Hello everyone, I’m one of the new mods for this sub. I’ve studied the Catholic faith in depth since I was 8 and have even studied in seminary for about 2 and a half years. Feel free to get to know me, get information on the faith, or provide suggestions for the sub.

Christians like to point out that atheists are just as bad as christians, so you can't argue that a bad christian disproves christianity. I would like to argue the contrary. That many bad christians do disprove it, because they're the ones making the claim that you can know them by their fruits, and their fruits are sexual assault, hiding sexual and financial crimes, and etc.

Most varieties of christianity have this dogma as very essential to their religious doctrines. According to it, based on the biblical texts of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus of Nazareth had a miraculous birth in Bethlehem born of a virgin named Mary. But for long historians know the historical basis for this is very fragile at best. First off, I think it's better I put on some of the basic ideas of New Testament scholarship, which are as follows: the oldest texts in the New Testament are the authentic epistles of Paul (for my arguments here though, we don't have however to worry about the problem of the authorship of the pseudepigraphic or the disputed epistles); of the four canon gospels, three of them, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are what we call synoptic, meaning they can be all read together because they follow the same pattern; and this pattern of the synoptic gospels requires an explanation as to why they were written so similar one to another, and this explanation needs to put one of them serving as model for the others. So far so good. Now, historians almost unanimously consider the gospel of Mark as the first to have been written, because of many reasons which I think it would be unnecessary to treat here for my argument. Even if someone is to pick a minority view of the gospel of Mark not being the first, my arguments would still be strong enough for my conclusion, so I hope I can just take for granted the Marcan priority. To add to that, most scholars also believe in an old hypothetical written source, called Q, so that both the authors of Matthew and Luke based their accounts on the gospel of Mark, and also on Q- Q is posited to explain the similarities between the gospels of Matthew and Luke which are not in the gospel of Mark.

Now, to the virgin birth and its historical problems. As said above already, this story is found only on the gospels of Matthew and Luke in the Bible. In the extrabiblical later sources in which it appears- like famously the gospel of James for example- it’s dependent on these two biblical accounts. So these two are really the only thing we have. Well, then, the first problem becomes obvious: why is it not in the earlier gospel of Mark? And also, it’s supposedly not in Q either, since, as we shall see, the two accounts we do have differ a lot one from another (so that if Q talked about a virgin birth, it was to be expected the accounts of it in Matthew and Luke would be more similar). This means so far that the earliest accounts of Jesus’ life (gospel of Mark and supposedly Q) do not have the virgin birth. It appears for the first time after these accounts were written.

And now, Paul’s epistles also don’t mention it. One could say they mention very little about Jesus’ life, which is true, but a small clue is still a clue, and, moreover, they had perhaps one ideal place they could mention it- in Galatians 4:4 (“God sent his son born of woman, born under the law”)- and yet they failed to do it. The thing is that this also points to the idea that if Paul knew about the virgin birth, he would perhaps have written it there (since God sent a son not only born of any woman, but of a virgin also, this seems worthy of a mention), and not doing so means that he probably didn’t know about a virgin birth. Of course, he may have known it and still just choose not to mention it, but as I said, this a small clue on the whole of my argument, but a clue nonetheless. In concluding, I say Paul didn’t know it, and the reason he didn’t was because it is a later legend not present in the beginning of christianity. But we will get there.

So far, what we have is this: the earliest sources we have on christianity do not mention the virgin birth. We see it for the first time in two later accounts. Now we have to examine these accounts.

First, the gospel of Matthew. It is attributed to an apostle of Jesus, Matthew, but almost no modern scholar would accept this attribution. The text is too dependent on another source- the gospel of Mark- to be the work of an eyewitness, and the traditional attribution seems to depends in part on a fragment from the church father Papias which is not very credible. In any case, even if it were written by Matthew, this would still change nothing in my argument, since Matthew wasn’t an eyewitness of Jesus’ birth after all. As for the date, since the gospel of Mark is generally thought to have been written around 70 CE, the gospel of Matthew must be after this. Now, the gospel of Luke. It was probably not written by Luke either, but as this Luke was a companion of Paul, not an eyewitness of any aspect of Jesus’ life, it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

So now we can go on to see both accounts. The surprising thing about the infancy narratives of Jesus’ life is that they agree on nothing aside from the general idea: Jesus was born in Bethlehem of a virgin named Mary, who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, in the reign of Herod. Aside, from that, they tell stories surrounding this which differ on everything. On Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth and will travel to Bethlehem later thanks to the census of Quirinius (which I will speak about later). On Matthew they appear to live in Bethlehem. On Luke, an angel appears to Mary. On Matthew, the angel appears to Joseph. On Luke, shepherds adore the baby Jesus. On Matthew, it’s the Magi who adore him. Then only Matthew has the whole story about the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents.

