“Divine wrath is good news. The Gospel is good news, after all, and the Gospel declares divine wrath over and over again. Indeed, the Gospel of Matthew records five long teaching discourses of Jesus, and at the end of each of them, Jesus speaks of the righteous earning an eternal reward and the wicked going off to eternal punishment (seeMatt 7:15-29,10:37-39,13:44-50,18:21-35, and25:31-46). Jesus frequently disputes with Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, and scribes, and he does not shy from showing anger at their deeds: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” (Matt 23:33). Jesus further reveals that He will personally come again to judge the living and the dead, promising that He will send “those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:29).
-“Job pointing to the abyss of Hell”, Book of Hours, about 1410, by follower of the Egerton Master (French, / Netherlandish, active about 1405 – 1420), Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink, Leaf: 19.1 × 14 cm (7 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig IX 5, fol. 156v, 83.ML.101.156v, please click on the image for greater detail.
This can be rather surprising. Jesus says that he came that we “might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He taught us: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). Jesus is rich in mercy, ever delighted to forgive sinners. But the fact that Jesus judges men and condemns some to punishment—even eternal punishment—does not oppose His benevolence to mankind or His mercy. Christ’s judgment is, in fact, a great mercy, for judgment establishes justice in creation.
Injustice marks our world. Men and women murder innocent people, deceive others, and abandon their families and commitments. Yet God does not deign to leave His creation in shambles. He promised to right every wrong, and punishing sin is necessary in that process. It is bad for anyone to profit in any way from doing evil, and God’s punishment takes away all ill-gotten gains. By Christ’s judgment, every murder and assault, every slander and lie, every theft and blasphemy will come to the light and be punished, and no profit from these evils will remain.
Even beyond restoring the order of justice, punishment is a medicine for the greatest spiritual sickness: sin. Sin warps us and taints us. The more we sin, the more we learn to love the evil we do. Jesus hates sin because it ruins the people He loves, corrupting them and deadening them to the divine life He offers. His message of punishment reveals just how ugly and offensive sin actually is. If the God who is all-knowing and all-loving despises sin with such intensity, we ought to hate our sin and our wicked desires. The revelation of divine wrath calls us to a conversion which demands our transformation. In Romans, Saint Paul describes our salvation as a result of justification. By grace, God makes us just. We can truly become worthy of eternal life if we allow God to shatter the sin that gets in the way of that. We should view all God’s punishments in that light, minding what He said long ago: “Do I not rejoice when [the wicked] turn from their evil way and live?” (Ezek 18:23).
Jesus, by His judgment, will establish lasting and perpetual justice, and this is good news indeed. In the Creed and the Te Deum, we even announce rather joyfully that Jesus will come again and be our judge. It is a happy thought since Jesus is not a judge “Who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but One Who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). He is a judge Who makes it rather clear how to attain a good verdict and how to find an ally on the bench: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from My Father” (John 15:14-15). There is no way to heaven but by judgment. By shunning the sin Christ hates and by trusting that He desires to justify us, we can seek his help to attain true conversion. By His grace, we will be made worthy—and thus be judged worthy—of eternal bliss.”
Love, and the infinite wisdom and mercy of His justice. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man. His justice is a mercy to those aggrieved.
Matthew
‘Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.’
-Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3
““For the living know that they will die,” says the author of Ecclesiastes (Eccles. 9:5). This is a reality we all face. But the question of what to do with the body after death remains. May we cremate it? If so, may we scatter the ashes or must we preserve them? May we donate the body to science?
Such questions weigh heavy on the minds and hearts of many. Therefore, it’s important that we address the question of what we can and can’t do with the body after death.
To dust you shall return
Let’s take the cremation issue first.
In August, the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith (CDF) addressed several pertinent questions concerning cremation in its instruction Ad resurgendum cum Christo (“To rise with Christ”) (ARC).The document makes clear that the Church is not opposed to cremation:
The Church raises no doctrinal objections to this practice, since cremation of the deceased’s body does not affect his or her soul, nor does it prevent God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life. Thus cremation, in and of itself, objectively negates neither the Christian doctrine of the soul’s immortality nor that of the resurrection of the body. . . . Cremation is not prohibited, “unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine” (ARC 4).
It is important to note that the document doesn’t endorse the practice. It merely notes the Church is not opposed to it. This signals the Church’s strong preference for burial of the deceased, something the document makes clear: “The Church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased” (ARC 4).
Ashes abroad
The question that is asked most often is whether we can scatter the ashes of the deceased. The answer is no:
In order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided, it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry, or other objects. These courses of action cannot be legitimized by an appeal to the sanitary, social, or economic motives that may have occasioned the choice of cremation (ARC 7).
Although the scene of Tom scattering the ashes of his son Daniel in the movie The Way may have been dramatic cinema, it was not Catholic.
Grandma on the mantle?
“Okay, maybe we can’t scatter the ashes,” you say, “so we’ll put Grandma’s ashes on the mantle in our home.” Though it may be a good sentiment, the Church doesn’t permit that either:
[T]he conservation of the ashes of the departed in a domestic residence is not permitted. Only in grave and exceptional cases dependent on cultural conditions of a localized nature, may the ordinary, in agreement with the Episcopal Conference or the Synod of Bishops of the Oriental Churches, concede permission for the conservation of the ashes of the departed in a domestic residence (ARC 6).
Now that we know what we can’t do, what can we do? The CDF specifies that the ashes must be preserved in a sacred place:
When, for legitimate motives, cremation of the body has been chosen, the ashes of the faithful must be laid to rest in a sacred place, that is, in a cemetery or, in certain cases, in a church or an area, which has been set aside for this purpose, and so dedicated by the competent ecclesial authority (ARC 5).
Why the sacred place?
The reasons for this can be found in the list of reasons the CDF gives for burying the dead in a sacred place.
It expresses the Church’s faith in the resurrection of the body (ARC 3).
It shows “the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity” (ARC 3).
It “corresponds to the piety and respect owed to the bodies of the faithful departed who through baptism have become temples of the Holy Spirit” (ARC 3).
It “encourages family members and the whole Christian community to pray for and remember the dead” and upholds “the relationship between the living and the dead” and “has opposed any tendency to minimize, or relegate to the purely private sphere, the event of death and the meaning it has for Christians” (ARC 3).
What is mine is yours
What does the Church have to say about donating the body for the use of organs and/or medical research?
The Church permits it. With regard to organ donation after death, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Organ donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as an expression of generous solidarity” (2296).
The Catechism is quick to warn, however, against those things that would render organ donation after death immoral:
It is not morally acceptable if the donor or his proxy has not given explicit consent. Moreover, it is not morally admissible to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons (CCC 2296).
One would think these instructions are common sense, but the Church has to make it clear, given the fact that so many have never developed the ability to reason to moral precepts.
Concerning donating the body of the deceased for scientific research, the Catechism answers “yes”: “Autopsies can be morally permitted for legal inquests or scientific research” (2301).
The above Church’s burial norms (sacred place, respect for body, etc.) would apply to the remains of the body after the research is completed.
Conclusion
Discussions about end-of-life issues often revolve around the topic of what constitutes ordinary and extraordinary means of prolonging life. Should we keep Grandma on the ventilator or not? When is it morally just to pull her feeding tube?
These are crucial questions, and they deserve Catholic answers. But the question of what to do with Grandma’s body after death is also an important end-of-life (or after-life) issue. Due to the Church’s clear teaching on this matter, Catholics have one less thing to stress over when dealing with death.”
As the liturgical year comes to a close….”This week begins the Church’s month of the dead. We remember those who have died, and this should stimulate us to keep our own deaths in mind. With All Souls’ Day approaching, I wish to focus on the latter activity: the remembrance of death, associated with the artistic theme of the memento mori, a visual reminder of death.
Memento mori literally means “remember” (a command) “to die” (an infinitive)—that is, “remember that you, the onlooker, will die.” It is a pithy restatement of the words of the priest who places ashes on the foreheads of the people on Ash Wednesday: “Memento homo quia pulvis est et pulverem reverteris.” (“Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”)
Memento mori images are found not only on tombs and gravestones, but also in association with the memorial plaques found in Catholic (and Episcopalian) churches: a human skull or skeleton, mournful angels with inverted torches, hourglasses, and the like. These even found their way onto liturgical vestments, until the Church forbade this, since only images and symbols of holy things should decorate vestments. Death is important—worthy of respect, indeed—but it is not a holy thing. It is, indeed, our enemy: “The last enemy to be overcome is death” (1 Cor. 15:16)—the only quotation from Scripture found, interestingly enough, in the Harry Potter books.
The Four Last Things—death, judgement, hell, and heaven—used to be a regular subject for preaching and pious meditation. This preaching stopped abruptly in modern times. In a recent book review of How Our World Stopped Being Christian, by the French sociologist Guillaume Cuchet, John Pepino writes:
The sudden silence in the pulpits (as tracked in parish bulletins giving the topic of the homily) regarding the four last things . . . gave the impression that the clergy had either ceased to believe in them or no longer knew how to discuss them, even though these had been frequent sermon topics right up until the [Second Vatican] Council.
The discontinuity in the preaching is one problem—Pepino notes “changes in official teaching” that turned “humble folk into skeptics”—but there is also the question of the intrinsic value of the new approach. The Council did not, in fact, tell priests not to preach about mindfulness of death. Even if we think pre-conciliar preaching was too gloomy (an academic question for me and most readers, too young to have experienced it), it has become evident that always looking on the bright side does not in itself ward off all our problems—and certainly not the problem of death.
