01/15/13

Do you want to know a secret?

If you want to know many secrets of the Faith, then allow me to introduce you to Mr. Jimmy Akin. He is an apologist of the highest order, and I first came to know of his work as a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers. Beyond his work answering questions on the radio program, I found that Jimmy is a great author as well. He has written several books and keeps his own blog, as well as being a contributor to the National Catholic Register.

But we’re here to talk about secrets today. I decided to write this article because I am proud to be a member of Jimmy Akin’s Secret Information Club, where he provides exclusive articles and insights from his own research. The information is presented in a whimsical way (being part of a secret information club is a lot more fun than joining an email newsletter list!) and tackles some very interesting subjects, such as:

1st century Christian writings that *aren’t* in the New Testament (and what we can learn from them)
What the Vatican considers the absolute *worst* liturgical abuses
What Pope Benedict wants you to know about the mystery of Purgatory
How Pope Benedict understands the sinister figure of Judas Iscariot–and his eternal fate
What Pope Benedict wants you to know about that perpetually thorny issue: private revelation
Among many other interesting things!

I bet he paid you a lot of money for this!

Actually, quite the contrary. I don’t know Jimmy (maybe one day I’ll get to meet him!) nor am I getting any sort of kick-back, indulgence, thank-you card, or any other form of compensation for this recommendation. I’m just sharing the Secret Information Club because it’s awesome. The information that Jimmy provides – free of charge – is a tremendous resource for the budding apologist, interested RCIA student, or lover of Truth. I particularly enjoy his mock interviews with Pope Benedict, where he culls answers and insights out of Pope Benedict’s public writings and presents them in a question-and-answer style. These nuggets of wisdom from the Holy Father have caused me to dig deeper into Pope Benedict’s writings, and this was a nice entry-point for the otherwise intimidated.

So there you have it, gentle reader. The secret is out. Head on over to The Secret Information Club and sign up for free, you won’t be sorry. I just hope that Jimmy doesn’t revoke my membership card for cluing you all in!

01/13/13

Why is the Bible written the way that it is?

My brother-in-law asked me a thought provoking question recently:

Why is the Bible written in the style it is, rather than just a list of facts, instructions, and information?

Oral Traditions

Much of the Bible is constructed the way it is due to the time in which it was written. There weren’t many writers (or scribes) at the time, so what we get in the Bible is a transcription of information that was handed down orally. While today we might consider this a very unreliable means of communicating information, if there was no other option for writing down or passing information people were very good at relying on their memory. The stories recounted in the Bible often had historical or tribal significance, so it stands to reason that they would take more of a storytelling mode instead of a prescriptive list of rules and instructions.

For more reading on this, you can refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding Sacred Scripture, or further reading recommendations below.

But in some ways, it is a list!

There are several portions of the Bible that actually do contain fairly clear, prescriptive lists of rules. The two areas that spring immediately to mind is the Holiness code in the book of Leviticus and the Ten Commandments. Both of these areas, among others, reflect very clear and prescriptive laws that applied to observant religious of their time. There are parts of the Old Testament and much of the New Testament that provide historical facts, genealogies, landmarks, names and behaviors of various settlements/tribes/organizations and the like. So in a certain way, the Bible does contain lists of facts, instructions, and information.

Christ taught in parables

There are other areas of the Bible written in the form of illustrative language, parables, and other storytelling modes. Christ often taught in parables, and the disciples help us to shed a little light on this mystery. They noted the change in his manner of teaching privately from them versus publicly in the crowd, so they asked Him directly why he employed parables in Matthew 13:10-17:

The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
— Matthew 13:10-17 (NIV)

What does this tell us? Christ employed parables as a way to divide the crowd: the throng of people whose heart had grown too calloused to understand the deeper message of Truth, and the disciples who had already seen and believed. When He taught the crowd in parables, it was an opportunity for those that truly sought the Word of God to find it. It also provided a teachable moment for the disciples, who already were following Christ and could hear the truth. It is comforting to note that even the disciples required to have the parable explained to them by Christ, so I suppose there’s hope to all of us that continue to have challenges when reading or understanding Scripture. Thankfully, Christ left us the gift of the Church to help us in interpreting the Truth.