Some christian apologists try to defend these differences by putting on just one big account of it: so, Matthew does begin with Joseph and Mary already in Bethlehem, but it doesn’t explicitly say they lived there, which is what would contradict Luke; the angel would have appeared more than one time, first to Mary and then to Joseph; Jesus was visited both by shepherds and by magi, etc. The problem with this explanation is that it’s essentially non-historical. You don’t have this big narrative of Jesus’ birth in any text, you are making it up for the manifest purpose of justifying everything. No serious scholar accepts this. Even religious scholars admit some of the things there are legendary, while believing on the central point of the virgin birth. And now we arrive at one more problem.

There is one thing at least in each account which is at odds with the historical context at large too. For Luke, it’s the census of Quirinius. It happened on 6 CE. But the same gospel says Jesus was born during Herod’s reign, and Herod was dead by the time of the census. Worse still, the gospel says Joseph had to come back to Bethlehem for the census because his supposed ancestor, King David one thousand years ago, was from there. This absolutely makes no sense at all, neither from a practical point (imagine if we had to do that today!) nor from historical roman practice in censuses. Some apologists have invented all manners of justifying this, but again, no serious scholar will even consider it.

Now, for Matthew, it’s the massacre of the innocents. We know from the ancient historian Flavius Josephus a good deal about Herod’s reign. In no place he mentions this massacre, and he does mention a lot of terrible things Herod did. Safe to say, if he knew about the massacre, he would have mentioned it. Now, some apologist may say here that the massacre was just localized and small enough that Josephus didn’t come to know it. But, from everything else in my post, I point to the final conclusion that the simplest explanation is that it’s all legend.

And so we can conclude. The virgin birth is legend, not history, and we know that because it appears only in later accounts, which have their own problems and discrepancies, and because there was a clear reason the christian communities of the first century would come up with this legend. It was an interpretation of two texts of the Old Testament: Micah 5:2, interpreted to say the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, and the greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 (which was a faulty translation from the original hebrew meaning), interpreted to say the Messiah would be born from a virgin. There it goes.

Just for one final word, I know some religious scholars who believe in the virgin birth, and can be indeed respected in academy. But they admit to believe in it out of faith, and admit pure historical research does point otherwise. From the top of my head, if I’m not mistaken, these were the positions of Raymond Brown and of John Meier. One may have no problems with this position, but then, why be a christian at all? If God really exists and revealed christianity, couldn’t he have done it in a more obvious way, without all these difficulties?

This is my last text for now.

It is said that psychopaths are incapable of repentance. If this is true, it is due to material factors, such as the individual’s genetics and the development of their body, nervous system, and brain.

However, according to Catholicism, the creator of the human body is God. The Almighty is the agent behind the growth of the fetus while still in the mother’s womb. He is responsible for all embryological complexity and intrauterine hormones, making it possible to affirm that a psychopath is born as such by divine will and design. In other words, psychopaths are incapable of repentance thanks to God.

Moreover, in the Catholic Church, just one mortal sin is enough for a person to lose the state of grace, with the consequent loss of salvation and condemnation to hell. In other words, if someone lives a righteous, holy life without committing sins, but before dying makes the mistake of overeating—for instance, eating three slices of pizza—then, thanks to this single sin, they will go to hell for all eternity unless they receive the sacrament of confession/penance in time.

Furthermore, according to the Catholic Church, for a person to validly receive the sacrament of confession/penance, repentance is indispensable. If they are not repentant, receiving forgiveness would actually result in sacrilege, so the sinner would leave the confessional with more sin than when they entered.

Thus, we already have some premises. First, to be saved and not go to hell, one must be in a state of grace, that is, without sin. Second, to be in a state of grace and free from sin, it is imperative to confess validly. Third, to confess validly, the individual must be repentant, in contrition. Fourth, psychopaths are naturally incapable of repentance (by God’s own design).

