Clarifying Catholicism

This series, which draws on Klaus Schatz’s phenomenal Papal Primacy, will attempt to paint an accurate picture of the development of papal authority. I will do so by trying my best to present an honest history of the pope’s role. Because to understand the pope’s authority, one has to understand the reasons why this office accumulated so much power, which requires a good historical perspective.

"Jesus was seen and heard by multiple people at different times, as well as at the same time. Jesus was the victim of violence. His presence instilled fear and doubt in some participants. He spoke fairly briefly and offered comfort before disappearing. He gave guidance, made requests, and issued commands. He seemed quite real and solid. He appeared and disappeared in unusual ways, such as walking...

"Allison argues, as do most historical Jesus scholars, that even Jesus misunderstood His Father’s plan for Him. This would make sense given His statement in Mark that not even the Son will know when the resurrection will happen."

"Pope Gregory the Great, a highly intelligent man, once heard a story that a dead Roman craftsman, who was buried in a church, began shouting “I burn! I burn!” The next day his clothes were found but no body was there. Pope Gregory believed that this man had gone to Hell. This shows that mystical missing bodies are not just a phenomenon confined to ancient myths and legends; rather, there are exam...

"Most scholars agree that Jesus was tortured and killed in perhaps the most humiliating fashion of the age. If Christians didn’t bother covering that up, why would they obsess over how He was buried? It would make no sense to let the embarrassment of the crucifixion stand but take issue with how He was buried. I’ve mentioned in previous episodes how many of the stories the Gospel writers use to fi...

"The evidence is abundant. The fish-catching story in Luke 5 actually belongs after Mary Magdalene sees the empty tomb, and this is significant. As I’m about to explain, it means that I lied in last episode. We actually DO know when the first appearance to Peter was that Paul mentions. It was during this story! And there’s a very simple explanation for why." Dr. Allison's book here:...

"As we covered in our segment on memory research, this does NOT imply Mary didn’t see an empty tomb. On the contrary, given how little the two accounts share, it is more plausible that Mary saw an empty tomb, told this experience to several people, and we ended up with two very separate accounts about the same event." Dr. Allison's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Jesus...

"If I said, “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He wanted to find India but instead arrived in North America,” you could probably tell that the first half of the sentence came from a different source. And you’d be right. “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” is a pre-existing nursery rhyme that helped schoolkids memorize this fact. Likewise, there are certain phrases in the New Testam...

"Every memory a person forms undergoes distortions, and the more time that passes, the more distortions occur. And remember, Jesus died roughly around 33 AD. St. Paul’s letters, the earliest written accounts of Jesus, did not appear until around 51 AD. That’s 18 years of distortion, and though the Catholic Church teaches that God inspires scripture, we also teach that He works within the laws...

"Popes discouraged Catholics from getting involved with historical Jesus studies. In fact, there were dozens of decrees throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries forbidding Catholics from studying the Bible outside of Church-sanctioned activities. As harsh as this sounds, I don’t blame the popes. By this point, from a Catholic perspective, scholars had shred Jesus apart. They severed His t...

Some of you may recall from my Ecumenical Councils series that the Church spent hundreds of years discussing, deliberating, and murdering each other over the identity of Christ. There’s a big difference between Jesus being some wise guy and Him being the incarnate Son of God. Even within His divinity, if you believe in that, there are huge differences between a hippy messiah and a political-revolu...

"But do these treatments work? Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh write 'Adolescents with gender identity disorder have poor anxiety tolerance. Seeking sex reassignment surgery is a defensive solution and a mechanism for control of anxiety. The thought of not having a solution for their distress increases their anxiety, thus making it very difficult to achieve a therapeutic alliance.' Bas...

"Today’s media makes pornography one of the most difficult addictions to break. Even scrolling through social media surrounds us viewers in temptation. There is nothing liberating about being trapped by our base sexual desires. If anything, containing sex to marriage actually liberates us, as it helps us appreciate the more fulfilling aspects of sex and helps us love our partners more."

"There’s something beautiful, almost magical about the realization that what you are doing is participating in a procreative action. That is something that same sex intercourse cannot do. The point of this episode isn’t to say that people with same-sex attraction should be demonized, hated, or unjustly treated. Rather, the point is that awareness needs to be raised of the health risks, both p...

"More sexual partners seems to correlate with higher divorce ratings. In 2000, the Center for Disease Control began tracking women who had reported different numbers of extramarital partners. Within five years, only 5% of women with 0 sexual partners before marriage had divorced. Women who had reported just one single sexual partner before marriage jumped up to a 22% divorce rate. That’s a 17...

"The problem with introducing sex into stages one or two is that we still view others as tools for pleasure. The purpose of Christian marriage is to provide a guide and framework for sex to occur appropriately. Marriage, in the Church’s eyes, ensures that sex is a mutual expression of self-sacrifice that culminates in the creation of children. Throughout this series, we will explore how the C...

"In having relations with someone of the opposite sex, you are 1) admitting you desire them, 2) admitting they can fulfill you in a way you cannot fulfill yourself, 3) renouncing the possibility of having sex with anyone else and giving yourself to them and your children, and 4) imitating God’s creativity by participating in the creation of new life. Thus, a good marriage engages all four lev...

"I believe that Zubiri’s work has aptly demonstrated that Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics are no longer a sustainable backbone for theology to rest upon. Essentially, it’s time for the Church to move on from a sola-Thomistic approach. Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics make too many assumptions about how the world functions; they fail to account for a dynamic universe and their overemphasi...

"Thus, knowledge depends on reason, which depends on being, which depends on truth, which depends on judgment, which depends on logos, which depends on reality, which depends on real content. Basically, a thing’s explanation depends on the real content of said thing. But, since we can never exhaust the totality of said thing, our search for a comprehensive explanation of reality, much less an...

"Now, reason has three moments. First is inquiry or searching. This means that reason has an inquisitive character. The second is in-depth intellection, which means its search is for a more thorough understanding of reality. The third is called intellective measuring. This means that reason not only sets up its own searches or problems, but it determines the conditions by which that search wi...

"Simply put, according to Zubiri, a thing’s being is basically is how it relates to other things that are in the network of reality. And a thing’s being is defined by the sense of towards that reality impresses upon the intellect via the thing’s interaction with other things. I know this cup’s being because I’ve apprehended the cup interacting with other things, which situates the cup in the...

"Truth is intellective actualization, just as sweat is epidermal actualization or sight is the actualization of your eye. It is, indeed, a physical moment. It means when the intellect is at work, it produces truth, just as when your eyes are at work, they produce sight. The production of truth can vary between people. I can have my truth and you can have yours, just as you see and smell certa...

"Truth is the moment that reality is brought to our intellect’s presence. Basically, while reality is constantly forming around me, regardless of my intellect’s participation, truth strictly concerns my intellect’s participation in the formation of reality. Essentially, in that moment reality and intellection coincide, truth is produced."

"At this moment I’d like to reinforce a key theme in Zubiri’s philosophy that this series has led up to. Reality, intellection, and logos are dynamic. They are dynamic because their operations are shaped by other things over time. If a species, over millions of years, loses its ability to see the color blue, then the color blue will cease to exist, since reality depends on how we formalize co...

"At this moment I’d like to reinforce a key theme in Zubiri’s philosophy that this series has led up to. Reality, intellection, and logos are dynamic. They are dynamic because their operations are shaped by other things over time. If a species, over millions of years, loses its ability to see the color blue, then the color blue will cease to exist, since reality depends on how we formalize co...