It is no coincidence that an era that ignores or mocks the idea of spiritual preparation for death, marking death, and mourning it is an era in which death is difficult to discuss. Death today is an embarrassment. Instead of visiting the dying, comforting them, and praying with them, they are commonly sedated: I understand from priests involved in hospital-visiting that it is now rare to be able to give the last rites to a conscious patient. Instead of entrusting the bodies of dead loved ones to the earth and visiting and tending their graves, it is now more common to make them disappear altogether, by burning them and scattering the ashes. (It is worth noting that while cremation is now permitted by the Church, the scattering of ashes is not.)
As Shakespeare wrote, “all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity” (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2). Even those alive at the Second Coming will pass through death: it is the doorway to eternal life. It is also the final moment of decision, the final moment in which we can influence our eternal fate.
This might seem unfair, and many modern speculations about the afterlife try to do away with the possibility of damnation (by saving or annihilating the damned), or indefinitely extend the time in which we can make morally significant choices (by reincarnation). Such theories rob life of its significance. This is the time of action: it is what we do now that matters, and it matters a great deal: “the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). If it doesn’t matter very much, or at all, we might as well not bother.
If death is important, we need to prepare ourselves for it, and we can do that only if we allow ourselves to think about it. A long artistic tradition seeks to remind us of death through painting and sculpture. Some of it may seem a bit gruesome for modern tastes, but the grim reality of death can’t be brushed aside forever. The meditation on death to which this invites us is not an invitation to despair and passivity; rather, it should be a stimulus to renewed effort, to make the most of the life that God has granted us.
Indeed, to make the most of life, bearing in mind the reality of death, is not to close our eyes to death and have as much fun as possible—often at the expense of other people. It is rather to follow the advice of St. Paul: “Let us not tire of doing good” (Gal. 6:9).
It is in this spirit that paintings of the saints sometimes include a skull sitting on a desk: they are depicted as having a memento mori, as many pious persons did. It is a custom we would do well to revive, at a time when people behave as if they were immortal, and then find it difficult to face their own death, or to accompany another through the final stage of life. An even better way of remembering death, though, is to remember the dead, observing a period of mourning for deceased loved ones—not of gloom, but of remembrance and prayer. As Hamlet bitterly remarks of his mother’s truncated remembrance of her husband, “there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year” (Act 3, Scene 2).”
Tyburn – Martyrs of England and Wales including three Carthusians
-“A tryptich in St James’ church, Spanish Place in London showing some of the martyrs who died for the Catholic faith from 1535 – 1680 and whose memory is kept collectively on 4 May. In the centre is the triple gallows known as the ‘Tyburn Tree’.”
“October 25 is the fifty-third anniversary of the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope St. Paul VI, more than 435 years after the first martyrs suffered on May 4, 1535.
Why such a delay? And what do the martyrs teach us today about the Reformation era and the modern ecumenical era? Looking back at the history of their martyrdoms and the progress of their cause for canonization provides some answers.
The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, canonized on October 25, 1970, are a group of men and women, priests and laity, who suffered and died for the Catholic faith in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1535-1679).
The first martyrs were hanged, drawn, and quartered during the reign of Henry VIII; the last martyrs were executed during a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria during the reign of Charles II. They were accused under different laws and for different reasons: for refusing to swear to the spiritual authority of the monarch, being priests in England when it was an act of treason, aiding and abetting priests, attending Mass, celebrating Mass, or all manner of other grave accusations.
Their sufferings and deaths were known in the Catholic community at the time: Reginald Cardinal Pole, the son of a beatified martyr (Margaret Pole), expressed his horror at the martyrdoms of Thomas More; John Fisher; and the first martyrs in this group, the Carthusians John Houghton, Augustine Webster, and Robert Lawrence. Saint Philip Neri hailed the missionary priests leaving the Venerable English College in Rome by saying, “Salvete flores martyrum” (Hail! flowers of the martyrs) in the 1580s as depictions of the martyrs’ sufferings decorated the walls of the chapel in that college. One of the last vicars apostolic of the Penal era, Bishop Richard Challoner, collected the stories of the martyrs in 1741 in Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion, from the year 1577 till the end of the reign of Charles II.
None of the martyrs of the English Reformation era—not even Thomas More and John Fisher—was even beatified until late in the nineteenth century. The first cause did not begin until 1874, almost a quarter-century after the hierarchy was re-established in England by Pope Pius IX. His successor Pope Leo XIII beatified fifty-four in 1886 and nine more in 1895. Pope Pius XI beatified 136 more in 1929 and canonized Fisher and More on May 19, 1935.
The selection of the Forty Martyrs was presented in 1960 and approved in 1961: they were chosen on the basis of their popularity and the devotion shown to them in England and Wales. Miracles attributed to their intercession were investigated and documented (Pius XI had canonized More and Fisher equipollently without verification of medical miracles); their canonization was announced by Pope Paul VI and approved by the hierarchy present at the consistory of May 18, 1970.
There was one delicate issue: the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Church of England. Representatives had met in Malta and organized the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) for ecumenical discussions. Unitatis Redintegratio, the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, had singled out the Church of England (“Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place,” Chapter III, paragraph 13). Michael Ramsey, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Pope Paul VI had met several times, and the pope in 1966 had given Ramsey a ring that he was wearing—an extraordinary gesture.
So this canonization of forty martyrs could have been detrimental to the progress in unity the Catholic Church and Anglicans were striving for. The postulator for the cause, Paolo Molinari, S.J., emphasized the point:
From the ecumenical point of view, it is extremely important to realize the fact, proved historical, that the martyrs were not put to death as a result of internal struggles between Catholics and Anglicans, but precisely because they were not willing to submit to a claim of the State which is commonly recognized today as being illegitimate and unacceptable [forcing religious compliance and church attendance].
In their day, the martyrs were breaking the laws passed by Parliament and approved by the monarchs by practicing the Catholic faith, but they were often offered freedom and their lives if they abjured their faith and attended Anglican services. The bishops of England who were the postulators of their cause were careful not to select as martyrs anyone who had any connection with conspiracies against the reigning monarchs.
Nevertheless, Michael Ramsey did not accept the invitation to attend their canonization on October 25, 1970. In contrast, notice that King Charles III, representing his mother Queen Elizabeth II as the Prince of Wales in 2019, attended Saint John Henry Newman’s canonization—and even praised him as a great Englishman.
In England the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales is celebrated on May 4, the anniversary of the Protomartyrs’ executions. In Wales, the Feast of the Welsh Martyrs and English Companions is celebrated on October 25. Throughout England and Wales, there are churches named for them, individually and collectively, and pilgrimages to shrines. The Tyburn Convent, near the site of many of the executions, promotes devotion to them and houses some of their relics.
Their feasts are not on the sanctoral calendar of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, but the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter celebrates the May 4 feast as a Memorial.
Their stories have been told and retold to offer models of fidelity and bravery, enduring torture and excruciating executions. They risked everything for the celebration of the sacraments, the unity of the Church under the vicar of Christ, and the fullness of Catholic doctrine. Just a few examples:
The three laywomen, Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line, and Margaret Ward, protected missionary priests in their homes and in prison. Clitherow was crushed to death under a heavy door with a sharp stone beneath her back. She could have entered a plea that could endanger her family after having priests celebrate Mass in her home in York, but she refused. Anne Line kept a safe-house for priests in London and helped the celebrating priest escape when the house was raided on the Feast of the Presentation. She was hanged, proclaiming that she wished she could have saved even more priests. Margaret Ward helped a priest escape from prison and refused under torture to reveal his location. She was also hanged.
The Protomartyrs, Houghton, Lawrence, Reynolds, and Webster, all wanted to please King Henry VIII and his marital ambitions, but they could not accept his claim to replace the vicar of Christ in their country. The Carthusians celebrated a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit and knew they could not take the Oath of Supremacy. When the executioner cut open his chest, through his hair shirt, to remove his heart, Houghton cried out, “Jesu, what will you do with my heart?”
St. Edmund Campion had published a book, Decem Rationes (Ten Reasons), in which he defended Catholic doctrines and offered arguments against Protestant dissent. After he was captured and tortured on the rack, he debated several Anglican theologians, not allowed any books or resources, and not permitted to ask any questions, only to answer them. It’s usually thought that he won the debates, because they stopped after a few sessions. That was enough for Philip Howard, the earl of Arundel, to return to the Catholic Church.
In the civilized West, we aren’t in danger of such persecution now, although we see signs of soft persecution around us: lawsuits and discrimination, prosecutions of FACE violations, rejection as foster or adoptive parents, etc. The issues are different (the defense of marriage as between one man and one woman, protection of the lives of the unborn, defense of the seal of the confessional, the very fact that there are two sexes), and the methods are according to a fairer judicial system (innocent until proven guilty, the burden of proof on the prosecution, appeals to higher Courts). But the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales offer examples of what it takes to stand up for the Faith, the courage and the love we need every day to persevere in God’s grace. Devotion to them and knowledge of their stories challenge and prepare us.
Seven laymen and women: Margaret Clitherow (1586), Richard Gwyn (1584), Philip Howard (1595), Anne Line (1601), John Rigby (1600), Margaret Ward (1588), Swithun Wells (1591)
“THE MYTH: Martin Luther was a simple reformer who desired to rid the Church of corruption and abuses, but when he challenged the pope on the issue of indulgences he was unjustly condemned, which forced him to break from the Church.
THE REAL STORY: This narrative is false. Luther was an unrepentant heretic whose teachings caused irreparable harm to the Catholic Church and Western civilization. When Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521) recognized the danger of Luther’s teachings he strenuously and patiently urged his repentance.
