Open Line Friday with Colin Donovan - 02/25/2022

g brown jackson to the supreme court judge jackson will be the first black woman and the first former public defender on the court the nomination will need congressional approval i'm tracy sabol with ewtn news nightly follow us on facebook and twitter and be sure to join us this evening on ewtn [Music] from the studios of ewtn this is open line with today's host colin donovan in north america call toll-free 1-833-288-ewtn [Music] that's 1-833-288-3986 [Music] outside north america call 1-205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 or send an email to openline ewtn.com a tremendous friday to each and every one of you thanks so much for tuning in to ewtn's open line if you'd like to be part of the program the number is 833 288 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're outside the united states and canada that number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and we'll even put you straight to the front of the line at one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five you can always send us an email openline ewtn.com or you can text your question to collin text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for a response text your first name in your question message and data rates may apply i'm jack williams michael mccall producing the program your call screener is matt gubinski and jeff burson handling our social media efforts so if you're watching us on youtube or facebook live you can type a question into the chat window and it may find its way to us by the end of the program and our host the aforementioned vice president of theology for ewtn mr collin donovan how are you well pretty good i think all things considered is the word world seems to fall apart around us these yeah it's uh it's an interesting topic and as we did yesterday we'll uh encourage everybody to keep uh all of the people of ukraine and everybody involved in this situation in your prayers and uh especially we would request that you keep our ewtn colleagues that are uh operating in ukraine that we would keep them safe and that uh this would all come out with uh some sort of a resolution that would allow them to continue their good work there huh right yeah and they've determined that they're going to stay in um in kiev i guess it is where they are and they're going to keep going broadcasting the mass daily and the other programming um and hopefully that'll provide a comfort to people and they'll do that as long as they're actually able to do it yeah so the next time we get together it'll be will be full blown into lent it'll be our first penitential friday of lent even though every friday should be penitential to some degree but we'll have a day of of uh abstinence and fasting on wednesday for ash wednesday next week and then the first friday of lent followed by obviously the first sunday of lent talk a little bit about the liturgical calendar uh and the the two penitential seasons and how they differ and uh in severity for lack of a better word uh and and other things just it's really the it's one of the things that i have found since converting uh from an evangelical background to be really almost the the the life's breadth of the church well let's start with the major penitential season which is the one we're about to enter we have to remember that in the in the early church uh when looking to sell celebrate feast days uh for the honor and glory of god and to rejoice for the blessings mankind has received as well easter what became the centerpiece and so from easter grew a period of preparation for easter intended for the benefit of the catechumens those who were coming into the church those who would be baptized at the easter vigil and eventually that became standardized as our season of lent by which not just the catechumens prepare for easter but each of us prepare for easter and part of that is if you talk about the the three legs of charity penitence and prayer uh that should in some respect make up everybody's every christian's life uh scripture speaks of each of these and the importance of each of these and so for the season of lent for the preparation for easter then we could now have some way in which we're going to exercise each of those and the church provides a way which makes it very easy and some people may look at it as well the church makes these rules in a way they're making a rule that is easy to comply with christ himself said you you must do penance and so penance is a necessary part of the christian life the church makes it easy by providing the penitential day friday which runs throughout the year sort of every friday a mini miniature version of good friday looking to sunday a little easter think of it in that and so in that sense easter continues to be the centerpiece of the church's liturgical calendar during lent it expects a little bit more from us and that is that although the general law of the church is that every friday is a day of abstinence unless it's a solemnity such as if feast of saint joseph in march were to fall on a on a friday even though it's lent that would be a solemnity and you would be able to eat meat outside of the period of lent in the united states we have the indulge that that is dispensed if the individual chooses to do some substitution that goes away during lent so there is a strict obligation moral and canonical to practice the uh friday abstinence during lent and there are the usual two ways both morally and canonically that a person is excused from that one would be impossibility they're sick they're simply incapable of doing that they do hard physical labor