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…….and I must say, he does so perfectly. Via Vox Cantoris, the highly influential Fr. Tom Rosica, whose career has really taken off since March 2013, had this to say about how doctrine can evolve. It is as good an encapsulation of the modernist mindset as I have seen: Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn’t how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God’s transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not...

Will there be a rapture? Is it pre-tribulational? I believe the answer is an emphatic 'yes' to both questions. Here are some key points: 1. For starters, I want to address the small, but growing minority of Christians who emphatically state that the rapture isn't even in the Bible. Now I believe it is one thing to hold to various views as to the timing of the rapture event, but no rapture at all? I believe that this belief is thoroughly nonsensical. The argument often takes shape the same way that Jehovah's Witnesses will say that the Bible doesn't teach...

Idolatry by J. C. Ryle (1816-1900)   This updated and revised manuscript is copyrighted Ó1998 by Tony Capoccia.  All rights reserved.   "Flee from idolatry" (1 Corinthians 10:14)   Our text for today may seem at first to be hardly needed in our country.  In an age of education and intelligence, we might almost fancy it is waste of time to tell us to "flee from idolatry."   I am bold to say that this is a great mistake.  I believe that we have come to a time when the subject of idolatry demands a thorough and searching investigation. ...

Preface: This is an extensive examination of the Roman Catholic sacrament of Eucharist (which means thanksgiving) as regards the doctrine of the “Real Presence.” This deals with the question as to whether Scripture teaches that Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine by transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine. And by which believers thereby receive life in themselves. Or whether, consistent with other examples of figurative language and teaching, the elements are representations of Christ, and that eating and drinking Christ in John 6 refers to receiving and...

"in purgatory the souls of those 'who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions,' are cleansed after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt." - Second Vatican Council, "Sacred Liturgy", "Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences", no. 3 "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God" - 1 Peter 3:18 The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Christians may have to suffer in Purgatory before going to...

Sungenis Claims: "the Church did not receive any divine revelation on the nature of Purgatory" In a recent (2009) response to Dr. White, Robert Sungenis made some interesting admissions regarding the absence of knowledge of what Purgatory is in Roman Catholic theology: Since the Church did not receive any divine revelation on the nature of Purgatory, and since the Church declined to make any official statements on its nature, it is only natural that people of different eras are going to come to different views of what precisely constitutes the Purgatorial experience. ... we have not settled on the nature...

French publishing house Fayard is publishing a book with an interview with one of the most impressive Cardinals in the College, the recently-named Prefect for Divine Worship, Cardinal Robert Sarah. "Either God or Nothing" (Dieu ou rien) has the very interesting subtitle "Entretien sur la foi" (Conversation on faith), which certainly calls to mind the groundbreaking book-interview of another Cardinal published three decades ago -- Rapporto sulla fede (Report on the Faith, published in English as... The Ratzinger Report). From its presentation by French magazine Famille Chrétienne, we find the following remarkable extract of Cardinal Sarah's words on a...

HELL by R.C. Sproul We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse...

There aren't many subjects Catholic apologists like to discuss more than the eucharist. Even if their arguments about the papacy are refuted, even if the evidence they cite for the Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, and other doctrines isn't convincing, they still think they have a strong argument in the doctrine of the eucharist. They'll quote John 6 and the passages of scripture about the Last Supper. They'll quote centuries of church fathers referring to the eucharist as a sacrifice and referring to Jesus being present in the elements of the eucharist. They'll point out that even Protestants like Martin Luther have...

============================================= . The Accounting of Simon Peter's Six Denials of Christ ============================================= Abstract: Harmonizing the Scripture passages concerning Peter's denial of Jesus at the time of His pre-crucifixion trial shows that Peter denied Christ six times, not three as some insist. These were predicted by Jesus to His disciples the night before He was executed. The denials occurred in groups of three, each group marked by a cockcrow. The denials were Peter's responses, twice to a doorkeeper maidservant, and once each to another maidservant, to a subordinate of the high priest conducting the trial, to a group of other menservants,...

