anders you have to use a grading scale you have to give you know like i don't know it was like 10 percent a's and 15 b's and 33 c's all the way down the line and we had like i don't know five or seven percent of the class had to have an f wow you like you had you just draw a line whoever whoever scores the bottom seven percent they're an f no matter what they get on the exam and i said well that doesn't seem fair i said what if nobody deserves an f they said anders don't worry they are always volunteers and they were right they were they were always volunteers and no one goes to hell who's not a volunteer no one is surprised by arriving at hell hell rather is the state of going oh i guess i got exactly what i wanted wow c.s lewis the anglican writer put it this way he said at the end there will be two sorts of people in the world those who say to god thy will be done and those to whom god says thy will be done yeah we all get what we want we may not be happy with what we want john that's a great question thank you so much for it we do appreciate hearing from you in decatur alabama that opens up a line for you right now at 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn going now to florence wisconsin and alexis listening on siriusxm 130. alexis what's on your mind today how did john the baptist know to baptize yes thank you i really appreciate the question so when you look to the mosaic law there are rules in the uh in the priestly code about ritual purifications including the washing with water and and there were instances where people would become ritually and pure ritually unclean and they also had to perform various ritual ablutions in order to acquire not a moral but a ritual purity under the code of the mosaic law when you arrive after the return from the exile to babylon so we're you know we're from from like say the 540s bc up until the coming of crisis what we talk about is second temple judaism a number of different groups and sects denominations if you will of the jewish faith emerged and some of them like the pharisees and the essenes the essenes were the guys out in qumran that produced the dead sea scrolls decided that um with that their goal was to bring the purity of the temple to bear on the totality of jewish life and so they began to evolve judaism in new directions emphasizing not just the purity of priests but the purity of of all of the covenant people of israel and in the in the hopes and expectations that if they themselves could embody this perfect purity according to the law that it would hasten the coming of the messiah and the pharisees and the essenes disagreed with one another sometimes about how far to take that a good example that i recently learned about when i was reading john bergsma's book on jesus and the and the dead sea scrolls was uh in jewish law if you poured a liquid into an unclean ritually unclean vessel the liquid would become unclean ritually impure and the pharisees taught that the vessel out of which you pour it stays clean and the essene said you liberals don't you know they both get impure and they had a debate about the pouring of liquids with respect to ritual impurity but the essenes also took the idea of ritual ablutions and washings and purification rituals from the mosaic law and they applied it more broadly to uh to the daily life of the essene community now there is there is uh some good circumstantial evidence for the position that john may have come up in the orbit of the essene or the qumran community and embodied or imbibed a little bit of their ideology and but he took it in a new direction he took it in a new direction um the the message of the prophets the hebrew prophets had always been it's not so much your ritual purity that god desires or the slaughtering of goats and bulls and sacrifices as it is you're in interior purity we see this in the psalm when david says sacrifice and offerings you do not desire a lord but a pure heart you will not despise therefore wash me he uses that language of ritual ablution wash me and purify me take not your holy spirit from me renew within me a right spirit then i'll offer sacrifices that's really the note of the hebrew prophets let's look more to the interior life than to the outward life and so john seems to have uh imbibed the moral vision of the hebrew prophets combined with some of the ritual innovations of second temple judaism and applied this idea of ritual washing precisely in in this in this symbolic way to an act of repentance and rededication to the god of israel in preparation for the coming of the messiah alexis thank you so much for your call it is called to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn our phone line is available for you right now i mean yesterday the phones were just going nuts today we do have a couple of lines open for you at 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 399 all right let's go to carla in rochester new york listening on the great station of the cross hey carla what's on your mind today hi i'm a cradle catholic and one of my friends who is a cradle catholic told me that the catholic church used to teach reincarnation however they realized that we weren't smart enough to understand it so they stopped it poppycock balderdash hogwash all right all right first of all first of all the argument that people are not smart enough to understand the doctrine of reincarnation is is nonsense reincarnation is a widely held belief across the world by a number of religious sex and i guarantee you there is no correlation between intelligence and the ability to imagine that one's consciousness could be projected into another body i mean all you got to do is watch any of the popular science fiction of today