they they need that sustenance so these kinds of reasons you can always discuss with your confessor whether it's a legitimate basis or not or you're just looking for an excuse you know to have a hamburger on friday and you probably should if you don't think you have a solid reason or wonder whether you have a solid reason for not observing the abstinence of land during advent that becomes another mildly penitential season again around the great feast day the great high holy day of christmas but it's it's the first part of the the entire season of advent but especially the first part has that orientation because the liturgical readings liturgical readings about the second coming of christ before we move into the prophetic readings that point to the first coming of christ and so there it's calling for some reflection on you know momento mori if you will remember death that we we will all die we will all be judged and the second coming although it's at some distant point as a judgment of all of human history we will each reach that judgment sooner or later anyway by at the moment of our death and so that first part of lent is looking forward to the second coming but also that continuous reflection we should have that one day we too will be judged so the whole schema of penance and whether it's in advent or inland or outside of that is that we ought to be able to control our will to avoid sin and of course we can do that positively by exercising virtue when the opportunity gives that to us and we can in a sense do that by the negative fashion of denying our will things that it wants and so those two should go together like hand and glove throughout the christian life the moral choice to do the virtuous and then the choice to perhaps exercise the will when it's easier that you might exercise it when it's harder especially on occasions of sin so uh all of that comes out of the scripture old and new testament in one fashion or another church has just given the catholic a structure a framework in which to do those necessary things that are in more or less in that sense obligatory for our salvation you know that's and that's to you you've talked about the motivations a little bit there but a lot of that is is jot and tittle of canon law yes uh but um the reason that these jots and tittles are in place is for our own uh spiritual edification and i think that and it's the way we enter into it and the attitude with which we enter into it that has a lot to do with that and if you look at a lot of even our own time you know a lot of the people who have really demonstrated heroic virtue and faith have stories about how they made a resolution to have a good advent or a good lens and it really springboarded them into a deeper relationship with our lord that everybody can see and that's the thing about lent most of us may not be able to go on a major retreat especially one of the big ones like the 30-day retreat that the jesuits give and others do silent retreats and so on but what we can do is focus during lent on the spiritual things so that outside of lent we're able to be a little bit more attentive to them when all the distractions of the world impinge upon us attract us to to doing things like that would require us to abandon virtue uh and to sin and so lent can become a time when we can refocus our lives spiritually and and ought to be every year for every one of us whether we're far along the way of sanctity or whether we're just beginning that path as a new catholic a new christian eight three three two eight eight e w t n is our toll free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six if you're outside the united states and canada we'd still love to hear from you that number is one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five and we'll even put you straight to the front of the line if you're outside the united states and canada at one two zero five two seven one two nine eight five it's open line friday with colin donovan [Music] [Applause] divine intimacy radio the greatest joy in my life is helping others to come to know christ more fully and there's no better light on this path the path to deep union with god than the wisdom of the saints talking about this daily on ewtn radio is one of the great joys of my life divine intimacy radio sunday 6 30 a.m 1 30 p.m and 11 p.m eastern on ewtn radio hello this is brian kemper of priest for life with pro-life update why don't more pastors speak out against abortion some of them actually do not know how to connect the issue with the scripture readings they know that the readings are supposed to be the basis of their homilies but they do not find many references to the unborn child or the killing of such children but the themes of pro-life are on every page of scripture homilies are not simply scripture lessons rather they apply to the great biblical themes to the day-to-day challenges that believers face as they live their lives so for instance the bible is clear that only god has dominion over human life he made it he cares for it he owns it that is why no human being can own or kill or devalue this is brian kemper on the ewtn global catholic radio network [Music] this is open live on the ewtn global catholic radio network if you have a question call 1-833-288-ewtn that's 1-833-288-390 outside north america call 1205-271-2985 or send us an email to openline ewtn.com you know one of the things i love is the universality of the church and and when i go into a catholic church that i haven't been in one of the things that i will almost always seek out or one of the things that i'll notice is the various stations of the cross that