Giovanni de’ Medici came from one of the most powerful families in Italy. His father, Lorenzo the Magnificent, was a diplomat, politician, patron of several great Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, and ruler of the Florentine Republic. From an early age, Giovanni was molded for a life in the Church. He was created a cardinal by Pope Innocent VIII at the age of thirteen but did not officially assume the functions of the office until he turned sixteen.
In 1513, the College of Cardinals sat in conclave to elect the successor of Pope Julius II. The cardinals were divided between a candidate favored by an older faction and Giovanni, now thirty-seven, who was favored by the younger faction. Eventually, Giovanni was elected and took the name Leo. Considered the last of the Renaissance popes, Leo X focused on political affairs throughout his pontificate but did not ignore the reform movement initiated by his predecessor. He oversaw the completion of the Fifth Lateran Council, which issued several reform decrees in response to ecclesiastical abuses rampant at the time. Leo is perhaps best known for his 1515 decision to continue the practice of granting an indulgence to those who contributed alms to a construction project he inherited that needed more funding: the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Indulgence preachers were sent to regions throughout Christendom, including Electoral Saxony, home of an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther.
Luther took issue with the practice of granting indulgences and with certain Church teachings, and in 1517 published his opinions and complaints in his infamous 95 Theses. He also sent a copy to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, who forwarded the document to Rome, which is when Leo first heard about the monk who was to cleave Christendom. At first Leo believed the issue to be a quarrel between the Augustinian and Dominican religious orders (most indulgence preachers were Dominicans), so he ordered Luther’s superior to “soothe and quiet” the man. But Luther continued to advocate his heretical opinions by publishing several works in the spring of 1518.
Although Luther’s 95 Theses contained multiple heretical opinions, the most dangerous was his rejection of papal authority. Luther asserted the pope had no authority to dispense the merits of the treasury of grace to the faithful in the form of indulgences in order to remit the temporal punishment due to sin already forgiven in the sacrament of confession. This was not simply a sharp rebuke of an ecclesiastical abuse—Luther’s writings were an attack on the office of the papacy and of papal authority given by Christ in Matthew 16:18-19. In his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace Luther declared he did not believe indulgences had any benefit for the souls in purgatory, and in his Explanations of the Disputations on the Power of Indulgences he denied papal power extended to souls in purgatory. Luther’s attack on papal authority paved the way for his later demolition of the entire sacramental system and call for a national German church separated from Rome. Luther’s teachings were not reforms intended to return the Church to its pristine state but rather a rebellion designed to destroy the Church and create a new entity in Luther’s image.
These writings were studied in Rome, and in July 1518 a formal charge of “suspicion of disseminating heresy” was lodged against Luther. He was ordered to come to Rome to answer the charge within sixty days. Luther refused to leave Germany, claiming ill health and a fear for his safety. Although Leo could have enacted sterner measures against the recalcitrant monk, he chose the path of mercy and sent a personal envoy to meet with Luther and bring about his reconciliation.
Thomas de Vio, O.P. (known as Cajetan) was a proponent of Church reform and a Dominican, who had been master general of the order for a decade. Cajetan traveled to Germany, believing he could convince Luther to cease his heretical teaching. When the two men met in October 1518, Cajetan approached Luther in a friendly and fatherly manner but Luther was obstinate in his denial of Church teaching and shifty in his answers. Unfortunately, his patience worn thin, Cajetan lost his temper and yelled at Luther, who responded in kind. At the urging of his superior, Luther later apologized to Cajetan for his outburst, but he held the Dominican in contempt, writing later, “He sought to turn me aside from the Christian faith, I doubt whether he is a Catholic Christian” (The Revolt of Martin Luther).
Leo promulgated a bull on indulgences a month later in which he reiterated Church teaching, so that Luther and others could not feign ignorance. Despite this papal document Luther continued to preach against Church teaching.
Given Luther’s recalcitrance, on June 15, 1520 Leo issued the bull Exsurge Domine. In it Leo urged the Lord to arise and vindicate the cause of the Church against the heresies emanating from Germany. The document listed forty-one teachings contained in the works of Luther that were “either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.” Leo bemoaned the fact that Luther did not respond to repeated attempts at reconciliation, including the request to come to Rome in person to discuss his teachings. He expressed regret at the situation but recognized his duty to safeguard the faithful from heresy. Leo included one more exhortation to Luther to recant, giving him sixty days to do so or else incur excommunication.
Luther responded by publishing a treatise entitled Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist. He called Leo the Antichrist and wrote the purpose of the papal bull was to “compel men to deny God and worship the devil” (The Cleaving of Christendom: A History of Christendom). Later in the year Luther staged a public burning of Exsurge Domine and told his followers that whoever “does not resist the papacy with all his heart cannot obtain eternal salvation” (Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes).
SUMMARY: The real story of Luther and the pope illustrates the patience and mercy exhibited by the Church at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. The Church was not a corrupted institution resistant to reform and Luther was not a simple reformer. He was an obstinate heretic whom Leo urged repeatedly to repent. Unfortunately, Luther refused to listen.”
On Oct. 31, 1517, an obscure German professor of theology named Martin Luther launched an attack on the Roman Catholic Church by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church — a story that has been repeated for hundreds of years. Luther’s act of rebellion led to the Protestant Reformation, which is being marked by millions of Christians around the world Tuesday on its 500th anniversary.
But did that dramatic moment — Luther defiantly hammering his critique to the church door — really happen?
The story was first told by Philipp Melanchthon, a fellow professor at the University of Wittenberg, a close friend of Luther’s and a leader of the Reformation, after Luther’s death in 1546. And the church door did serve as a public bulletin board of sorts.
But Melanchthon was not in Wittenberg on the day he supposedly witnessed the nailing. He didn’t join the university faculty until 1518. And Luther, a prolific writer who published 30 pamphlets in three years and later translated the Bible into German, never recounted the story.
In 1961, Erwin Iserloh, a Catholic Luther researcher, argued that there was no evidence that Luther actually nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door. Indeed, at the 1617 celebration of the Reformation, Luther was depicted as writing the 95 Theses on the church door with a quill.
Iserloh’s assertion set off a debate among Luther historians that remains unresolved.
A decade ago, Martin Treu, who works for the Luther Memorials Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, discovered a handwritten note by Luther’s secretary, Georg Rörer, made in a revised copy of the New Testament before Luther’s death. It reads: “On the evening before All Saints’ Day in the year of our Lord 1517, theses about letters of indulgence were nailed to the doors of the Wittenberg churches by Doctor Martin Luther.”
While Rörer was also not an eyewitness, Treu noted, “he was one of Luther’s closest staff.” Treu’s conclusion: 95 Theses may have been nailed to several church doors in Wittenberg, not just at Castle Church.
What’s not in dispute: Luther mailed his attack on the Catholic sale of indulgences to the archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, Albert of Brandenburg, on Oct. 31, 1517. The indulgences were meant to assure their buyer that their sins would be forgiven — a form of corruption in Luther’s eyes.
“Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” quickly spread across Europe and reached Pope Leo X sometime in 1518. After a series of disputes, Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church on Jan. 3, 1521.
The theologian became a celebrity, and with his celebrity came a following and a new religion: Lutheranism. And the founding symbol of the Protestant Reformation remains the door of Castle Church, now inscribed in bronze with Luther’s 95 Theses.”
-bronze doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany now cast in bronze containing Luther’s 95 theses.
“On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses against papal indulgences, or the atonement of sins through monetary payment, on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany.” That line from a piece by David B. Morris posted by the Library of Congress on its website (“Martin Luther as Priest, Heretic, and Outlaw”) summarizes the popular view of how the Reformation began. But it’s rife with errors.
To start with the most trivial, the popular image of Luther nailing his theses to the church door is almost certainly a Protestant fiction. Joan Acocella, in a piece for the New Yorker (“How Martin Luther Changed the World,” Oct. 30, 2017), points out that modern scholars
“…differ on many points, but something that most of them agree on is that the hammering episode, so satisfying symbolically—loud, metallic, violent—never occurred. Not only were there no eyewitnesses; Luther himself, ordinarily an enthusiastic self-dramatizer, was vague on what had happened. He remembered drawing up a list of ninety-five theses around the date in question, but, as for what he did with it, all he was sure of was that he sent it to the local archbishop.”
Acocella also points out that the theses were not “a set of non-negotiable demands about how the Church should reform itself in accordance with Brother Martin’s standards,” but rather “like all ‘theses’ in those days, they were points to be thrashed out in public disputations, in the manner of the ecclesiastical scholars of the twelfth century.”
In terms of more serious errors, what was at the heart of the 95 Theses? According to Morris, Luther was protesting “papal indulgences, or the atonement of sins through monetary payment.” Wrong. Luther not only defended papal indulgences, the only anathema in the entirety of the 95 Theses was his Thesis #71: “Let him who speaks against the truth concerning papal indulgences be anathema and accursed.” In other words, the people that Martin Luther condemned weren’t Catholics but (modern) Protestants.
Nor are indulgences “the atonement of sins through monetary payment.” Not only do indulgences not bring about our atonement, “an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven” (Pope Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina, norm. 1). Our atonement is won not by monetary payment but by Jesus on Calvary. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Christ’s Passion was not only a sufficient but a superabundant atonement for the sins of the human race” (Summa Theologica III:48:2).
So, if the popular theory of Luther’s protest is almost entirely wrong, what’s the truth of it? Luther’s argument was multipronged (there’s a reason there were 95 theses) and a mix of good and bad. Part of his dispute was over the nature and extent of indulgences: where the pope derived the power to grant indulgences and the kinds of penalties that could be remitted through an indulgence.
