Archive for category: Roman Catholicism

It’s sometimes argued the Reformers didn’t have the right to call for the reform of the Roman church. How could a small minority challenge the authority of the established majority? Of course, there are many nuances and rabbit trails to meander down when one gets into this discussion- like did the reformers have miracles to prove their reform efforts? or

Recently I posted an entry on Catholic Apologist John Martignoni’s interpretation of James 5:14-16. Martignoni said “elders” in James 5:14 means “priests,” and therefore the concept of the Roman Catholic priesthood is clearly taught in the Bible. In response I posted a short MP3 clip from Dr. White’s debate on the Roman Catholic Priesthood. I realize that a response from

   M.S. informed me of this fascinating thread over on the Catholic Answers Forums. It is sad, and encouraging, all at the same time. What is sad, clearly, is that the users assume someone like Keating, who has refused to engage any meaningful critique of his apologetics writings for decades now, would have a meaningful response to my criticism. But what

I was amused to note one example of Rome’s improvisational informal magisterium at work to poach another Reformed slogan. It’s not one of the slogans that the first generation reformers used (Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Sola Deo Gloria), but one that became popular in the 17th century: “Ecclesia reformata quia semper reformanda est” (“The Church is

How dare I suggest that this story (link) about an Indian idol’s problem with folks outdoing themselves by giving their idols large crowns have anything to do either with this photo of an idol to Mary (attempted image of Jesus in the background) or these similar idols (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth) or similar to this

So, the long and short of it is this: we need to stop going to the Protestants for our understanding of Justification, whether it’s Joseph Fitzmyer’s attempt to say that justification is “forensic” in his New Jerome Biblical Commentary, or Scott Hahn’s attempt to say that “works of the law” refers only to the ceremonial law or that works are

I was directed to this blog entry that provides a response, of sorts, to a brief comment I offered about praying to “St. James” for my conversion. I wondered out loud just what St. James is supposed to do for me. Is he supposed to contradict himself relating to the second chapter of his epistle, found in Scripture? Of course,

Mr. Mark Shea (link) seems to think that Dr. White’s post (link) is so much “huff-puffery.” Thankfully, the flim-flam from which Mr. Shea’s argument is constructed is so flimsy that it is flattened by even fairly rudimentary analysis. Mr. Shea seems to have forgotten the important lesson of the story of the three little pigs. The lesson wasn’t so much

   James Swan sent me about ten clips of Shea defending his a-historical Marianism that I hope to get to on the DL soon. Today Shea posted a blog article that makes brief reference to my comments on his attack on the perspecuity and sufficiency of Scripture (found here). As is often the case with our friends on the far side

Mark Shea just provided an excellent example of the dividing line between those who “hear” God’s words and obey, and those who refuse to do so, and insist upon substitutions (sacred tradition, prophets, popes, other Scriptures, etc.). He begins: The basic rule of thumb to understand in Catholic/Protestant conversations is that it is not the case the Catholics rely on

Shea opines, A reader asks: Why isn’t Mary considered the first priest since she actually brought Christ into this world? Well, in a certain sense she is since she participates in the common priesthood of all the baptized. However, the short answer is: Because Christ did not ordain her to the sacerdotal priesthood.    Of course, Christ never ordained anyone to

   Mark Shea speaks from his heart.    Also, from an earlier post: It point (as it always has) to the central flaw at the core of Calvinism: its deep and fundamental inhumanity….Logical completeness and spiritual contraction fits the madness that is Calvinism perfectly….Normal people do not pit God against his good creatures this way. But Calvinism (which Trent analyzed as a

   I noted this morning that Patty Bonds was encouraging folks to pray to St. James for my conversion (actually, I’m such a rough number the current list is James, Jude, Paul and even Jerome!). Aside from the obvious fact that James, like all the redeemed (and that number is co-extensive with the term “saint”) are absorbed in worship of their

   David King just posted this in our chat channel, and it is so utterly spot-on that I wanted to share it. Before Newman became a Roman Catholic, he very rightly recognized Rome’s modus operandi in talking about the early writers of the church. When you provide specific citations that contradict their position, they see them as “individuals.” Yet, they constantly

   On July 2nd I posted a 3,330 word article relating to particular claims made by Roman Catholic writer Mark Shea in his three-volume set on Mary. I invested a fair amount of time examining Shea’s claims relating to an important topic, one related to Shea’s own criticism of one of my claims. I provided evidence of error on Shea’s part,