are almost unique to every church that you every catholic church that you go into we have a beautiful opportunity for you at ewtn's religious catalog with a pocket stations of the cross they're usually found as we mentioned only in churches but now you can carry the stations of the cross with you a military chaplain here in the u.s designed this stations of the cross brass plate front and back it makes a great gift for wedding confirmation someone coming into the faith for a seminarian for a priest someone commemorating the loss of a loved one or for those who struggle whose daily struggle keeps them from attending mass and they don't get to see those beautiful stations inside the churches this two-sided brass plate measures about two and a half inches by four inches and it's available now at ewtn's religious catalog that's ewtnrc.com free standard shipping on online orders of 75 or more that is standard shipping in the continental us only use the code free at check out 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number it's a free phone call anywhere in north america 833 288 three nine eight six that is the number that antonio used in san francisco california watching us today on youtube antonio you're on with colin donovan hi um thank you for taking my call sure i'm reading the book of genesis and i just want to know how the catholic church take the uh when talk about giant people giant animals and people living uh hundreds of years um please uh tell me how we should uh take this um um how to understand that into that sure methuselah donovan well i'm not quite 900. um but i'm getting there quickly i think well it depends on what you mean by literally there is a sense in which we you know by the standards of today you know if you saw some of these nba basketball players and you'd never seen an nba game before with the chinese guy or shaq o'neal or somebody like that leap into the 21st century but we know what you're talking about you do you do you would refer to them as giants so there is a element of perspective in that and so the church when speaking of what literal means in the scripture takes a different view than say many of the protestant groups which would try to you know take take it in i guess in a way that would suggest a literal account of history such as we would do history today now if you look at different cultures over time their ways of doing history have been quite different our modern idea or scientific idea of history of you know that you know on monday this year this happened on tuesday of the next year this this is not the way most they've told it by way of stories they told it by way of myth detached from time and many other things because they they didn't keep calendars they might go by the number of moons or they might go by the number of suns but anyways it was not a empirically testable category of of of things that we would account today so you look at mediterranean people i think it was when the celts poured down into the mediterranean bases they look like very giant people or if you look at different cultures today if you put you know somebody from southern italy next to somebody from scandinavia there's there's quite a difference would be typically quite a difference of height there so the thing about the term literal means you have to understand the historical context that means the way of writing the way of thinking the way of recording things of those times it would involve getting into what the point of view of the of the author was what are they trying to say are they are they trying to give an account here's an example in the gospel of luke and in the acts of the apostles luke makes clear he's trying to give a historical record now if you look in the old testament at judges or other things there's clearly a picking and choosing of which kings to report and and uh and just exactly what's happening and so the idea is to get in and understand what is the purpose of the author and his intention because god is using that god did not author these in the sense that he gave the exact wording but that he inspired the writing and he protected the writing such that as the church teaches everything that he wished to convey got conveyed and nothing beyond what he wished to be conveyed was conveyed but that the human author did it by his own choices there is in in inspiration scriptural inspiration you might say a precision of divine grace and human freedom being present there that we can speak of the scriptures these are the word of god and yet freely written down by the human being for his purposes but which then god used also for his and in all of that we discover the truth so when we're looking at what constituted history we know that uh in the case i think of most of the books of the old testament uh the earliest writing down on them was probably in the eighth or ninth century before christ based on traditions which had been around for a very long time those are accurately conveyed in there and so we then have to get at what is being what is being said in there and i think uh when i when i look to [Music] find well can we get down into the details of it when john paul ii was doing his catechesis on genesis back in the 1980s he went even into the psychology of adam and eve and what it meant in terms of original justice the meaning of the first sin and all of that and that was only possible because genesis conveyed truth but it's something you have to get at it's not necessarily something that you pick it up like you read a history book today and so the whole exercise of exegesis of scripture is always getting at the attention of the author getting