and you'll find out that you know i mean my you know my grammar school kids can understand the concept if they see it in a science fiction film right i mean look this is not you do not need a degree from harvard to understand this superstitious belief and it's certainly no mark of intelligence to believe it right so that's just an absurd hypothesis on the face of it now let me tell you what we know about the church's engagement with the concept of reincarnation first of all i think your friend is ignorant of the history that that he or she is alluding to there is a tradition in ancient christianity that we find in alexandria egypt particularly in the person of origin of alexandria who was a late second third century theologian of belief in the pre-existence of souls that is not the same thing that's not the same thing as reincarnation but the idea that god created a finite number of souls along with the angels at the beginning of time and that a certain number of them then you know subsequently take on flesh and are incarnate and live as human beings and that when they die they have the capacity to go back in a soulish state you know back to the division than the experience of god that's not reincarnation it's just pre-existence of souls okay and there there were a few christian theologians um uh origen of alexandria i think probably a vagary is ponticus but i'm not 100 sure on that although he was an originist and there were others that followed origin in this belief um and uh but that's not reincarnation and the church uh ruled that out for a number of reasons none of them had to do with the question of you know who was smart enough to understand it okay now the church was also familiar with brahmanism and hindu philosophy to a particular extent pantanius who was the founder of the catechetical school of alexandria is reputed to have spent some time as a missionary among the brahmanas in india really yeah and his pupil was clement of alexandria and clement was definitely familiar with the gymnosophists and with the the brahmin priests and had some knowledge of buddhism um repudiated those traditions but was aware of them and so they certainly would have been aware of this doctrine that was in existence they never held it they did hold pre-existence of souls because they found the doctrine taught in plato and ammonia sock us and and the founders of neoplatonism held this as well and they they uh because they held platonism in such high regard that tended to get incorporated into some of the sort of counter-cultural christianity um now saint thomas aquinas wrote rigorous philosophical refutations both of the pre-existence of souls and reincarnation in his summa contra gentillies and the arguments are rigorously scientific and philosophical in other words the smart position is to reject those doctrines all right carla thanks so much for your call lots more straight ahead on the wednesday afternoon edition of call to communion do stay with us the national catholic register is america's most complete catholic news source with a comprehensive view of the world from a distinctly catholic perspective if it's shaping the world as we know it you'll find it at ncregister.com the best way to pray is simply to open our minds and our hearts to god to allow his presence to begin to fill us to restore us to refresh us to make us new the best way to pray is simply to be aware of that presence and to say yes to it to give fiat to that presence as our blessed lady did in that way we delight in prayer and god himself delights in us 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 those who are dying lord jesus savior who suffered death so that we might live be with those who are now dying comfort those who are alone console those who are suffering renew the hope of those in despair and reveal yourself to those who do not believe let your divine mercy surround all those who are dying to bring them to the place that you have prepared for them in the father's house let none of them be lost amen hi this is psychelette the host of catholic answers live and later today we've got father david mcconey ask a priest and dr delgado pro-life open forum catholic cancer is live 6 p.m eastern ewtn radio now back to caldecott union [Music] what's stopping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion with dr david anders lines are open for you right now at 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here is ed now ed is in medford new jersey and listening on the ewtn app hey ed what's on your mind today hey good afternoon dr anders and tom thank you for taking my question my question is uh what does catholic doctrine say about one's requirement to follow their conscience would i be committing a sin if i did not follow my conscience on matters that are civilly legal but my conscience is telling me to do otherwise yes i understand the question thank you so much for example these vaccine mandates as a requirement for keeping your employment yes thank you thank you very much i appreciate the question so first of all i think we would all agree and we should agree i believe uh get clear in our heads that conscience while authoritative is not infallible and conscience can lead a person to do the most atrocious things right i mean uh people have concurred in really horrible horrible atrocious moral actions down through the centuries because they were they had a narrow point of view and perhaps were ideologically possessed by some kind of radical vision of utopia or something and really genuinely thought that if i just carry through with this activity and it'll bring some fantastic consequence and it's you know it's self-justified they felt very assured in their moral decision-making um