Luther, who still believed in purgatory at that point, argued that the “power which the pope has in general over purgatory corresponds to the power which any bishop or curate has in a particular way in his own diocese and parish” (Thesis 25). Luther’s views here are idiosyncratic, and neither Protestants (who quickly gave up on indulgences and purgatory) nor Catholics have attempted seriously to defend them.
More significant was Luther’s critique not of indulgences as such but of the sale of indulgences. He rejected the teachings of indulgence preachers (Johann Tetzel, O.P. and others) who “say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory,” countering that “it is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone” (Theses 27-28).
Luther was largely correct on this point. After all, while indulgences don’t bring about our atonement (as Luther well knew), they are a spiritual good. And the sale of spiritual goods is anathema to Christianity, the sin of simony, named after the unhappy Simon Magus:
Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me also this power, that any one on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” (Acts 8:18-20).
There’s a long history in the Church both of simony popping up and of the Church condemning it. The second canon of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) ordered that “if any bishop performs an ordination for money and puts the unsaleable grace on sale,” he was upon conviction to “lose his personal rank,” while the ordained lost “the dignity or responsibility” he had attempted to purchase. A cleric found to have served as a go-between was likewise “demoted from his personal rank,” or, in the case of laymen and monks, anathematized.
So Luther stood in a long (and holy) tradition of rejecting simony, and the Council of Trent vindicated him on this point. The Council, desiring that “the abuses which have crept therein, and by occasion of which this honorable name of indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, be amended and corrected,” explicitly outlawed “all evil gains” for the obtaining of indulgences (“Decree on Indulgences”).
But that still leaves a question: how did these abuses happen in the first place? How hard is it to simply not sell spiritual goods? Well, a bit harder than it seems. One way of answering would be to trace the precise history: canon 2 of the Council of Clermont (1095 AD) decreed that “whoever for devotion alone, and not for the purpose of gaining honor or money, heads for Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God, that expedition is to be imputed to him [as satisfaction] for all penance.” That makes sense: what’s more worthy of an indulgence than risking your life to defend the Church?
Later Crusades expanded beyond the careful nuance of the Council of Clermont, offering indulgences through what became known as “vow redemption.” In short, those unable (due to age or illness) to go on crusade were given the opportunity to receive an indulgence by paying for someone else to go. And again, the expansion makes a sort of sense: it seems unfair to deprive someone of an indulgence when they were ready and willing but physically unable to go on crusade.
But this expansion was controversial in its day. In the thirteenth century, Thomas of Cantimpré, O.P., complained that indulgences were being acquired for relatively trivial amounts, amounting to as little as one percent of a person’s moveable wealth (Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 155-56). And it was only a short step from this point to the Church in Luther’s day, when preachers such as Tetzel made indulgences sound like purchasable get-out-of-purgatory-free tickets.
But tracing the history of the sale of indulgences is incomplete if we don’t also recognize the spiritual tightrope walked by the medieval Church and by all of us today. All Christians (whether they believe in indulgences or not) need to grapple with two core Christian ideas: first, that God really does reward generosity; and second, that it’s impossible to bribe God and evil to try. How we understand (and even “balance”) these two ideas makes a world of difference, since they sit in what seems like an uneasy, even paradoxical, relationship with one another.
This paradox is captured in the thirty-fifth chapter of the book of Sirach. In verses 10-11, the goodness of giving back to God is proclaimed: “Give to the Most High as He has given, and as generously as your hand has found. For the Lord is the One Who repays, and He will repay you sevenfold.” But in the next verse, there’s immediately a warning against transactional spirituality: “Do not offer Him a bribe, for He will not accept it; and do not trust to an unrighteous sacrifice; for the Lord is the judge, and with Him is no partiality.” In other words, give generously to God, Who will reward your generosity, but don’t think that you bribe Him or buy heaven.
While those verses from Sirach aren’t in Protestant Bibles, the underlying ideas are. St. Paul reminds the Corinthians to give generously since “God loves a cheerful giver” and “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6-7). He continues:
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for great generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God; for the rendering of this service not only supplies the wants of the saints but also overflows in many thanksgivings to God (2 Cor. 9:10-12).
St. Paul hints at the fact that God may give us rewards in this life, saying that “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). But God’s generosity is no less true in terms of heavenly rewards. As Jesus says to the rich young man, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21).
Tobit 12:8-9 (also not in Protestant Bibles) says that “prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than much with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to treasure up gold. For almsgiving delivers from death, and it will purge away every sin.”
Jesus describes this as a sort of spiritual fortune-building: “Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:33-34). And “give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Luke 6:38).
The idea that giving generously ensures spiritual riches in heaven isn’t some medieval corruption of the gospel: the Bible actually teaches it. And yet we have, alongside this message, warnings such as Sirach 35:12 and Acts 8:18-20 telling us not to try to buy the spiritual gifts of God.
The easy—and hard—answer is to love God for His own sake and before all else. Those rewards aren’t bad: it’s good that God blesses generous givers, and that He answers prayers, and that He considers our meager almsgiving seriously. But the spiritual life was never about the rewards and must never become about the rewards. The gifts God gives are to draw us to Him and to reveal something about His generous and loving nature, not to replace Him. After all, God wants to give us not merely some reward but Himself.
Jesus is happy to multiply loaves to feed the hungry crowds. But He’s also quick to warn them not to follow Him for that reason. A day after the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1-14), Jesus rebuked His followers, saying, “you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26). It’s easy for us to judge His hungry followers, just as it’s easy to judge the medieval Christians giving money to try to get indulgences for their loved ones. But before we do that, it’s worth asking: are we so different today?”
“An Incident in the Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (The Renunciation of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary)”, by James Collinson, 1851. Oil on canvas; 47 ¾ x 71 ½ inches (120.3 x 181.6 cm). Collection of Johannesburg Art Gallery.
10/5/23 “… marks the three hundred and twentieth birthday of the American Protestant theologian and revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), who is credited with unleashing the Great Awakening Protestant revival in the American colonies during the 1730s. Edwards preached a cycle of sermons to his congregation in Massachusetts, which he later published in the 1737 book A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.
Edwards’s preaching and book sparked a renewed interest in spirituality among colonial Protestant congregations in the 1740s. The movement spawned a market for revivalist literature and spread rapidly throughout parts of New England. Although there were many supporters of the movement, its focus on individual expressions of spirituality, as well as some of its teachings, clashed with the practices and doctrines of various Protestant groups. The extent of the Great Awakening’s impact is debated, but there is no doubt that the movement marked a significant historical event in the spiritual life of the American colonies.
Several centuries earlier, the Catholic Church underwent its own “awakening,” although the revival of Catholic life and spirituality in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is more aptly described as a renewal and authentic reform. The Catholic Reformation, undertaken mostly as a response to the Protestant Revolt unleashed by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others, was initiated by Pope Paul III (r. 1534-1549). Before his papal election, Alessandro Farnese had been a cardinal for forty years and was unceremoniously known as “Cardinal Petticoat” because he was the brother of Giulia Farnese, the mistress of Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), who created Alessandro a cardinal. Paul had been the oldest cardinal (sixty-seven years) in the college, and so expectations of his pontificate were not high, but he surprised his contemporaries with the longest pontificate, fifteen years, in a century.
Paul III focused his energies on providing the foundation for the most comprehensive and successful renewal movement in Church history, the key component of which was the calling of an ecumenical council that eventually opened in 1545 in the city of Trent. The first meeting produced doctrinal decrees concerning the role of Scripture and Tradition, the canon of Scripture, original sin and justification, and the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. Reform decrees banning the practices of absenteeism and pluralism were also approved. However, the outbreak of plague dictated a suspension, which lasted four years.
Sadly, Paul III did not live to see the completion of the Council of Trent because he died during the suspension. It would take another sixteen years for the council to complete its work to undertake the necessary renewal and reform of the Church.
The Council of Trent was a key component of the Catholic Reformation, but the work of implementing the conciliar decrees and inculcating them into everyday Catholic life was undertaken by multiple saints and the establishment of a new religious order, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Jesuits focused their efforts for the Catholic Reformation on the sacraments, education, and missionary activity. Additionally, the Jesuits placed an emphasis on catechesis as well as higher levels of learning, and their educational work was expressed in the establishment and staffing of universities throughout Christendom.
The reform and renewal of Catholic life during the Catholic Reformation produced a Catholic “awakening” in individual piety, new religious orders, and renewed artistic expression. It also sparked one of the greatest evangelization efforts in Catholic history.
While the Protestant Great Awakening was ongoing in colonial America, the Church was moving toward the end of the Catholic Reformation, which had produced a period of growth and vitality not seen for centuries. After the death of Pope Clement XII and a tedious and long six-month conclave, the mid-eighteenth century witnessed the pontificate of compromise candidate Pope Benedict XIV (r. 1740-1758), an erudite scholar with interests in science and literature. As pope, Benedict made conciliation and concession the hallmarks of his pontifical policy concerning both internal and external issues. A peaceful and pious man, he eschewed conflict and division, and his actions increased esteem for the moral authority of the papacy among Protestant and Catholic secular rulers. As an example, Benedict deftly navigated the vexing question of mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants, which had impacted the Church for some time with different theological opinion and pastoral practice. In the 1748 bull Magnae nobis admirationis, Benedict XIV decreed the permissibility of mixed marriages under certain conditions, pre-eminent among them the raising and education of children from these unions as Catholics. Other pontifical actions included ecumenical dialogue with the Eastern churches, the renewal of Pope Clement XII (r. 1730-1740)’s prohibition of Catholic membership in Freemasonry, a revision to the Roman Martyrology, and the establishment of academies in Rome for the clerical studies in Roman and Christian antiquities and Church history. Benedict went to his eternal rest on May 3, 1758.