It can therefore be said that psychopaths can never confess validly and are thus incapable of receiving forgiveness for their sins through a priest. As a result, in theory, all psychopaths die and go to hell. However, to say this implies that God is evil, for He would have created beings incapable of repentance and forgiveness. Consider this: if the psychopath goes to hell because they did not obtain forgiveness for their sins, this would be God’s fault, since it is the Almighty who prevents their repentance through their body (His creation).

To resolve this conflict and ensure that God remains good, the only solution is to admit that God saves all psychopaths, regardless of repentance, forgiveness, or valid confession. Even if all of the psychopath’s confessions are sacrilegious, God must still necessarily save them, for otherwise, He would be creating beings only to condemn them to hell beforehand.

Therefore, if God is good, He saves all psychopaths, even the worst of them. Thus, God would be evil if He created beings incapable of repentance and forgiveness and condemned them to hell. If there are psychopaths in hell, it is the Creator’s fault, not the creature’s.

OBS1: We chose to use pre-Vatican II sources, limited to the year in which Pope Pius XII died,that is, 1958 AD, in order to include traditionalists and sedevacantists in the proposed reflection.

OBS2: The position of the international theological commission that unbaptized abortions will be saved is more beneficial to them than limbo. Therefore, far from "refuting" my argument, it actually confirms it.

It is certain that the traditional doctrine of the Roman Church condemns the practice of abortion as a mortal sin, given that those who commit this crime would be depriving the unborn child of the possibility of salvation in Christ Jesus. However, it is also true that the Catholic Church, through its priests, doctors, and Ecumenical Councils over millennia, has taught that most of the born are condemned (sic) to hell, while aborted babies would go to the limbo of infants, a place where they would enjoy full natural happiness.

The Church has always opposed abortion, since apostolic times, as proven by the Didache (or the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles):

[…] Chapter II

1 The second commandment of the Teaching (of the Twelve Apostles) is:

2 You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery; you shall not indulge in pederasty, you shall not fornicate, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic or sorcery (charlatanry). You shall not kill a child by abortion, nor a child already born; you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Moreover, Saint Augustine taught that the unbaptized cannot obtain salvation, as they are not members of the Church but belong to the devil. In one of his numerous passages on the subject, he asserts that (AUGUSTINE, 1984, p. 276):

[…] Anyone who denies that children are snatched, when baptized, from this power of darkness, of which the devil is the prince, that is, from the power of the devil and his angels, is refuted by the truth of the sacraments of the church.

Additionally, the Church itself, in an official declaration at the Council of Florence (1438 AD -1445 AD), explicitly stated the dogma “outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) as follows:

[…] It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that no one who is outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics, can participate in eternal life and will go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are united to Her.

Thus far, it is evident that for the Church, salvation is a reality only for its members, that is, Catholics, so that the unbaptized and all those who in some way do not participate and are not in full communion with it will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Currently, this would mean closing the doors of heaven to 82% (eighty-two percent) of the world's population, since according to estimates, only 18% (eighteen percent) of humanity is in communion with the Pope — which is the criterion for determining whether someone is part of the Church or not. In other words, according to the immutable and dogmatic truth proclaimed by the Church in Ecumenical Council, more than 6,600,000,000 (six billion six hundred million) people today would be doomed to eternal death, to hell.

It is worth considering the act of faith found in the final part of the Bible Ave Maria, which states: “My God, I firmly believe in all the truths you have revealed and that you teach us through your Church because you can neither deceive nor be deceived.” Thus, the dogma presented in the aforementioned Council is true at all times, otherwise, God (through His Holy Church) would be lying, which is contrary to the divine nature.

As if the damnation of so many souls was not enough, some renowned saints like Saint Leonard of Port Maurice — canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX and called “the great missionary of the eighteenth century” by none other than Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (the most contemporary of the Doctors of the Church) — taught that due to the abundance of mortal sins committed and the infrequent reception of the sacrament of confession, the majority of Catholics would also be condemned to hell (that is, condemning themselves).

In one of his most famous books, the sermon entitled “the small number of those who are saved,” Saint Leonard states that:

[…] Saint Vincent Ferrer will show you by a fact what you ought to think. He relates that a subdeacon of Lyon, having renounced his dignity and having retired to a desert to do penance there, died on the same day and at the same hour as Saint Bernard. Appearing to his bishop after his death, he said: “Know, my lord, that at the same hour I expired, thirty-three thousand people died. Of that number, Bernard and I ascended to heaven without delay, three entered Purgatory, and all the others fell into hell.”