and uh but it led them to do absolutely atrocious things and so conscience is authoritative but it's not infallible and so while we we do have an obligation to follow conscience following conscience does not give us a pass to be idiots and unfortunately i think sometimes people uh some people will advert to the doctrine of the primacy of conscience to justify a kind of uh very uh narrowly construed ideologically possessed and obstinate point of view and they'll just say well my conscience is telling me to do this you know my conscience tells me to pick up a hammer and hit myself in the head with it you know i mean i'm a manifestly not very rational person yeah and ultimately the life of virtue which is what we're all aiming at is the life according to the rule of right reason okay now um right reason how do we actually attain to the to the rule of right reason how do we become prudent people in other words and make good moral decisions uh and this plays into a conscience rightly formed well um in order to have the virtue of prudence um prudence is not the equivalent of holding a set of politically or theologically correct propositions no no no it's not it's possible to hold a sort of systematic set of propositions they're given to me by some system of thought whether it's political ideology or theological ideology and yet i don't actually have the skills of good moral decision making well st thomas when he writes on prudence he enumerates a number of integral parts of prudence but personal characteristics that we have to have really to be fit to make good moral decisions one of them is docility one of them is docility so i need to be a teachable person if i'm aiming at good moral decision-making uh because it's impossible that any individual know everything and i'm going to be confronted with things that outstrip my own rational capacity to understand uh including other people's points of view that i might have to take into consideration so if i'm an abstinent narrow-minded person you know bigoted sword or whatever and i'm not actually attending to what the other people in the room are telling me and i'm not docile and open to self-correction then i can't possibly be prudent and i'm not really becoming ultimately a virtuous person or a virtuous decision maker thomas says i also need the virtue of circumspection and that means i i always need to keep in mind that there are lots of points of view that need to be considered in any moral decision and you know if i'm trying to get from a to b the the number of paths from a to b is infinite potentially infinite sure and and generally and this is where a lot of irrational irrationality comes in we use heuristics we use shortcuts to decision making to get us from a to b and our in our heuristics are not rational generally speaking like they're they're they're shorthand methods of decision making like confirmation bias or availability bias these kinds of things the cognitive scientists write about that i'm not fully aware of and the only way to sort of break myself out of that of that cognitive conundrum is to maintain an attitude of active open-mindedness looking at you know seeking out other points of view having the virtue of circumspection being docile taking counsel listening to account the counsel and influence of wise prudent people who know more than i do all of those things play into coming to be a good reasonable responsible moral decision maker right now someone who pleads the primacy of conscience but without actually trying to develop the habits of good moral decision-making humility docility and circumspection right i think really ultimately is fooling themselves right and um and if conscience convicts you to do something well then yes you have to follow your conscience but before somebody comes to the judgment well you know my conscience says i need to hit myself in the head with a hammer right you have to stop and ask am i have i really formed my conscience well have i really listened to you know contrary points of view have i listened to authority like the authority of the pope and the bishops and the magisterium all right if i listen to what catholic moral theologians have to say on on a particular issue and you know sort of what's the common mind of the church represented in persons of its leaders have i have i taken that counsel submitted myself to wiser and cooler heads than my own practice the virtue of circumspection practice the virtue of docility and having done all that my conscience says this is the path you ought to go well then yeah you have to follow your conscience no matter what but before you arrive at that judgment make sure you've gone through those steps of really trying to be a good virtuous decision maker listen to authority be docile be circumspect uh and make a genuine effort to inform your conscience according to the teaching and the practice of the catholic faith all right sage counsel there uh ed thank you so much for your call call to communion with dr david anders here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn here now is marie in south bend indiana listening on the great redeemer radio hello marie what's on your mind today yeah um my husband and i are protestant we were married by a protestant minister i am currently um taking rca classes um when after i am fully welcomed into the church am i still considered to be married to my husband will i be yes what what are the obligations there yes yes so uh if you were a protestant at the time of your marriage and he was protestant at the time of your marriage and neither one of you had at any point in the past previously been catholic right you both came up as protestants or nothing then your marriage is presumed to be valid