at all of the historical details of that and then realizing that there are different forms of speech in scripture as there is in daily life we use similes and metaphors christ used hyperbole and and metaphor these are ways of speaking we don't take those literally that com makes more complex the decision as to what is literal in scripture uh especially in the older historical books so the church doesn't say that genesis is not a literal account of history but it's an account of history according to authors who didn't make historical accounts the way we would today and that's where i got to be our starting point for diving in there you know and trying to find out what god is saying he's certainly saying in early genesis that everything in the universe he made he's certainly saying that the first human beings he made he's certainly saying that those human beings sinned and as a consequence of that we received the penalty of original sin as we call it and on and on through the through the book of uh through the book of genesis it's getting at what is what is being said there and the degree of literality as we would understand that today that's the difficult part this is why christ gave us a church after all he gave us a church that in the end will sort through these things and when there is something there that needs to be affirmed it will affirm it otherwise we're free to understand it in however we think best to understand it and apply it in our own life by spiritual reflection on on the text of scripture the church hasn't defined a great deal but she has defined some things and that is the sin of adam christ as the new adam who repaired that sin and you go on down through the the list of the things which the church teach teaches it hasn't defined for example the point of whether the material element of man was specially created by god or whether it was created from the earth as scripture puts it by means of processes which god built into nature pope pius xii left that open for investigation and study and science will make its contributions but what we do know is that no soul can arrive in a human being unless god puts it there and therefore the beginning of man is with those two people into whom god gave the gift of his own divine life of his own life a spiritual soul so that's a factum that we can't deny and we can't get away from and the text around it makes that point but it makes that point in a way that is you know still open to some debate as to the the details of the origins of the body of man and so on and so forth thanks antonio we appreciate the phone call 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number wide open phone lines on this open line friday 833 288 three nine eight six um you know colin we were talking about the our attitudes towards lent at the the beginning of the program and um and the one kind of final point i wanted to make to follow that up here in the last minute or so that we have is that uh having my favorite trout almondine at shea wherever is probably not the best demonstration of penitence during lent on friday is it no i think you should get a can of tuna down at publix and crack that open use it with some saltine crackers that's that would be my recommendation for you but but the idea is that that you know there should be some kind of a penitential right attitude right you can't go down and pig out just because it's friday and you yes and that's why i think uh you know although it's that we only have the two days of fast which we didn't mention ash wednesday and good friday are the two days of fast when not only may we not eat meat but we also have to limit the amount of food that we eat to one main meal and two meals which if added together would not exceed the amount in that main meal so whether your main meal is lunch or dinner then your breakfast and your other meal should be uh you know smaller so that you're you're you're consuming less than you would on a normal day when you were even able to eat freely at all your meals and that's a stepping off point for a young person of good health that would kind of be where you start you know you might even consider something a little more rigorous than that well and i think maybe those of us who have healthy appetites should go a little bit further on on something like that you know an older person a weak person a fragile person um are going to be excused from that by the law itself so but they can still if their constitution permits it they can also do fasting they're just not obliged to do it but that that's always going to be a prudential consideration in particular cases 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number still a couple of open lines for you at 833-288-3986 it's open line friday with colin donovan [Music] [Applause] hi i'm doug keck and this is an ewtn bookmark brief speaking with deacon richard eason about his book spiritual excellence the path to happiness holiness and heaven proudly published by all of us here at ewtn publishing available through our ewtn religious catalogue ewtnrc.com for all things catholic spiritual excellence tell us deacon what's this book about the whole idea is that many souls in our world today are struggling with all kinds of issues issues that are robbing them of their joy happiness and peace in life the whole idea of this book that ewtn is publishing is to focus on what's the remedy for that so this book takes all of these issues hit on and provides scripture passages the spiritual writings of the saints the encyclicals of the pope the catechism of the church and touches on each of these issues very good spiritual excellence the