Although I could not find any other published debates, articles, or podcasts from Mr. Bellisario specifically on the papacy, I did find one book review that is of interest. Mr. Bellisario recommends Mr. Adrian Fortescue’s “The Early Papacy” as being: “full of great apologetics material for substantiating the Papacy in the early Church.” One presumes that Mr. Bellisario may rely

Mr. Matthew Bellisario has, as far as I can tell, only a single blog post directly on issues relating to the papacy (although there are a number of contra-Lutheran and contra-contraceptive posts that mention the papacy)(link to MB’s post). Even in this instance, however, Mr. Bellisario is merely providing a quotation from another author. The author Bellisario quotes is Cornelius

Mr. Matthew Bellisario is still planning, as far as I know, to come on the Dividing Line this Thursday. Hopefully he has already benefited from the detailed resource list (posted here). There are, however, some additional resources that may be helpful. These are video clips taken from some (two, I believe) of Dr. White’s previous public, moderated debates on the

I’m pleased to report that Mr. Matthew Bellisario has agreed to come on the Dividing Line program on Thursday and discuss the papacy. Specifically, he states that he plans to discuss Matthew 16:18-19 and “other passages” that refer to Simon Peter and his “special place amongst the apostles” as well as to discuss the papacy in the early church fathers,

Catholic apologists often let us know how crucial it is to have an infallible magisterium and church Tradition in order to interpret the Bible correctly. With so many Catholic apologists now commenting on sacred scripture, I thought it would be interesting to provide their commentary on the Bible. Let’s see how they’ve been able to rightly divide the word of

   I just received my set of Mark Shea’s three volume set, Mary, Mother of the Son. I began looking through it a bit Tuesday evening, and noticed no personal references in the indexes. But, as I looked at his attempt to force Revelation 12 into one of the few supports for the edifice of Marian theology I noted that either

   I have added Mark Shea’s Marian series to the Ministry Resource List. I would dearly love to see some of the major Roman Catholic apologists come out of hiding, in essence, and engage in a robust debate on the claims Rome makes about Mary, but the past five years have shown a Roman Catholic apologetics community in disarray and retreat.

I try to keep up with some of the fallen heroes of Catholic apologetics. Ten to fifteen years ago, it wouldn’t be so uncommon to find the men below put forth as Rome’s best defenders. I take 44 cents out Gerry Matatics’ pocket every so often. I’m on his mailing list, so the mailman brings me his newsletter. His most

In the written disputes and published propaganda between sixteenth-century Protestants and Roman Catholics, the mass-marketing victory clearly lay in the hands of Rome’s detractors. Protestants out-published Rome’s apologists winning the popular opinion. Catholic works were unlikely to sell, and therefore not sought out by printers. Rome exasperated the loss by not supporting her apologists in their written endeavors.(1) Now five

People sometimes like to think that if you go back to the earliest fathers you’ll get very good accounts of extra-scriptural tradition. There is a certain amount of intuition to back this up. After all, the earliest fathers were closer in time to the gospel accounts than we are. Intuition is wrong – at least to some extent. One reason

   I apologize for being less than blogorific or video-rific, etc. I am trying to get a lot done, but it isn’t necessarily stuff that is easily “seen” very quickly. I made progress on a chapter in the Beckwith response today, however, and wanted to provide just a paragraph as an example. This is from a chapter where I am examining

To a certain extent I’m treading on Mr. James Swan’s toes in posting this episode to the “We Have Apostolic Tradition” series. Mr. Swan had noticed that Roman Catholic apologists often let us know how crucial it is to have an infallible magisterium and church Tradition in order to interpret the Bible correctly. With so many Roman Catholic apologists now

   I’ll admit, I’m dumbfounded. I have often said that Rome’s primary American apologists live in a land, far far away from reality. They simply do not care what their most serious critics provide in the way of rebuttal. Once they have produced an argument, they will repeat it, no matter how often it is refuted, shredded, and otherwise turned into

   You can’t help but think about the constant drum-beat of Roman Catholic apologists in attacking sola scriptura as you consider the speech given by Barak Obama at Notre Dame. Why? It’s fairly obvious. We are told that Rome has this God-given unity found in “tradition,” and a living head who can interpret doctrine and safeguard the faith. Yet, the fact