Pope Benedict XIV’s successors did not enjoy the time of peace present in his pontificate. The tranquility experienced by the Church at the time of the Protestant “Great Awakening” in colonial America and initiated by the earlier Catholic Reformation was shattered by the end of the eighteenth century. The vitality of Catholic institutions and missionary activity was sorely tested in the “Enlightened” age of absolutist monarchs, revolutionary elements, and the post-Christian world. By the end of the century, the Church faced attacks from secular rulers bent on controlling all aspects of national life, and from “enlightened” skeptics, who sought to diminish or eradicate the Church’s role in the public arena. The Society of Jesus, at the forefront of the Catholic Reformation and responsible for great missionary activity and a revitalization of lay Catholic piety, was attacked and expelled from most European nations and, eventually, suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. Soon after that infamous event, the Church suffered the bloodlust of French revolutionaries, who dismantled Catholic life within the “Eldest Daughter of the Church.”
Although the attacks against the Church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from external and internal enemies were substantial, the “awakening” of Catholic living from the Catholic Reformation provided the solid foundation for the Church to weather the storms of the modern age.”
Left to right: German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, Mexican Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, and Chinese Cardinal Zen Ze-Kiun.
Listening to the Vatican, internal Catholic Church communication, is an art, requiring much experience and sensitivity to foreign languages and cultures. It is not an easy do. I am the poorest and most ignorant example of one who tries. However, here are some of the best sources I have come across in trying to understand. I hope they prove useful to you as well. The Vatican is a master of language. I do not believe there is another human counterpart. It is about nuance, not soundbite. Listen carefully, pray, let the Holy Spirit speak to you, have compassion and pray for all parties involved, sinners are we all. It is incumbent upon the Catholic to constantly inform and educate their consciences, the highest authority in the Church and for the person. Imagine the pressure and gravest of responsibilities to govern and helm the barque of Peter with the responsibility for ~1.8 billion souls with the mission to reunify and/or evangelize ~8 billion, and to show the compassion and love of Jesus Christ as well as the truth of His teachings for the last two thousand years. Listening to soundbites and headlines is equivalent to ignorance, only more sinful. Human beings, human politics, God help us! He will.
“A group of five cardinals asked Pope Francis this summer to answer five “dubia,” or doubts, related to the synod on synodality.
The request was made public on the eve of the long-awaited gathering in Rome, which Vatican watchers say could lead to far-reaching changes in the Church.
The five dubia, presented Aug. 21 to the pope and the Vatican’s doctrine czar, posed questions about doctrinal development, same-sex blessings, the status of the synod on synodality, women priests, and the conditions for sacramental absolution.
An initial draft of the five questions — signed by the German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, the U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Mexican Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, the Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, and Hong Kong’s Cardinal Joseph Zen — was presented July 10 to Pope Francis and Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, the then prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The pope reportedly replied the next day with an extensive letter in Spanish. But according to the Italian Catholic journalist Sandro Magister, the cardinals believed that it did not answer their questions.
“Although signed by Francis, the letter displayed the writing style of his trusted theologian, the Argentine Victor Manuel Fernández, who would soon take on the new role of prefect of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith,” Magister wrote in an Oct. 2 post on his Settimo Cielo blog.
The five cardinals then sought to reformulate the questions so that they could only be answered “yes” or “no.”
Pope Francis has not responded to the rephrased dubia more than 40 days after they were submitted, Magister said.
But in an Oct. 1 report, Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper quoted Fernández, who formally took up the role of doctrinal prefect in September, as saying that the cardinals “obviously always have doubts, it’s a constant, you have to respect their passions though, everyone has their passion.”
Fernández, who received the cardinal’s red hat Sept. 30, reportedly added: “The pope has the freedom to respond or not, to consider whether to close a question or discuss it as will also be done at the synod, freely.”
In an Oct. 2 “Notification to Christ’s Faithful,” the five cardinals said they had decided to publish their questions ahead of the Oct. 4-29 synod on synodality so that Catholics “may not be subject to confusion, error, and discouragement but rather may pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff, that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully.”
The cardinals’ first question asked whether it was possible “for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ‘ex cathedra’, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world”.
The second said: “Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God?”
This was followed by a related question asking: “Does the teaching upheld by the universal ordinary magisterium, that every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out, continue to be valid?”
The third question was: “Will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the Supreme Authority of the Church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, ‘una cum capite suo’ [‘together with its head’], to the College of Bishops.”
The fourth asked: “Could the Church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the Church cannot change?”
The fifth and final question said: “Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?”
The five dubia echo a set of five questions presented to Pope Francis in 2016 regarding the interpretation of Amoris laetitia, his apostolic exhortation on love in the family, which received no response.
The 2016 dubia were presented by two of the five cardinals who signed the 2023 request for clarification — Cardinal Brandmüller and Cardinal Burke — as well as the Italian Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who died in 2017, and the German Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who died the same year.
The Vatican released the pope’s eight-page response in Spanish to the initial dubia following their publication Oct. 2. An English translation of the reply was published on Cardinal Burke’s official website.
In the translation posted by the U.S. cardinal, Pope Francis said that the time of the synod on synodality, which is due to end in October 2024, was a period in which questions were being asked about the Church’s structure and mission.
“With great sincerity, I tell you that it is not very good to be afraid of these question marks and questions,” the pope wrote. “The Lord Jesus, who promised Peter and his successors indefectible assistance in the task of caring for the holy people of God, will help us, also thanks to this synod, to keep ourselves always more in constant dialogue with the men and women of our time and in total fidelity to the Holy Gospel.”
“However, although it does not always seem prudent to me to respond to the questions addressed directly to me (because it would be impossible to answer them all), in this case I think it is suitable to do so because of the closeness of the synod.”
The response addressed the five July dubia one by one, beginning with the first question, “about the claim that we should reinterpret Divine Revelation according to the cultural and anthropological changes in vogue.”
The pope offered an eight-part reply, which began: “The answer depends on the meaning you give to the word ‘reinterpret.’ If you mean ‘interpret better,’ the expression is valid.”
It continued, citing the Vatican II document Dei Verbum: “In this sense, the Second Vatican Council stated that it is necessary that the work of the exegetes — I would add of theologians — ‘may help the Church to form a firmer judgment.’”
In response to the second question, on “the claim that the widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with Revelation and the Magisterium,” the pope wrote: “The Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children. She calls ‘marriage’ only such a union.”
He went on: “This is why the Church avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict this conviction and imply that something which is not marriage is recognized as marriage.”
“In dealing with persons, however, we must not lose the pastoral charity that must permeate all our decisions and attitudes. The defense of the objective truth is not the only expression of this charity which is also made of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot make ourselves into judges who only deny, reject, exclude.”
“Pastoral prudence must therefore properly discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more people, that do not convey a misconception of marriage. Because, when a blessing is requested, it is a request for help from God, a plea to be able to live better, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better.”
Concluding his answer with reference to his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, the pope said: “Decisions that may be part of pastoral prudence in certain circumstances need not be transformed into a norm. In other words, it is not appropriate for a diocese, a conference of bishops, or any other ecclesial structure to authorize constantly and officially procedures or rules for every type of affair, since everything that ‘is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule’ since this ‘would … lead to an intolerable casuistry.’”
“Canon law should not and cannot cover everything, nor can conferences of bishops pretend to do so with their various documents and protocols, because the life of the Church runs through many channels besides the normative ones.”
Responding the third question, about whether synodality is a “constitutive element of the Church,” the pope wrote: “As you well recognize that the supreme and full authority of the Church is exercised either by the pope in virtue of his office or by the college of bishops together with its head, the Roman pontiff … nevertheless, with these dubia, you yourselves manifest your need to participate, to give freely your opinion and to collaborate, and thus claim some form of ‘synodality’ in the exercise of my ministry.”
He went on: “The Church is a ‘mystery of missionary communion,’ but this communion is not only affective or ethereal, but necessarily implies real participation: that not only the hierarchy, but all the People of God, in different ways and at different levels, can make their voices heard and feel part of the Church’s journey. In this sense we can indeed say that synodality, as a style and dynamism, is an essential dimension of the life of the Church.”
But he said this was this quite different from trying “to sacralize or impose a particular synodal methodology that one group likes, to make it the norm and the obligatory channel for all.”
Replying to the fourth question, about a belief among pastors and theologians that priestly ordination can be conferred on women as the Church’s theology has changed, the pope stressed that “when St. John Paul II taught that the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women must be affirmed ‘in a definitive manner,’ he was in no way denigrating women and giving a supreme power to men.”
Referring to Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, Francis added: “On the other hand, to be rigorous, we should recognize that a clear and authoritative doctrine on the exact nature of a ‘definitive statement’ has not yet been fully developed. It is not a dogmatic definition and yet it must be complied with by all. No one can publicly contradict it and nevertheless it can be the object of study, as in the case of the validity of ordinations in the Anglican Communion.”
In answer to the fifth question, about whether repentance is a necessary condition for sacramental absolution, Pope Francis wrote: “Repentance is necessary for the validity of sacramental absolution and implies the intention not to sin. But there is no mathematics here, and once again I must remind you that the confessional is not a customs house.”
“We are not masters, but humble stewards of the sacraments that nourish the faithful, for these gifts of the Lord, rather than relics to be guarded, are aids of the Holy Spirit for the life of persons.”
“There are many ways of expressing repentance. Often, in people with a very wounded self-esteem, to declare themselves guilty is a cruel torture, but the very fact of approaching confession is a symbolic expression of repentance and of the search of divine help.”