path to happiness holiness and heaven by deacon richard eason thank you so much thank you deacon and of course this has been an ewtn bookmark brief see you next time thanks for stopping by you can be a part of open line friday 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 i do listen and i love ewtn my mother love dwtn it's just a wonderful way and i thank you for what you're doing the courage that you have for telling us how it is with jesus god mary all of it we have to get back to something in this country or we're doomed ewtn helping people grow in their love and understanding of god how smart is your pet we'll have a conversation about our intelligent pets monday on take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now back to open line with colin donovan this is open line on the ewtn global catholic radio network back to the phones we go steve is in the great state of california watching us on youtube today steve thanks for holding welcome to the program thank you guys just a quick question on not being non-catholic 20-year listener to you guys but just i recently had a surgery and i was given an anointing of the sick because i asked for a catholic priest not having any current denomination affiliation um what was i given or what was valid in that giving of the anointing of the sick okay so you're you're you're not a catholic no sir uh you're baptized baptized christian triune baptism yes yeah yeah um well i can i can see the possibility of validity there i know that chaplains in wartime uh they have a variety of you know in in a situation where people are wounded may have a variety of people uh of men or women as in our wars today so it's conceivable there is a provision in our in catholic church law that in these kinds of circumstances and so on um general now for the catholics certainly somebody going under general anesthesia is considered although you're not in extremis yet you could be very quickly in in in need of the sacrament uh and so it's not unusual at all for somebody going uh under the gas as it were or this case through the veins uh to be received the sacrament of anointing so if you were catholic the circumstances would be justified being baptized it would be possible for you to receive it and then that is left in the judgment of the priest so perhaps he was convinced that this would do you some good the benefits of it is and the purposes of anointing of the sick you can read a little bit about that in the in the letter of saint james that you know to bring him to the bring the sick person to the presbyters and they would pray over them the church sees the principle basis not anticipating what god might or may not do in this situation as strengthening the person in union with christ on the cross to be able to endure if death should come about to make that passage in union with christ and therefore to spend eternity with him in eternal life for catholics the church sees that as also satisfying the obligation to confess one's sins for those who are unable to by circumstances i could conceivably see that applying in your case also so it's it's definitely a mixed case theologically and canonically uh and i think i i i'd be grateful and leave it to the judgment of the priest whether that was uh he felt that in those circumstances giving it to a non-catholic were justified as he could very well have thought and the fact that steve requested a catholic priest probably goes a long way towards meeting some of those and and maybe even i don't know if he knew you were not catholic but even knowing and coming and wanting to giving you something that would comfort you and strengthen you he felt that he could um i'm not going to i'm not going to double check that that pastoral judgment essentially thanks steve we appreciate the phone call 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number couple of open lines and plenty of time for your calls at carmen is in 833-288-3986 great state of oklahoma and carmen has been listening to the show colin and she's got a follow-up question it looks like carmen thanks for listening you're on with colin thank you for taking my call yes i do listen to you almost every day this came up in our adult ed class uh last sunday uh in the bible it talks about all these people and they live to be 150 200 years old and so on so the question was how did they calculate time then is it the same way we do it now so when the in the in the bible if they said someone lived to be 150 years old would that be like now they live to be 150 years old you understand what i'm saying i i do and i don't know that we we can even answer that question uh some have suggested well they were using a moon calendar and therefore they were not i i highly doubt that their counting of time was that different for us that the passage of the seasons and the place of the sun and the heavens didn't have some role in it you know i think because it's coming out of oral traditions it's hard to estimate what were they saying you know is it like i was said if you you know if you were a four foot nine and you suddenly encountered uh you know an nba player who was seven foot one you'd say there are giants in these ear parts so you don't know what perspective they've come out of i don't think that that's an issue to be so necessarily to be solved it may have been something of that nature i think that many people contemplating well how is history as a whole written about in sacred scripture is it presuming uh an earth-like paradise or is it presuming a special place for adam and eve and were there consequences of that place being you know being ended and destroyed and