and sacramental marriages are not wonderful marriages are not sacramental in virtue of being catholic marriages are sacramental in virtue of being contracted by baptized people so two presbyterians are baptized uh presumably they can realize a sacramental marriage two baptists can realize a sacramental marriage right um and and so the catholicism here has nothing to do with it particularly now when you become catholic uh of course your understanding of marriage grows and one of the things that you learn is that marriage sacramental marriage is an ecclesial state within the catholic church just like being a priest or a religious is an ecclesial state within the catholic church you actually are in an ordo you know an order within the church i.e the order of married people in sacramental marriages and and that broadens your perspective on the significance of your relationship hey wow you know are you telling me that in virtue of my sacramental marriage that i am imaging and figuring the relationship of christ to the church that that my home and my marriage is sort of broadcasting uh the the paschal mystery and the truth of christ and catholicism to the world and that i can be an agent of redemption and you know like saint paul says that i have i become christ's co-laborer as if god were making his appeal through me and that by participating in this sacrament i can mount up to transcendent heights and perfect my personality together with my spouse out of reverence for god in the hope of eternity wow that's all good stuff you know what the man says it's kind of a big deal yeah so so becoming catholic just it it you know you you get to add all the sacramental grace of your full participation in the catholic church together with all that transcendent teaching about marriage to your understanding of what you're doing and so i i would look for you know much deeper engagement in the spirituality of marriage and all kinds of benefits to flow but uh but you know no restrictions on your moral activity you know beyond what the church teaches about you know what's true from natural law about all marital and sexual acts right that that that holds not just for catholics but for everybody yeah you know so that's not that's nothing different it's just a broader understanding of your moral rights and duties and responsibilities okay appreciate your call marie and uh very glad that you're coming into the faith call to communion with dr david andrews here on ewtn our phone number 833 288 ewtn if you have a question for us or if you'd like to explain what is stopping you from becoming a catholic quick reminder here to be sure to join us for ewtn bookmark with doug keck saturday afternoon at 4 30 pm eastern time he'll be joined by father brian malady providing a very powerful explanation of grace in his new book grace explained how to receive and retain god's most potent gift and by the way you can you can hear father brian malady tomorrow afternoon on ewtn's open line normally uh for most uh most of our stations uh following this program at 3 p.m eastern anyway do check out bookmark ewtn bookmark with doug keck saturday afternoon at 4 30 p.m eastern right here on ewtn radio back to the phones right now at 833 288 ewtn here is neil in springfield missouri listing on catholic radio network hey there neil what's on your mind today sir yes gentlemen thank you for taking my call sure um i am a recent convert just as of this last easter and prior to my coming into full communion with the church i became a widower as of january 2018 and my wife was cremated and my step-daughter and i have a couple of small keepsake urns um that in my case it's very dear to me i was a little dismayed to learn that uh catholic teaching on cremation is that uh the ashes should all be kept in a single location uh of course i didn't know of this at the time um but my desire is to be you know an obedient son of the church um but what what occurred to me was that teaching seems um inconsistent with our veneration of the relics of the saints where the remains are not all kept in a single location and i was wondering if dr anders could explain that or speak to it sure yes absolutely so first of all the the law of the church the canon law of the church is positive law meaning it's not natural law it's not something that is necessitated by the very nature of our humanity but is the prudential judgment of the church to help the christian live the christian life in a way that that fosters christian understanding and christian behavior and so canon law is a thing that can change just like the civil government could change the speed limit um don't hurt your neighbor that's of the natural law don't hurt your neighbor therefore let's all drive 55 miles an hour well that's a positive law prudential judgment about how to realize that natural uh precept you know you understand and the legislature could say well let's make it 56 miles an hour let's make it 54. doesn't really matter just as long as you're doing something to regard the welfare of your neighbor when you're on the road canon law works the same way there are truths of the natural law like the dignity of the human person and the dignity of the body and the dignity of the body that's of the natural law and the code of canon law puts in rituals and precepts to try to help the christian people live together in a well in a way that would that would foster our participation in the natural law the eternal law of god now all that is to say you know the church could change the precept on on cremation if they wanted to if they thought it was prudent to do so they could change the precept in the code of canon law so you should not look for some absolutely necessary argument to justify