Pope Francis, the Church learned Monday, answered the dubia.
Not — to be clear — the questions posed to him after the 2016 publication of Amoris laetitia — questions so long unanswered that “answer the dubia” has become a meme in some Catholic circles.
But the pope answered this summer another set of dubia — questions asked and answered back in July, pertaining to the synod on synodality, and released Monday in a kind of piecemeal fashion, with two sets of questions asked by five cardinals first reported by Italian journalist Sandro Magister, and then the Vatican taking the unusual step of releasing the pope’s answers to the first set of questions.
When he did so, the pope set off international headlines — and a great deal of controversy — regarding the prospect that he might permit the liturgical blessing of same-sex couples.
Of course, it’s a matter of debate whether Francis actually said something to merit that speculation. But on this issue, it’s worth looking beyond what Francis has said, to what he has done, and what he has chosen not to do.
There is a lot contained in the pope’s dubia responsa, with the answers to five questions spread across eight pages in the original Spanish. And while much of what the pontiff said he has said before, there will be debate over several topics addressed in the text — and debate over the dubia themselves, and what exactly the cardinals meant to accomplish by asking the pontiff questions and then, unsatisfied with his answers, rephrasing the questions and asking them again.
But the biggest headline to emerge from the story is the notion — repeated in both the Catholic and secular press — that Pope Francis has approved the prospect of “blessing” same-sex couples, signaled “openness” on the subject, or, as one newspaper put it, “softened” the Church’s “ban” on the practice.
The story came from language in the pope’s July 11 letter, published by the Vatican. In response to a question about whether it is possible for the Church to consider same-sex unions as “possible goods,” the pope wrote several paragraphs which emphasized that there are relationships — presumably same-sex relationships among them — which are “not morally acceptable.”
The pope added that “the Church avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict” its doctrine regarding marriage, or “give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized.”
Still, Pope Francis also allowed for the possibility that some kind of blessing could be conferred on one or more Catholics in “not-marriage” unions.
“Pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. Because when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea to be able to live better, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better.”
In short, the pope seemed to say, when people in an irregular union — perhaps a same-sex union — come to the parish for a blessing, it is worth discerning what they’re really asking for, and whether there is some way the Church can respond to that, even while avoiding the appearance of a nuptial blessing.
That idea got framed as a “softening” or an “openness” to the blessing of same-sex unions, and controversy erupted on Monday, across media outlets, among the commentariat, and across social media.
To some, the pope’s language is not entirely different from what the DDF said on the subject in 2021.
But some Catholics say the devil is in the differences — and that some small differences should be taken very seriously.
In 2021, the DDF, with Francis’ approval, clarified that it is not possible for the Church to bless same-sex unions, because God “does not and cannot bless sin.”
That clarification — which also came in response to a dubium — was widely seen as a surprisingly conservative move in the Francis papacy, hailed by many orthodox Catholics, and maligned by Catholics hoping that Francis would usher in change to the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality.
But while it prohibited liturgical blessings of same-sex couples, the DDF statement also affirmed that the prohibition on nuptial blessings did not preclude the possibility of “blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching.”
Some observers note that while the 2021 statement spoke about “individuals,” the 2023 responsa spoke about “one or more persons.”
And while the 2021 statement “declare[d] illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge [same-sex] unions as such,” the 2023 statement made no such proviso.
Still, some argue that Francis didn’t rescind the 2021 statement — which was published with his explicit approval — and that the 2023 statement, and its seemingly limitless possibilities, are actually curtailed by the DDF statement — that the 2023 text should be read in light of the earlier statement on the subject, which could be understood as a kind of limiting principle.
But for some Catholics, Francis seemed to be broadening the scope of possible blessing well beyond the 2021 statement, allowing for the possibility that self-identified gay couples might receive together a kind of blessing that would, in some ways, resemble marriage — despite the pope’s explicit prohibitions of that possibility.
One observer called such a possibility “nuclear,” and others have pointed out that Francis risks an actual schism — or at least a concerted pushback from bishops around the world — if he adopts even a semi-official “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on the prospect of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples.
Except, by appearances, the pope already has — at least tacitly.
Of course, only time will tell what the pontiff means about same-sex blessings in principle — his July 11 answer can be read in more than one way, and, indeed, it has been.
But in practice, it’s worth noting that Belgian bishops published last year a text allowing for a ritual blessing of same-sex couples, and the pontiff has — to date — not yet intervened.
Even while the pope’s 2023 responsa said explicitly that episcopal conferences should not produce such ritual texts, the pope has not intervened to stop the Belgian bishops from publishing one, stepped in after a German bishop said last month that he would not penally sanction priests who offer liturgical blessings to gay couples, or addressed a kind of protest-blessing performed by priests for gay couples in the cathedral plaza in Cologne.
That might be the point on which everyone can agree — that regardless of whether the pope’s July 11 letter was permissive or restrictive on same-sex blessings in principle, the pontiff himself has already been at least passively permissive on the subject in practice, without any public response to the European dioceses where the practice is quickly becoming enshrined as a matter of course.
While Catholics argue over whether Francis made his policy of toleration explicit in the July letter, it might not actually matter much.
Despite the scandal of official tolerance, or published ritual texts, at the diocesan and episcopal conference level, Francis seems content to work behind the scenes on episcopal discipline — if he is working at all — with no public statement on the decisions in Belgium and Germany.
In fact, few serious observers in the Church have expected that any clarity will come on orthopraxy regarding same-sex liturgical blessings until after a future conclave — Pope Francis does not seem inclined to address the pragmatic realities of bishops who are ignoring Vatican directives on the subject.
After the dubia — and the responsa heard round the world — most Catholics will be looking to the synod on synodality, to see whether Pope Francis will signal again more openness to the prospect of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples.
The pope likely won’t. And while he might be asked about it on his next airplane trip, and he might offer more reflections, it’s not likely they’ll be concrete. It’s most likely that when he speaks about the subject, the pope will continue to focus on welcome, and pastoral discernment, without elaborating on the clear limits that might give definition to his reflections, but making some reference to the 2021 statement when pressed.
In short, his future reflections are most likely to be vague enough to be subject to broad interpretations.
It is not clear that the decisions of Belgian bishops, and the clergy in Germany, reflect what the pope actually thinks about the issue of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples. But the pontiff is more than a theologian — he is the governor of the universal Church. And some Catholics will be looking closely in the months to come at the parishes of Flanders, and the cathedral square in Cologne.
There, the question will be not what the pope chooses to say, but what he chooses to do — if anything.”
“Here’s the problem with philosophical arguments for God (the good ones, anyway): they’re complicated.
This shouldn’t surprise us in the least. Philosophical arguments for God are supposed to reveal something about the nature of fundamental reality and can take years to puzzle through. What should cause us to think that would be easy?
So, although folks will often attempt to pass off comparatively simple arguments, they are, despite being accessible, just plain wrong, or at least poorly formulated—and neither the doubter nor the believer is served by simplistic takes for God.
All this to say that distilling philosophical arguments for God without diluting or distorting them is difficult. Fortunately, as complicated as philosophical arguments for God can be, their general thrust is, for the most part, intuitive. With that in mind, let’s present the general idea of some of the more sophisticated and convincing philosophical arguments for God and to make the presentation simple . . . but not simplistic.
Keep in mind that when we present arguments like these at an introductory level, various details will be truncated or omitted. So I must insist that this is a worthwhile tradeoff for means for initial exposition, and that the arguments below are, in fact, good arguments, though we will ultimately have to pursue their fullest development elsewhere.
With those disclaimers, let’s begin.
1. The Argument from Adequate Reason
Common experience reveals stuff that doesn’t explain its own existence—that is, stuff philosophers call contingent. Here’s a list of some such stuff: Graham crackers, Yngwie Malmsteen, photons, corn. These things exist but could have been otherwise or not been at all. Reality did not have to include them, yet here they are. Why?
Philosophers have long claimed that stuff like this—that is, all the contingent things, considered collectively—must have some cause or explanation, and this cause or explanation cannot itself be contingent. That means it must be necessary, a being that must exist no matter what, a being whose nature or essence somehow guarantees its own existence.
A being like that would obviously be very special, quite unlike the beings of common experience, no matter how talented (Yngwie Malmsteen) or tasty (Graham crackers). Indeed, philosophers have argued that a necessary being would have to lack all the features that imply contingency (otherwise, it wouldn’t be a necessary being), such as being arbitrarily limited (say, in power, shape, location, knowledge) or composite (made of parts, physical or metaphysical), or changing and thus acquiring new modes of existence.
When thought through, it turns out that a necessary being would inevitably bear the traditional divine attributes: omnipotence, immateriality, immutability, eternality, simplicity, etc. Philosophers call this the Argument from Adequate (or sometimes Sufficient) Reason.
There are two main obstacles the argument from adequate reason must overcome. First, we have to support the principle that all contingent things do in fact have some adequate cause and don’t just exist as a matter of “brute fact,” with no explanation to be found. The second is closing off the so-called infinite regress objection, or making it clear that even if there were an infinite regress of contingent things—meaning each contingent thing is caused by some prior contingent thing, forever and ever—this would not provide the adequate explanation we require.
There is much that can be said to overcome these obstacles, but here are two quick rejoinders. First, it is highly rational to expect an explanation for something unless there is principled reason not to. After all, how else would we pursue science and philosophy, or increase our understanding of the world? To arbitrarily abandon this “explain everything (or at least as much as we can)” principle, particularly in the face of some fact that crucially seems to require explanation (like contingency), simply because its application converges upon theism, smacks of evasion, not objection, and is quite irrational. So, unless we have some good reason to think the fact of contingency cannot possibly find explanation—and we don’t!—it is far more rational to go with even just a conceivable explanation than no explanation at all.