then being cast out what does this tell us about was human longevity longer i think scientists today generally feel that there's a maximum possibility of 120 years for human beings we do know that sometimes you'll hear them in a 128 year old oddly in the caucuses where supposedly noah's ark came to rest uh you find a long very long-lived people but that's still a good distance from 900 years so i think there may be the pious exaggeration of any storm storyteller in that to some extent there may be other versions of calculation that we're not familiar with i don't see how they can be that much different from a solar year however so i think tradition passing on these things and the benefits and and how aged their ancestors were and so on and so forth uh you know it could be a little bit of fish tales it could be a little bit of calculation uh it could be also copyist errors these are things ultimately we can't sort out it doesn't do you know a twit to destroying in any way the veracity of sacred scripture which on so many levels has proven itself to be to be verified carmen that's the best non-answer you're going to get all day exactly i hope it's the best one she gets today otherwise send me whatever you get that you think is better god bless you carmen thanks so much for the phone call 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number that frees up a line for you at of 833-288-3986 angels where is the teaching and can you suggest a resource that i can study to understand them better you can go to our religious catalog and you can look for the number of books there are books by a number of people over over the years you can go to our website and put in guardian angels you should pull up the catechesis on the angels which john paul ii did in the 90s i believe in which he talked about the theology of this uh the the theology theology of this is quite clear we find in the old testament that uh michael the uh the prince michael uh we think that's referring to his uh either to the angelic choir of princes or to uh to the the prince among the archangels uh in general he's considered to be an archangel he was the guardian angel of israel who was stood an angel who bore some relationship to persia i hardly think a good angel but in any case he stood up to it that angel we have our lord in the gospels referring not to not to scandalize little ones for their angel beholds the face of god continuously in other words the angels who are all beatified have the beatific vision constantly they behold the face of god something that we shall one day do providing we get to heaven and so there in all of that is the belief that not only uh not only individuals are given a garden guardian angel but that even collectivities of human beings are given guardian angels if you go to washington new jersey there is a statue at the shrine of our lady of fatima there uh the the us shrine to of the guardian angel of the united states uh so this this is coming out of the scriptural tradition uh under the formation of the fathers and doctors of the church and the uh and the magisterium of the church down through the ages we've had kind of a genesis themed program so far so i've got a good email here from corey who says if adam and eve didn't have concupiscence why were they inclined to sin does it have to do with the internal versus external temptation well i think certainly their first sin was an intellectual sin because that's what the devil tempted them to do we don't know the context of that some posit some relationship to sexual activity that they may have wanted to do improperly but that's just speculation the main thing is what did the devil do he tested them with pride well god told you this but really he just wants to keep you from knowing those things because if you knew them you would be like god and so it was the sin of pride and in the sin of envy that the same thing that brought the devil himself down that he didn't like the plan that god revealed to him and so he rebelled and so the devil in a sense uh you know it said that good is effusive in other words good generates good expands and and gives good to others the devil is the opposite of that he expands with his evil and generally along the lines of which he himself is evil and that's pride envy perhaps of human beings of man that's been one suggestion of the fathers and so he carried that over and he tempted adam and eve to that pride into that envy they're rather waiting patiently on the providence of god for the knowledge of things beyond them god gave them the knowledge of nature after all he said you know to name the creatures they had everything they needed in the for the world in which they lived but they wanted something more and it was ultimately the same temptation as the devil himself had he wanted more than what god was able was willing to providentially uh give them give him eight e 833-2888 t n is our toll free number plenty of time for your calls at enough would 833-288-3986 to know could an ecumenical council ever add more books to the biblical canon if they determined the books were inspired for instance the church fathers well the church fathers can't belong to the canon because they came along after the end of the last apostles so the principle is that christ as we're we're told in hebrews who is the summation of all the prophets in other words everything god has given to us is given through christ and christ appoints men and when the last of them died and the he appointed them with the karen's charism to lead them to truth and when the last of them died there can be no new revelation this is why the catholic church rejects