The mother of Bo Morrison, who was killed by a Slinger man when Morrison hid in the man's house while fleeing from an underage drinking party, has filed a lawsuit against the man and his insurance company. Washington County District Attorney Mark Bensen declined to charge the homeowner, Adam Kind, with a crime in the March 2012 incident, finding Kind acted in self-defense. The incident prompted numerous protests about "the castle doctrine," adopted by legislators the previous year, but Bensen said Kind would have been cleared even without the law's extra presumptions in favor of residents using deadly force in...

The poisonous and destructive fruits of godless men abound everywhere today. These fatal fruits are the results of the outworking of UNRIGHTEOUSNESS and LAWLESSNESS in an individuals life (Gal. 5: 19-21, 6:7). Yet today the world with great zeal protects, defends, guards and will decimate any who seek to challenge their godless and lawless deeds (John 15:18, 17:14, 1 John 3:13). This world fully embraces and condones all of these destructive actions in its never ending quest to rid the world of RIGHTNESS and LIGHT in their delusional quest for a world of peace and a Christ-less utopia (John 3:19-21)....

The Church spends a good deal of money on the education of priests and religious. From seminary or convent formation to continuing education workshops and retreats, the faithful, of course, bear the cost. In justice, what do the faithful receive in return? The cost of seminary education is considerable. Room, board and tuition, I’m told, is now something like $40,000 a year per seminarian. That amount is charged to the diocese; it does not include the various gifts and grants seminaries receive, and it is comparable to the overall cost of private college. Over a typical five-year formation period, the...

They are coming for the Doctrine. 1600+ years ago, when noxious Arian heresies were proposed to a group of bishops, they bishops didn’t just politely sit their awaiting their turn to vote, they did not wait for a mid-term report to be released, they went on the attack, to the extent of St. Nicholas breaking Arius’ jaw. They would not listen to the heresies (as Saint John advised), pandemonium broke out in the hall (in the presence of the Emperor of all the civilized world), and the orthodox bishops stormed out. I pray our bishops get some of the zeal...

The day my soul became Catholic was the day I found out that as a divorced and remarried woman I could not receive Communion. Tears of sorrow and joy flowed. Sorrow because I had by then grasped the truth of transubstantiation, only to find I couldn’t consume, and joy because at last we found the ground of real authority—his Church, the one he founded, the one tasked to keep all he taught her Apostles. I came to Catholicism from Calvinism. That’s a tough row to hoe if there ever was one. It was that prescient and beautiful encyclical Humanae Vitae...

I begin with a piece, spotted by Fr Tim Finigan and reported in his indispensable blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which had been published in Sandro Magister’s blog—not his English one, Chiesa, but his Italian language blog for L’Espresso, Settimo Cielo.A few days ago, Magister told the story of a parish priest in the Italian diocese of Novara, Fr Tarcisio Vicario, who recently discussed the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This is how he explained the Church’s teaching on the matter: “For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- President Barack Obama's administration has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global, using American embassies across the world as outposts in a struggle that still hasn't been won at home. Sometimes U.S. advice and encouragement is condemned as unacceptable meddling. And sometimes it can seem to backfire, increasing the pressure on those it is meant to help.With gay pride parades taking place in many cities across the world this weekend, the U.S. role will be more visible than ever. Diplomats will take part in parades and some embassies will fly the rainbow flag along with the...

Still trying to figure out what President Barack Obama’s foreign policy doctrine is? Search no more. The White House has got you covered. “For those pining for an Obama Doctrine victory for the president, here it is: ‘Don’t Do Stupid Sh-t,’” Politico’s Mike Allen wrote in his daily tip sheet, the Politico Playbook, Saturday. “Playbook rarely prints a four-letter word — our nephews are loyal readers. But we are, in this case, because that is the precise phrase President Obama and his aides are using in their off-the-record chats with journalists.” Allen went on to point out all the places...

... What is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945. ... A Democratic Advisory Council committee headed by Acheson called Eisenhower’s foreign...

From an interview with Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop Emeritus of Westminster, published on Vatican Insider: Q. Do you foresee that there could be a change in relation to the question of the divorced and remarried? A. I don’t know. The Church does not change, it develops. By that I mean the doctrine of the Church develops by going out in a different direction. That is to say, it changes in an indirect way. And it could develop in the question of the divorced and remarried. His remarks on Pope Francis as representing "radical change" and how his election "made people...