Skip to main content

From The Department Of The Blindingly Obvious

There may be actual people who have no idea about fornication being a serious sin that could land you in Hell, but I think even popular culture knows. They flippantly joke about "living in sin," as if God doesn't exist. I'll bet our adversary is pleased.

On the more positive side, for those of you that need a good reason to do anything, St. Paul works for Jesus. You know, our Savior and Lord. If He says not to do something, I'm paying attention. I'm weak, too. But I'm going to affirm what he affirms, and condemn what he condemns, even if I must accuse myself.

I'm in Confession a lot. I guess what it shows me is that the Kingdom must be unimaginably majestic, if the Holy Spirit leads me there so often. If I may digress for a moment, it can be discouraging to struggle and fall into the same sin or sins repeatedly. I think, however, that it would be much more discouraging not to care anymore.

In other news, don't let Mark Shea read the comments; his head will explode. All together now: Pope Francis is a loyal son of the Church! There is actually very little doubt on the point. Watch the Wednesday audience, if you don't believe me. I've never heard a cleric bring up demons, hell, and sin as often as he does. He mentions Confession all the time, too. But that's just too much actual reality for the Greatest Catholics Of All Time, as Mark would say.

I think it's funny that if the New York Times even wrinkled its nose at George W. Bush, (God love him) these same Catholics would be denouncing them for hours, for "distorting the record." But with Pope Francis, all the media reports are 100% accurate. POPE FRANCIS! The Vicar of Christ? If anybody merits the benefit of the doubt, simply by rank and position, it's him. Nope. They are certain he must be a modernist, a communist, and a hater of the Latin Mass. Or not.

Whenever someone starts a blog comment off with, "Although I respect him as our pope,..." you can bet that they do not. Sigh. I just want everyone to know: when you've pushed me into mostly agreeing with Mark Shea, boy, we've got some problems! Just kidding. Sort of.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con

Just Sayin.' Again.

One interesting objection to this chart has been to say that one gets stuck in a "loop" that doesn't resolve. This is a thinly-veiled way of putting forward the argument that we don't need absolute certainty in religious dogma. But Fred Noltie already dealt with this in the comments on another post. And to the specific objector, no less. I'll be blunt: The only principled thing to do is put down your Bible, resign your pulpit, and lead tours in Europe. Because a man must be able to distinguish dogma from human opinion, and this epistemology doesn't allow us to do that. One of dogma's distinguishing characteristics is infallibility; another is certainty. Without this, essential characteristics of God Himself are put into question. If we say that the most important Person any person could know is God, and the content of that knowledge (doctrine) is the means by which we know Him, it must be certain. This Reformed argument that certainty is a dangerous or un