What does this have to do with how the Bible is written and constructed? Possibly nothing, but in the light of this verse I feel validated in the challenge of trying to understand difficult Bible verses that might not make sense to me given historical distance or language barriers. It’s an opportunity for truth-seeking, and an opportunity for trusting that the Holy Spirit inspired the divine authors to include these lessons in this form for an explicit reason.

Finding out more

Ultimately, the form that the Bible takes may be one of those mysteries that we’re not meant to fully comprehend. I know that there are many theologians, historians, and others that are far more qualified than I am to even posit a basic answer to this question, however there is one book that I have heard recommended for those curious about the known history of how the Bible was compiled. It’s called “Where We Got The Bible” by Henry G. Graham, so give it a try if you’re interested in learning more.

10/29/12

Apologetics…

At one of my That Man Is You! group sessions, I was recounting the story of why I began looking to deepen my understanding of the Catholic faith. I explained that I did not feel equipped to answer the eventual questions that would come from my children, let alone the questions I got from full-grown skeptical, educated adults.

One of the men in my group suggested that I look into apologetics, specifically the Catholic Answers Live radio program. After some blank looks, he explained that apologetics means “to speak in defense” of something and the program is a structured call-in show where priests, theologians, and other special guests answer questions about the Catholic faith.

A few weeks later, I found myself bored of the music on my iPhone so I punched up the Catholic Answers podcast. I was in luck… it was a Q&A Open Forum for Non-Catholics. That’s right… these guys take calls from non-Catholics and answer very tough questions with rational answers. Sometimes they used Scripture to justify the answers, other times a long thread of historical teachings that pass down through the line of popes to Christ himself. It was eye opening.

As time went on, their podcast quickly became part of my day. When I have desk work or programming to do, I turn on Catholic Answers. In time, many of the exact questions that caused me doubt were asked repeatedly by many callers. With each new guest answering the question, I got new Bible verses, Magisterial (from the teaching authority of the Catholic Church) documents, and perspective.

Now I love Catholic apologetics. I love it when people ask me questions about Catholicism… What’s the deal with X? Why does the Church teach Y? Why do you Catholics do Z? In fact, I welcome anyone reading this blog with a burning question to contact me and ask it. I may try to answer it in a future article.

If you’re looking for some great Catholic apologetics right now, allow me to direct you to a few of my favorites: Jimmy Akin, Tim Staples, and Patrick Coffin.

10/26/12

Five Facts: The Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate

This Five Facts article focuses on objections to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate, a portion of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). This crosscuts a great deal of Church teachings previously mentioned this week, so I will focus more closely on the objections.

Five Facts: The HHS Mandate

The primary objection revolves around the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The HHS Mandate requires religious employers and insurance companies to provide contraception, abortificants, and sterilization with extremely narrow exceptions. This violates Catholic moral teachings and requires Catholics materially cooperate in evil.
Should an employer or insurance agency drop their policy and refuse to participate, they will be fined $100 per employee per day. In many cases this would amount to enough to shutter these organizations.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released several statements uniformly opposing this mandate.
In addition, the USCCB corrected (with breakneck speed) false statements made by Vice President Joe Biden during the vice-presidential debates, where he claimed that no Catholic individual or organization would be required to pay for or offer contraception.

So why does this matter to you?

Honestly, I get a lot of eye-rolling from my liberal friends when this topic comes up. They think the heart of the issue is the Catholic Church trying to legislate their agenda regarding contraception, and the religious freedom argument is a line-item overreaction. In reality, the Church is just asking for it’s Constitutional Right to free exercise of religion. My personal argument is that the government is forcing me to pay for things that violate my conscience.

I don’t want to pay for someone else’s abortion. I don’t want to pay for someone else’s contraception or sterilization. Availability isn’t a problem either – all of these things are available enough via the private sector, often at subsidized rates for those with low-income. While I don’t want anyone to use these products and services, they are able to already without government intervention.

As if that was not bad enough, the fines imposed by the HHS Mandate make it impossible for Catholic (or other religious) organizations to disobey this unjust law… the fines would be enough to cause them to shut down. In the past, mandates of this kind would employ an exemption process that Churches, hospitals, and other faith-based organizations could apply for and receive. Not so in this case.