the church's law so why then does the church think this is a prudent rule well here's the reason in the history of culture in the history of religious culture throughout the world cremation has a certain meaning in other religious sects and this may not have been what you intended but for many people cremation is a sign of the of the dissolution of the body and ultimately its insignificance for purposes of eternity and obviously the tradition for which cremation is most common and in some instances even normative is in the hindu tradition that has a ver has no doctrine of bodily resurrection and so they have a doctrine of you know the transmigration of souls but in their view if you hold to the transmigration of souls you know the particular body you're in right now they think that's no big deal it's just kind of like i'm changing buses you know and the important thing is that getting that soul that gevo that othman or whatever back to brahman or to to whoever or whatever however what the conception is uh but the body is really a thing of no account and some greek uh some some greek philosophical schools will have hold something similarly well the catholic church uh wanting to differentiate itself from those superstitious practices says we don't want catholics to practice cremation uh in in in burial in these ways that we're talking about um lest they fall into superstition and so that's why the church does permit cremation but it qualifies and says but not for a superstitious reason so if a person had their loved one cremated because they were trying to practice or realize or participate in say like a hindu concept of the afterlife yeah well that would that would be disallowed catholic church would not permit that and one way of ensuring that differentiation is this rule on keeping the ashes together in one place and placing them in a you know burial place like you would the non-cremated remains now when it comes to the rationale behind relics well the whole idea of relics is precisely that the body the intact body does participate in the resurrection of christ and will be made whole again at the resurrection of the dead the general resurrection at the end of time and so by venerating the relics of the saints we are in fact venerating christ in his members and recognizing acknowledging the dignity of the body you know i i have yet to see the cremated remains you know venerated as a relic and that's generally you know people who are doing that generally are not doing it for that purpose or in right way right so the use is different the understanding is different the intent is different the mode is different and the church differentiates for those reasons now you know you did nothing wrong because you weren't catholic at the time and therefore not subject to the church's canon law now i think you also mentioned that this may be something that you have shared with your daughter and so maybe you have some cremated remains and she has some cremated remains and uh and you know my my counsel to you would to be you know go easy on your daughter about this and and you know don't be quick to try to impose the canon law of the church on her if she doesn't acknowledge the authority of the catholic church but proceed slowly and you know you can do what you want with uh you know you could dispose of the remains that you have in a way consistent with church practice and you could indicate to your daughter you know your preference that they be kept intact but you know you give her some space and some time to appreciate where you're coming from neil thanks so much for your call it is called a communion with dr david anders here on ewtn gonna go right now to uh bedford virginia and uh i believe this call is ready to go are you there caller uh yes i am hey go uh gene uh go right ahead gene yes i just wanted some clarification uh regarding uh marriage i was a little confused on your conversation you just had catholics who are i had a family member who and she married a catholic uh they ended up having a non-sacramental marriage and um i did not attend as i was directed by several priests that i could not attend because i am a practicing catholic so i just like to have some clarification sure i believe so let me let me let me qualify one of the words that you used okay you said they had a non-sacramental marriage well that's true their marriage is not sacramental um however the reason it's not sacramental is because it's not valid all right um the reason it's not let's distinguish let's distinguish three terms here we're going to distinguish natural marriage and sacramental marriage i guess four terms and then we're going to distinguish valid and invalid okay all right let's let's talk what are our terms what are we talking about a natural marriage is the kind of marriage realized by any two non-baptized people adam and eve had a valid natural marriage adam and eve did not have a sacramental marriage they had a natural marriage because they weren't baptized okay it was a real marriage but it wasn't sacramental all right two hindus get married two muslims get married two atheists get married they can have a natural marriage a real natural marriage but it's not sacramental because they're not baptized okay now what's a sacramental marriage a sacramental marriage occurs when any two baptized people are validly married and that would be two catholics two presbyterians two baptists two methodists two episcopalians two greek orthodox as long as the parties are baptized and their marriage is valid then their marriage is of necessity sacramental because they're baptized valid versus invalid all right validity means that you meet the conditions to genuinely realize the sacrament that you are