that muhammad had revelation that joseph smith the mormons had revelation the new age revelations which are supposedly preparing us for the age of aquarius and all of that any kinds of things which contradict and go against and sit and suggest that they build upon that which christ left us and the apostles explained until their last breath or then reflected upon by the fathers and doctors of the church not to add anything new but to develop that which was already possessed and then confirmed by the magisterium anything outside of that is not from god it's not public revelation so we'll see no new public revelation we'll see no new books um added to the bible and the only books that have been ever taken away from the bible were taken away in the 1600s 15 1600s by those who who rejected that 1500 year patristic and magisterial authority of the church so others may come along and take away books but it won't be the church the church will never do that and the church will never add to those books either 833 288 ewtn is our toll-free number 833-288-3986 next up is chris in vero beach florida listening on 9 10 a.m chris you are on with colin donovan yes i want to talk about the fact that the president pope you use that word that non-theological word inadmissibility we are back in genesis again referring to the death penalty uh the uh rome i'm as far as saint paul goes he says for your egg the government are god's minister he's working for your good but if you are doing wrong then you will have cause for fear for it's not nothing that they hold the power of the sword and the sword is referring to capital punishment for they are god's agents for punishment poor retribution for retribution on the offender now that's what saint paul said he also said in acts 25 11 when he was talking to festus that uh he doesn't he did not refuse the death penalty if if he deserved the death penalty uh now ecclesiastes the wisest man who ever lived in ecclesiastes 811 says because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to commit evil isaiah 121 says your cities are going to be filled with murders new orleans blood best battered uh baltimore new uh on new york city i suppose you have a question in there somewhere rather than a dictation you know how how would uh how would the suggested lack of necessity for the death penalty uh that has been somewhat articulated by the last two or two of the last three holy fathers how would that wash with all of the scriptural references that he just gave you well if it were really a matter of a obligation to have the death penalty there would not be a reason why for 300 years the church rejected the use of the death penalty and only after the edict of milan which gave the church the freedom to teach within the empire and to infuse christian values into the empire did the church accede to the idea of just war and a just use of the death penalty so for the first three centuries apparently the obviousness and scripture of this point of view never struck the popes the bishops the the pastors the saints the fathers and of the church now the death penalty belongs to the natural law an eye for an eye a tooth for a dude there's no question about that the church has generally defended the natural law some speak also of the law of nations saint thomas makes this distinction sufferings there were certain things that nations did if they conquered they enslaved people because that was the safest way to protect their societies you don't take potential enemies into your the body politic and therefore you enslaved them as the romans did as cultures did all cultures did that in order to make the point of your superiority and thomas tells us this follows naturally according to you know the nature of man and and so on so in that sense it's quite a natural thing but the question then arises is it really the best thing is this what jesus envisioned i think the first three centuries is a better gauge of what jesus envisioned and in the first three centuries the church did not did not do that now this gentleman can go to our website and put in we have a voting section and there is a section on capital punishment which gives some historical references and i think one of the key ones to this is from about the year 360 remembering in that in 313 the edict of milan liberating christianity at least giving it legal status making it capable of evangelizing setting up churches in fact constantine gained property to the early early popes to saint peter's is built on such property the john lateran is built most of the larger churches of rome are built on property given out of the personal fortunes of constantine and his mother helen and so the the church going from there did begin to admit a limited use of these kind things in defense of the state as well but there was a letter that was written to [Music] bishop ambrose who was the bishop in milan saint ambrose by a judge who asked the question he has a horrendous case of soldiers they had mutilated civilians so therefore under the roman law they were deserving of the death penalty but he wondered if a as a christian he should do this and he basically uses the uh in responding that ambrose basically gives an argument similar to i think it was the quote from ecclesiastes and that is the judge who wished to preserve the order and in the society certainly the church understands how he could could do that how he could do the order the death penalty but he cites the example of christ with the woman caught in adultery as the better example for the christian and that is the example of mercy in hopes of repentance and i think this is what the last number