Don’t misunderstand me: I think the overall goal of getting affordable health care to everyone is noble. I just think in this case they went too far. If the HHS Mandate were to allow a broad, easy-to-receive exemption for anyone who morally disagreed with the policy I probably wouldn’t be writing this article right now. The fact of the matter is that they do not, and misinformation abounds to try to make the argument go away.

To underscore how serious the threat of eroding religious liberty is, I am reminded of a quotation from His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago:

“I expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”

I pray it doesn’t come to that.

10/24/12

Five Facts: Homosexuality and Marriage

For this Five Facts article, we explore two topics that add together to form a big issue this election year.

Five Facts: Catholic Teachings regarding Homosexuality and Marriage

Marriage “is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.” (CCC 1601)

In Matthew 19:4-5, Christ answers the Pharisees question on divorce and reaffirms the model of marriage between one man and one woman. Also see CCC 1605 and 1614 for further Scriptural evidence for this.

The Church teaches that homosexual acts are intrinsicly disordered because this type of conjugal union removes all possibility of openness to life. (CCC 2357)

The Church very clearly states that homosexual people must be treated respect, compassion, and dignity. Every sign of unjust discrimination must be avoided. (CCC 2358)

The Church calls homosexuals to lives of chastity, and in doing so can fulfill God’s will in their lives through prayer and sacramental grace. (CCC 2358, 2359)

Before we begin discussing this topic, I truly want to stress the importance of compassion. This is a very emotionally charged topic, and this discussion is framed around how marriage is properly ordered toward God and why this is an issue that Catholics must take seriously. But we must do so with the utmost love and respect for our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters.

Why does the Church care so much about sex and marriage?

Many of the Church teachings cited in the Five Facts series are based on the concept of Natural Law – that there is a natural way that the world is ordered and should behave. One of the primary aspects of Natural Law is the procreative nature of the world: our ability to create more human beings. Marriage is the sacramental protection to nurture, properly order, and protect one of the most precious gifts that we receive from God: the gift of new life in children. Because of the great power contained within human sexuality, it becomes an equally great target for misuse, abuse, and assault. Therefore, the Church is obligated to teach on this and clearly outline the proper context and ordering of marriage within society according to God’s Will. The “Further Reading” section below contains links to the Catechism regarding marriage, which provides the rest of the story.

So what’s the big deal?

This election year, a major issue has been made over attempts to redefine the concept of marriage. Holding aside religious arguments for a moment, a large part of the reason that the government recognizes marriage in the first place is because it provides a common good for society: more citizens. The financial benefits, tax breaks, and other niceties that the government provides for legally recognized marriage are there to help support the common good of the family unit so they they can prosper and create more generations of citizens to foot the many bills that government asks us to pay.

That’s nice… but why the big uproar from the Catholic community? Here’s where we begin to get into religious and spiritual arguments. As I outline above, sacramental marriage must be ordered toward life and Christ Himself refers to marriage being between one man and one woman. Being “ordered toward life” means that the possibility of life must be embraced via the natural means that God has provided man and woman. That does NOT mean that every marriage must have children, in fact you can live an extremely grace-filled and sacramental marriage if you are unable to have children for medical reasons. Homosexual relationships, speaking on a purely mechanical level, cannot produce offspring using natural means. That violates the intent of the Sacrament of Marriage, so it cannot be condoned.

If you choose to take exception to the way the Magisterium has defined marriage, you can turn to Scripture. Christ does not stutter in Matthew 19, the Scriptural foundation as outlined in Genesis is reaffirmed by Our Lord. Without exception, Christ’s Word is good enough for me and I don’t really see a good way that any Bible-believing Christian can get around that teaching.

Can’t you just lighten up and let them do what they want?

Before I answer that question, let me be clear: homosexuality (sometimes called same-sex attraction) is a temptation just like any other thing that humans are tempted to do. That’s not directly sinful, but acting on it is. That’s why the Church calls those with homosexual tendencies to lives of celibacy… it’s so they can live a grace-filled and Sacramental life despite this temptation. As a Catholic, I can’t in good conscience just turn a blind eye allow something to be normalized that takes my friends further away from God.