celebrating and that where there's there are conditions for validity for all catholic sacraments so for example um you know i i cannot baptize you uh in jello right or coca-cola you know i'm gonna baptize you in water right i um uh uh you know i cannot celebrate the eucharist well i can't celebrate eucharist at all but a priest could not celebrate the eucharist with pizza and beer nothing would happen he could say the words of consecration and nothing would happen it has to be valid matter has to be wheaton bread and wine made from grapes that's the matter that christ gave us you don't have those nothing you say the words nothing happens right right and that's what we mean by invalid you did not actually you used to hear this controversy a few years back there were some people that were deciding to baptize folks in the name of the creator and the redeemer and the sanctifier i remember that yeah and uh and so you know the priest would pour the water on the baby and say those words and absolutely nothing happens because jesus didn't say baptized the name of the creator redeemer and sanctifier he said baptize the name of father the holy spirit so since he didn't use the proper form nothing happens it's not a sacrament it's not a valid sacrament valid means you did it the right way invalid means you didn't do it the right way okay so where we get our terms defined okay now if you are a catholic person in order to have a valid marriage you have to celebrate it within the church that is true whether or not it is sacramental so a catholic marrying a jew would not have a sacramental marriage but could have a natural marriage natural because they're not both baptized but in order to be valid the catholic would have to marry in the catholic church so a catholic could marry a jew or an atheist or you know some other non-baptized person in the catholic church they would have a valid marriage but it would be a valid natural marriage okay two catholics both baptized get married in front of the justice of the peace they're both baptized but because they didn't follow canonical form their marriage is not valid because it's not valid it is neither a valid natural marriage nor a valid sacramental marriage i know this is confusing because there are a lot of different categories to keep straight but you've got to get the teaching clear all right so in the case of your children or or your friends or whoever it is you've got two catholics that married outside the catholic church the catholic church would say that's not a valid marriage because it's not valid it's neither natural nor sacramental it's not valid they didn't do it they didn't get married okay that's the way the church understands it okay and there we are thank you so much for your call gene let's go now to uh nina a first-time caller in cleveland and nina what's on your mind today so i had a question about the early church so i'm a senior at case western up in cleveland i'm in a medieval history class and we started discussing the early church and the way that my professor painted the picture of the early church just didn't quite resonate with me i'm a practicing catholic and um i i wanted to put it out there and see see what the truth really is so the way she put it is that you know after christ ascends into heaven we have all these different um almost religious sects of christianity so gnostics mercy and i all these different groups with different ideas and their performing secret rights was the word that she used of baptism and communion and what i would think of as the sacrament and that they're all thinking we're the correct religion and everyone else is going to hell um you know i want to let you go on but i've only got about a minute so if i'm going to answer i better go ahead and jump on the question i can answer this for you okay so the the problem that you're that your professor has made right is to assume that all of those different groups all had a legitimate claim to continuity with the apostles but that very claim is what is disputed by the catholics of the second century gnosticism narcissism recognized and taught openly that their teaching was not found in the public teaching of the catholic church they differentiated themselves from those churches that maintained apostolic tradition according to the public teaching of jesus and the apostles and the gnostics said yeah we're not that they i mean they they saw pers specifically that there was that claim being made and they repudiated it and their argument was well we have secret teachings that we got that you guys don't have and we are not part of that you know larger group according to apostolic succession that goes back to the apostles themselves right so there were competing interpretations of christianity in the first and second century and uh because of that the apostles appointed successors to adjudicate claims of legitimacy and so ignatius of antioch who is the third bishop of antioch after peter teaches explicitly that the reason the apostles instituted the episcopacy was to have a visible point of contact and unity with the apostolic office itself so you could know who had a valid eucharist and who did not and the claim of the catholic church has always been to stand in public continuity with the church founded by the apostles thank you so much for your call dr david anders thank you sir thanks tom do give us a call tomorrow here on ewtn's call to communion i receive communion in my hands and my dad gets it on the tongue and i was wondering if it was more respectful to get it on the tongue than the hands this is steve calling from hershey pennsylvania oh hershey we said you

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Published: Wed Sep 01 2021