of popes have have suggested this i think is the meaning of inadmissible the pope pope francis could have chosen intrinsically evil and that would have been false because it's not intrinsically evil because justice is justice but he pointed to an evangelical motive and i think this is the motive of ambrose as well and that is a more perfect satisfaction and holding of the gospel would be to show mercy in view of the hope of conversion and this is ambrose argument without condemning the judge if he felt that because of his civic duties he had to do do the other but that was not what ambrose was recommending he didn't think that's what the gospel was recommending so i i guess if the if the premise which the gentleman made is true then for the first 300 years the church didn't get it right st ambrose didn't get it right aquinas didn't get it right who makes distinctions like this in slavery and other other areas that men commonly took as necessary for the protection of themselves or society and so that's that'll be my defense as well and i'll do it on behalf of pope francis pope benedict pope john paul ii i presume john paul the first and paul vi as well all of whom look to and hope for the eventual absolute abolition of capital punishment thanks chris we appreciate the call next up is scott driving through the great state of louisiana a first-time caller listening on the almighty's 690. scott you're on open line friday hey good afternoon so one of you guys and i didn't hear which one said that you were um were originally an evangelical christian and converted to catholicism i'd just like to hear your story as to what what compelled you to do that well i'll give you the reader's digest version of it i was raised methodist we were really not a practicing methodist family until the time that i was in high school but when i was in college i became part of a charismatic campus evangelical ministry i traveled halfway around the world with only enough money to get there and back and that my mother loved that by the way um and uh and um and eventually what happened was i married a catholic girl and then as our children were starting school uh in a catholic school and my son was preparing for first communion i started having some conversations with the pastor of the parish where the where our son was in school and i i really approach the catholic faith from a perspective that you would expect from someone with my background of where is this that or the other catholic teaching in the bible and as i spoke with this beautiful pastor who was very patient with me and my arrogant self i slowly started to shift my focus to does this that or the other catholic teaching contradict anything in the bible and when i started looking at things from that perspective the scriptures really opened up for me and then i basically just reached a tipping point where i didn't necessarily have all the questions that i might ever have answered but i had enough questions answered to my satisfaction that i thought that if there were any uh question down the road that i was going to need an answer for i had reached a level a place where i was confident that i would get that answer i you know what i think that's a good illustration of the difference between knowledge and wisdom sometimes i think people i'm not a convert in that sense at least we all are converts i guess if we were pagans beforehand as we all were um but people very often they get to these stumbling blocks they don't know the answer and their solution if their solution is well i don't know the answer but i'm not going to do any kind of a surrender then they're never going to get because they're relying on their own will and their own judgment as if it were somehow infallible but very often i think fulton sheen advises as well if i'm not mistaken it's by the surrender that god is able to act and give you the light because until then your will is an obstacle to him giving you the light you make the surrender in prayer then the light and the understanding can come and sometimes i don't know if this was your case but i've heard people say that the problem evaporated and they saw right away the cogency of it in light of the scriptures and other things it's when our will interposes and we are smarter than everybody else that it becomes difficult to see the light yeah how's that scott a good answer and and what he was just saying is indeed when a lot of times people make an idol of their own understanding right and they are they are blocked by pride to even consider anything else yes i think that's true thank you we appreciate that uh phone call very much today and uh hopefully during this lenten season you know it's interesting because uh we have a very dear uh member of our family who uh kind of entered our family with a certain hostility towards christianity had a radical conversion experience and has four or five people every year since his conversion have entered the catholic church because of their association with him oh my god oh yeah anybody uh no one is a match for the holy spirit no and faith ought to be the gift that keeps on giving actually absolutely on behalf of our host colin donovan our producer michael mccall call screener matt gubinski and our social media maven mr jeff person i'm jack williams thanks for another great week of ewtn's open line friday back at it again monday with father john tragillo until we get together then god bless [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 800

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: zIpRUniyZvY

Length: 54min 15sec (3255 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022