Within the last six months I have been called bigoted, hate-filled, and idiotic for believing this teaching. The part that nobody seems to understand is that this teaching is grounded in love. The Church wants everyone to turn toward God and live the way He wants us to live, and I want this for my friends as well. It’s not denying them something they want out of fear or hate, it’s pointing at the fact that Christ is calling them to resist temptation and serve Him in a greater way.

Further Reading

For further reading on this topic, check out the following:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Marriage

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Homosexuality

Matthew 19 (DRB)

“Understanding the Economic Justice of Marriage” by Richard Aleman at The Distributist Review

“Why Homosexual Unions are Not Marriages” by Catholic Answers

Catholic Answers tract on Homosexuality

10/22/12

Five Facts: Abortion

In the “Five Facts” series, I will present five key facts about Catholic teachings on a variety of topics as well as my thoughts on the matter.

Five Facts: The Catholic Stance on Abortion

“Human life must be respected absolutely from the moment of conception.” (Catchism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2270) Read that simply as “life begins at conception.”

The Church teaches that all forms of abortion to be a grave matter and a violation of the 5th Commandment – thou shalt not kill.

There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, because the life of the baby and the life of the mother are considered equal. The rationale is that you are simply compounding a grave act (rape/incest) with the murder of an innocent and this does nothing to improve the situation.

Formal cooperation in an abortion incurs the penalty of a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication (CCC 2272). This includes having an abortion or enabling/encouraging someone to have an abortion.

Emergency medical procedures can be performed that would terminate a pregnancy to protect the life of the mother, only if there were no other options that included protecting the life of the unborn and the intent of the procedure was not to terminate the pregnancy. Example: emergency surgery involving removal of a ruptured Fallopian tube, if the fate of the unborn child is unknown and no other options were present to protect both mother and child. This is known as the principle of double effect.

My thoughts

This is a very difficult topic to talk about, but the Church’s teaching is very clear: abortion is a grave matter to all those involved.

I never really gave this matter much thought until a friend experienced an unexpected pregnancy, and confided in me that she was thinking about having an abortion. At that time, I wasn’t armed with good refutation as for why it was wrong, nor was I particularly familiar with the Catholic Church’s teaching on the matter… but I certainly had a gut reaction against terminating the pregnancy. Honestly, this reaction was so strong that it surprised me. At this time all of my arguments were not from a religious standpoint, but I do recall making the point that the child did nothing to warrant being killed and that adoption was always an option. Ultimately, my friend stopped talking to me about it and did lose the baby. I never found out if it happened on purpose or by natural causes.

This election cycle has seen this issue become more and more politicized. There has been a bright spotlight on Catholic moral teaching in general this year, but abortion has taken a special prominence due to the pro-life/pro-choice debate. The Church’s teachings are a hierarchy with life at the very top. All other issues fall below it in relative importance. To me, this translates down to a simple statement: it is never morally permissible to provide someone a casual, state-approved choice to kill someone. Because I believe that life begins at conception, that’s really about all there is to the discussion. It’s an objective truth to me, and a fairly easy one at that.

Recently, I got into an argument with some friends about whether or not you can be pro-choice and Catholic. I don’t see how this is possible given the fact that supporting a pro-choice stance provides someone the option to destroy innocent life, which seems like formal cooperation as defined by the Church. For that matter, so-called Catholic politicians that make exceptions for cases of rape and incest are playing a dangerous game of politics trying to win votes. The Catechism makes clear the penalty for supporting and enabling abortions, and I want no part of it.

Here’s what you can do. First and foremost, we must always remember to have compassion for those that have had abortions and their unborn children. In addition, all Catholics should read and understand the Church’s teachings about abortion and vote our Catholic conscience this year. Lastly, PRAY. Pray the rosary novena for life and liberty. Attend Eucharistic Adoration and pray for the unborn. Pray that the government learns to respect life as the inalienable right that it is. Prayer is one of the strongest weapons that we have as Catholics, and now is the time to use it.

Further Reading

For further, more detailed discussion on this challenging issue I strongly recommend:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2270 – 2275 on Abortion
Straight Talk About Abortion, a pamphlet from Catholic Answers

Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues by Fr. Robert J. Spitzer