As for the infinite regress objection? Is it really just turtles all the way down? Here seventeenth-century philosopher Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz, one of the original formulators of this line of argument, offers a satisfying response: suppose there were an infinite line of geometry books, with each one having been copied from the one previous. Does this infinite regress remove all relevant mystery?
Leibniz says obviously not, and I agree. After all, we would still want to know why there is that infinite line of geometry books instead of nothing, and why the subject is geometry and not, say, biochemistry instead. Thus, according to Leibniz, even if an infinite regress of contingent causes is possible, it is irrelevant. The fact of contingency cannot be adequately explained by further contingency, no matter how much contingency there is and no matter how that contingency is arranged (in a line, circle, etc.).
Finally, a bonus consideration: While it seems that a necessary being is useful for explaining all contingent being, we should still like to know how contingency can arise from necessity. If fundamental reality is necessary, then why isn’t everything necessary? Here again, classical theism has the advantage, since we can argue that God—the single, simple, necessary being—freely chose to create the physical world. God’s act of free choice preserves the fact of contingency (that the world need not have been) while anchoring everything in necessity. Great result.
2. The Argument from Morality
Many of us take morality to be objective, which is to say, we believe that our moral statements and beliefs (e.g., that murder is wrong) are not merely describing people’s attitudes or preferences, but relating to what it means to live an objectively good life and flourish as the kinds of things we are.
If morality is objective, then specific people can be wrong in their moral beliefs, because what makes a moral belief true or false is beyond what a person happens to desire. This ought to be common sense, since most of us think desiring to love our fellow man is really good, whereas desiring to oppress our fellow man is really bad, and we think people who believe or act otherwise are gravely mistaken.
The traditional atheist, who claims that fundamental reality is just indifferent mindless stuff, and that everything about human existence reduces to atomic and evolutionary theory, veers toward nihilism. In other words, our moral sentiments, according to the atheist, are evolutionarily acquired beliefs insofar as they are useful for getting us to “have sex and avoid bears,” not because they are in any sense “true.” For the nihilist, moral beliefs are just personal preferences, mere sentiments or attitudes or tastes, like what we express when evaluating tapioca pudding or Nickelback’s “Photograph.”
It is commonly understood that many atheists, new and old, are nihilists. “There are no objective moral facts,” Nietzsche once pronounced. In modern times, naturalist philosophers like Alex Rosenberg argue that Darwinian theory (conjoined with naturalism) is an acid that dissolves our traditional understanding of morality, and that nihilism is the only consistent atheistic story about morality. As atheist philosopher Michael Ruse tells us, morality is “flimflam” . . . “an illusion” . . . “just a matter of emotions.” All fairly common atheistic commitments—and, I would add, consistent, coming from their naturalistic starting point.
On the other hand, if some atheist is reluctant to abandon objective morality, as many (thankfully) are, he must complicate his worldview to accommodate morality. Doing so invites two serious problems.
First, such complications will be suspiciously ad hoc and render the atheist’s theory less likely to be true. Why? Because simpler theories are more likely to be true, and the simpler atheistic theory is obviously the one that explains away objective morality through “blind” evolutionary forces, as many naturalists convincingly argue.
Moreover, the moral dimension appears extremely rich, which means the complications made by the atheist will have to be extensive to cover everything. For example, the atheist needs not just to explain moral facts (e.g., that rape is always wrong), but moral knowledge (e.g., how we know that rape is always wrong?). Imagine how much we would have to add to a theory that otherwise veers strongly, if not inevitably, to nihilism to accommodate these many features of moral experience. It’s a lot, building in a ton of complications, making the naturalist’s theory not very believable.
Second, recall that the mode of intellectual operation for the naturalist is scientistic, meaning, in cliché form, that we ought not “go beyond the science” in our claims to knowledge. However, moral facts are clearly not something science can tell us about, since nobody can see moral facts through a microscope or telescope, to put it crudely. This “breach of conduct” from a naturalist is problematic, since naturalists are effectively admitting that science isn’t the be-all and end-all and does not exhaust the intelligible content of reality. But if that’s the case, then what’s stopping us from running philosophical arguments for God, including as the best explanation for moral facts and knowledge and human dignity?
Once again, classical theism has considerable advantages, as theism can explain all the relevant moral features of reality with a simple and highly unified theory. For the classical theist, fundamental reality—God, who just is supreme being and supreme goodness—is where being and value converge at their climax. He provides a stable, traditional, and definitely rationally decidable way of thinking about the moral landscape. God can also equip us with reliable ways of forming moral beliefs and would be interested in doing so. So moral knowledge is expected if God exists as well.
For these reasons, if we think morality is objective, that we can know at least some moral truths, and that human beings really do have a special place in the universe, we really should endorse classical theism over atheistic naturalism.
3. The Argument from Consciousness
Life presents to us an extremely rich qualitative dimension, which is to say, the entire “what it is like”-ness to being you and experiencing the things you experience. The spicy scent of ginger tea, the easy sight of the flamingo, and the luscious guitar sounds of Ratt drive the point home.
The way naturalists usually tell it is that consciousness is a late and local phenomenon, something that emerges from purely mindless physical stuff. Simply put, whatever is fundamental to the naturalist is, effectively, whatever consciousness is not: it is not feeling, not sensing, and not “about” anything (the way thoughts are about things).
But the immediate problem is that it seems extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to construct consciousness from an utterly unconscious base, as described by naturalism.
Just think about it. How does one take mindless atoms and make a unified center of conscious awareness, a subject that binds together so many different thoughts and feelings through intervals of time?
The problem is not just a matter of trying to establish sufficient material complexity, but also how one leaps, as if by magic, across profoundly different kinds of reality. Compare: just as the number and arrangement of white LEGO blocks is irrelevant to constructing a purple tower (even infinite time and number of pieces won’t help), it seems that the same problem, if not significantly worse, applies when it comes to constructing a unified conscious being from the disparate mindless blocks that the naturalistic worldview has to offer.
The problem doesn’t end there, however. For even if the naturalist can make sense of how consciousness could emerge from an unconscious base, he doesn’t have a good story for explaining why it would emerge. Consciousness seems wasteful for the naturalist, since it’s the mindless atoms that do all the work, anyway. (Remember that according to naturalism, the physical realm causes and determines the mental realm, not the other way around.) Thus, there is no good naturalistic-evolutionary account for why the emergence of consciousness would happen, even if the emergence of consciousness could happen.
Classical theism avoids both issues since theism isn’t committed to everything reducing to physics (which is absurd anyway, but whatever—set that aside). In a real sense, molecules aren’t fundamental in classical and Christian theism. Persons are. Theism starts not from a principle of indifference, but a principle of perfection, where everything in the created world is not just less than, but infinitely less than what stands at the foundation. Surely it is easier to think of how we can get something lesser from something (infinitely) greater than it is to think of how one can get something so profound as consciousness from something entirely bereft of thoughts and feelings, like atoms.
Moreover, theism gives reason to expect conscious beings. We are good to have around. God would know this and would be motivated to bring us about. So not only is our emergence possible on theism, but it is also expected. All this gives another powerful reason to accept classical theism over atheistic naturalism.
4. The Argument from Fine-Tuning
We have a basic intuition that stuff that seems “well put together”—i.e., complex stuff, with functionally interrelated parts—is the product of intelligence. This intuition is frequently applied in experience: we see a mousetrap or a Nintendo Switch or the Mona Lisa, and we naturally think some intelligent being produced it. By and large, this intuition is frequently confirmed in experience. Certain things seem to obviously be the product of forethought, which implies that creative intelligence (the ability to engage in relational thinking), not blind (unintelligent) natural forces, is responsible.
But the atheist says, “Not so fast: evolution shows us how things that appear designed are actually the product of totally unintelligent, pitiless forces of nature.”
However, as the best science informs us, evolution requires a very special physical setup to occur, and the physical setup of our universe is incredibly “fine-tuned” or “really well put together” concerning the necessary conditions for the emergence of interactive life. Physicists tell us that if things were just a teensy-weensy bit different concerning, say, the expansion rate of the universe, the strength of the strong nuclear force, the weight of the electron, or many other examples, the emergence of intelligence life would not be possible, because in many cases chemistry would not be possible, or the universe would have collapsed back in on itself, or some other catastrophic scenario. This conclusion enjoys overwhelming expert consensus, from theists and atheists alike. Where the disagreement largely lies is in what explains the fine-tuning.
From the best of what we know, scientifically speaking, evolution requires a physical system that appears “well put together,” a sort of “Goldilocks” situation, where things are just right for evolution to take hold and eventually produce beings like us. Once all that is understood, it becomes clear that evolution does not defeat our frequently confirmed intuition that stuff that appears well put together is best explained by intelligent agency, something capable of foresight.
At this point, the atheist might say the multiverse could explain fine-tuning. The theist can respond, maybe it does. But how does that help? As physicist Luke Barnes explains, any theoretically plausible model of the multiverse itself requires fine-tuning; thus, the problem is just relocated, not actually resolved. So until someone can propose a multiverse model that is predictively useful as a physical theory and does not itself appear well fit together (finely tuned), the theist is justified in maintaining his intuition that things that appear well put together are well put together because something intelligent is behind them.
The basic intuition is undefeated “all the way down.” There is thus no reason—from science, anyway—to think things that strongly appear to be the product of intelligence somehow aren’t.
Finally, when it comes to an entire physical universe being well put together, it does not take a lot of imagination to suppose whose intelligence is behind it.
(A note: Someone might worry that God is a poor explanation of the physical universe because God would be more complex than the physical universe. This is false. In the most relevant sense, God is far simpler than any physical reality, since God is an unrestricted act of understanding. In other words, God is the absolutely simple and immaterial first principle of all, a being of pure positiveness, with zero limitations or arbitrary restrictions, lacking all internal complexity, especially physical complexity. That makes God not only simpler than any possible physical explanation, but the simplest conceivable explanation there is.)
5. The Argument from Suffering
Recall the argument from consciousness. There it was made clear that the naturalistic worldview holds that our mental life is something late and local, preceded by and entirely caused by unthinking, unfeeling physical bits. Such commitments are what cause many naturalists to endorse a position called epiphenomenalism (an epiphonema is just something that is itself caused but causes nothing) when it comes to our mental life, or our thoughts and feelings. This is a spooky position and contrary to common sense, since it implies, for example, that our desiring coffee—that is, the feeling of wanting coffee—has nothing to do with our going and getting coffee. Such a feeling just coincidentally (magically?) attends to blind physical forces causing the action of “getting coffee.”
Now, to be clear, epiphenomenalism is as self-evidently false as anything in philosophy could be, and to the extent that naturalism is committed to epiphenomenalism, is even more reason to reject naturalism.
But there is yet another problem. Typically, the naturalist tells us that the vast suffering of our experience is far better expected if God does not exist and if naturalism is true, and so we should endorse naturalism over theism. But this story is way too superficial and ignores too much of what actually goes on in naturalistic research programs, including philosophy of mind. So let’s connect some dots.
Evolution selects for outcomes and functions that confer survival advantage, not feelings, per se, and human functions for the naturalist are possible without feeling. For example, the function of me pulling my hand away from the prick of a pin does not require any painful feeling—it requires no feeling at all within the naturalistic understanding, because the feeling is causally irrelevant. Further, if there is a feeling attendant to some function of human behavior, the feeling could have been literally anything; pulling my hand from the pin could have been correlated with the feeling I feel when listening to the Barney theme song, tasting a grape, or looking at my grandmother’s bunion. Why? Again, because the feeling plays no role in what “the physics” is doing, since the feelings are determined by the physics and the physics is in no way determined by the feelings. (For the naturalistic, remember, the causality is entirely in one direction.) Thus, the outcome would have been the same no matter what the feeling is, or if there is any feeling at all, because it is entirely the unconscious, unfeeling physical processes that matter, that do the functional work and that, ultimately, are selected for. Feelings don’t have anything to do with it, and so it just doesn’t seem there is any need for feelings to be there at all, or to be as “fitting” as they are, if the common naturalistic account of things is correct.
We can only scratch the surface of this argument here. The point for now is simply that once these (admittedly subtle) points concerning the mental and physical are understood, naturalism has no real story to tell for the actual distribution of suffering in our world. Things could have gotten along in just the same way they have without any feelings, good or bad. Things could have been far better or far worse, feelings-wise. The problem is that naturalism, when systematically articulated and consistent with its own inner logic, does not adequately predict any specific degree or distribution of suffering. It leaves all possibilities wide open.
However, once we grant a few plausible points about suffering, including that suffering can be spiritually medicinal (soul-healing and soul-building) alongside other plausible stories about God’s governance (particularly about letting natures play their part, including the natures of free beings), there is a strong theistic story we can tell that makes the distribution of suffering in this world not entirely surprising.
I cannot rehearse this story now, but the simple point is this: naturalism has no explanatory story to tell—ultimately—anyway, about the suffering we experience. Some story is better than no story, and so even the suffering of our experience is evidence for rather than against the existence of God.”
“Atheists who believe that Jesus never existed (called mythicists) claim there are damning parallels between the story of Jesus and stories of other “dying and rising” gods. You’re likely to come across mythicist arguments through online videos such as Zeitgeist, which claims:
The Egyptian god Horus “was born on December 25 of the virgin Isis-Meri . . . at the age of thirty he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry. Horus had twelve disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water. . . . Horus was crucified, buried for three days, and thus, resurrected.”
The Greek god Dionysus was “born of a virgin on December 25, was a traveling teacher who performed miracles such as turning water into wine.” Zeitgeist also claims that the Roman god Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25.
Ancient pagan cults also worshiped the “Sun” by mourning when it dies in the winter and celebrating when it “rises” in the spring to bring forth new crops.
Although similarities among beliefs can be evidence that one culture was the source for another culture’s belief, in many other instances, it can lead to a bad case of “parallelomania.” Biblical scholar Samuel Sandmel says this happens when a person falsely believes that cultural borrowing has taken place and tries to prove it with highly implausible parallels. Straining to make connections, the “parallelomaniac” ignores more plausible explanations for why two different religions might have similar beliefs, stories, traditions, or customs.
In some cases, the imagined parallel simply doesn’t exist at all. In others, the alleged parallels are so trivial that they don’t really serve as evidence for culture-borrowing. Or it might, on closer inspection, turn out that the borrowing happened the other way around (e.g., paganism borrowing from Christianity). Or the borrowing might be real but related only to non-essential areas of belief.
When we apply these alternative explanations, we see that neither Catholicism nor Christianity can be explained as a mere offshoot of older pagan practices.
Many of Zeitgeist’s claims about ancient non-Christian religions simply aren’t true. There is no evidence the Egyptian god Horus was baptized, had twelve disciples, performed miracles like walking on water, or was crucified. In at least one instance, a deity that is supposed to parallel Jesus turns out never to have existed in pagan mythology. Zeitgeist claims that “Beddru” of Japan and “Crite” of Chaldea inspired the Jesus story, but there is no record of any deities by these names having a cult of worship.
Why would the producers of this film, or other mythicists, make up stuff like this? Odds are, they acted in good faith but uncritically followed older, amateur scholarship that had a bad habit of using poorly documented sources.
Many of their claims about Horus, for example, come straight from self-anointed (and long discredited) scholars from the nineteenth century, such as Gerald Massey. Contemporary Egyptologists do not trust his work today, and even Massey’s peers rejected his scholarship. The renowned British Museum Egyptologist Archibald Sayce, for instance, commended an 1888 article for its “through demolition of Mr. Massey’s crudities [and] errors.” His colleague Peter le Page Renouf said of Massey that “no lunatic could possibly write more wild rubbish” (1,101).
When we turn to anti-Catholicism, we see similar uncritical reliance on shoddy scholarship. This is evident in claims from Jack Chick tracts, such as, “The Holy Eucharist is placed in the center of a sunburst design called the monstrance. . . . Who dreamed this up? The Egyptians called it Osiris long before the popes called it Jesus.” Sure enough, Gerald Massey claimed that, in Egyptian worship, “flesh and beer were transelemented or transubstantiated by the descent of Ra the holy spirit” and that this sacrament was “continued by the Church of Rome.”
Chick further claims that the eucharistic host has the monogram IHS on it because in Egypt these letters stood for the gods Isis, Horus, and Seb. However, there is no evidence that ancient Egyptian religion had anything like the Eucharist, much less a host that included a monogram with the Latin letters IHS. (In reality, these three letters are often found on eucharistic hosts because they are derived from the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek.)
Another fiction is the claim that Nimrod and Semiramis were married Babylonian royalty who created a “proto-pagan Catholicism.” This isn’t possible, since, as modern scholars agree, they didn’t even live during the same period. Other claims, like “Catholic confessionals have a Babylonian origin,” ignore the historical reality that the Church practiced the sacrament of confession without confessionals for centuries. The regular practice of confessing privately to a priest in a reserved place was introduced into the Church through Irish missionaries in the early Middle Ages, not a Babylonian cult in late antiquity (CCC 1447).
In many cases, the alleged parallel between Christianity and paganism exists only in the creative mind of the parallelomaniac. In some other cases, though, the evidence from primary sources is accurate—and so a genuine parallel does exist—but the parallel is so trivial or general that it says nothing about any cultural borrowing. Ancient pagan deities, for example, may have performed miracles just as Jesus did, but we’d expect that any story about deities interacting with human beings would include miraculous details. So those similarities don’t suggest any borrowing.
Other alleged parallels are true only if you really strain your eyes and your reading comprehension. For example, mythicists say the Persian deity Mithra was born of a virgin (just like Jesus!), but the ancient source actually says that Mithra emerged fully grown from a rock(62). This is a “virgin birth” only in the most contorted sense of that term.
Similarly, that sun and son are homophones is true in English but not most other languages, including ancient languages like Greek or Hebrew. A similar error occurs in the identification of Easter with Ishtar (and honestly, the two sound similar only if you are prone to slurring your speech). Even more fatal to this alleged parallel is that nearly all European languages call the celebration of Christ’s resurrection a variant of the Latin word pascha. Christ is our new Passover (or paschal) lamb, as St. Paul describes him in 1 Corinthians. 5:7. (Easter comes from older Germanic words signifying springtime and the dawn.)
Modern scholarship has also shown that Christian and Catholic beliefs are primarily rooted in Judaism, not paganism. In his study on ancient resurrection belief, T.N.D. Mettinger put it this way:
There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions (221).
It’s reasonable to expect human beings in different eras and cultures to exhibit similar religious tendencies, because it’s in our nature. God created us to be religious. The Catechism puts it this way:
In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being (28).
C.S. Lewis reached a similar conclusion when he said that God had revealed himself indirectly to pagans through their myths and that the Gospels were now God’s direct revelation. They were, as he said, “myth become fact.” I’ll close with his advice that shows that Catholics and Christians have nothing to fear from “pagan parallels”: “We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘pagan Christs’: they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome” (59).”
Love and truth,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