Our chronicles testify to an even more frightening fact. One of our Franciscan religious, celebrated for his doctrine and holiness, preaching in Germany, portrayed the ugliness of the sin of impurity so strongly that a woman fell dead of grief in front of everyone. Then, coming back to life, she said: “When I was presented before the Tribunal of God, sixty thousand people arrived there at the same time from all parts of the world; of that number, three were saved by passing through purgatory, and all the rest were condemned.”

O abyss of the judgments of God! Out of thirty-three thousand, only five were saved! Out of sixty thousand, only three went to heaven! Sinners who hear me, of which number will you be? … What do you have to say? … What do you think?..

It is observed, then, that out of 33,000 (thirty-three thousand) people, 5 (five) were saved and that out of 60,000 (sixty thousand) people, 3 (three) went to heaven, passing first through purgatory. In the case of the first judgment, the ratio is 1/6,600 (one in six thousand six hundred), and in the case of the last judgment, the ratio is 1/20,000 (one in twenty thousand), obtained through simple arithmetic. If all divine judgments are like this, it is correct to infer, according to Saint Leonard, that the probability of a human being reaching heaven is between 1/20,000 (one in twenty thousand) and 1/6,600 (one in six thousand six hundred), which, in percentage, is equivalent to 0.005% to 0.015% of people being saved since the Redemption wrought by Christ, at least (before the sacrifice of the Cross the number would be lower, for sure).

It is certain that Saint Augustine condemned unbaptized newborns to hell, but another Doctor of the Church as important or more important than he, namely, Saint Thomas Aquinas, had more compassion for the little ones and decreed that the unbaptized, despite still bearing original sin, did not commit any sinful acts, thus being free from actual sin, which justified a favorable treatment for them. In this way, he defended a separate place for them, far from hell, a place closer to God, which, although not within the Body of Christ (within the Church), would allow them to enjoy full natural happiness. They would not see God face to face (beatific vision), would not have supernatural happiness, but would experience in their souls the maximum happiness a living human being could experience.

In one of the letters from the Montfort website, there is the following passage:

[…] Saint Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of all theologians, taught that the unbaptized who die without sin suffer no pain from the loss or “internal affliction” — nihil omnino dolebunt de carentia visionis divinae — “In Sent.”, II, 33, q. ii, a.2). At first (“In Sent.”, loc. cit.). Saint Thomas explains that the limbus infantium is not merely a negative state of immunity from suffering and bitterness, but a state of positive joy in which the soul is united to God through knowledge and love of Him, provided by natural capacity.

Thus, the Thomistic position is much more optimistic than Augustine's and was adopted by the Church in the centuries following Aquinas’ death until just before the Second Vatican Council. From all that has been stated, it is clear that, according to Catholicism (and Thomism in particular), being aborted guarantees a 100% (one hundred percent) chance of eternal happiness in the afterlife, while being born, growing up, and living represents an enormous risk of over 99.9% (ninety-nine point nine percent) of going to hell and staying there eternally, suffering the worst punishments and torments, enduring fire and demons.

Therefore, it is concluded that the Catholic position against abortion makes no sense, as it is almost certain that the person born, baptized, and a member of the Church will suffer the second death. The most rational thing would be for Catholics to encourage abortion since the unborn are guaranteed full and eternal natural happiness, according to the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, who, alongside Saint Augustine, is one of the greatest Doctors of the Roman Church.

Addendum: When I was Catholic, in the final stages of my belief, I would catch myself asking God why I was born and running a 99.9% risk of going to hell, when I could already be in the limbo of infants enjoying complete happiness.

Hello, guys! I am a Brazilian former Catholic. I wrote some personal reflections on Catholicism that I will be sharing with you throughout the week. I'm using ChatGPT to translate. =) 

Animal suffering in the Catholic view

One of the reasons I stopped being Catholic relates to animal suffering. According to the traditional teaching of the Church, the pains that humans endure have a reason, a justification. For example, God allows the faithful in a state of grace to unite their daily sufferings with those of the Crucified Christ, whether to earn merits and achieve a higher position in the heavenly hierarchy, to shorten time in purgatory, or even to alleviate the punishments of hell.

It is also worth noting that, according to official Catholic teaching, human suffering is only useful if the person is in a state of grace. If they are not—meaning if they are in mortal sin—then all suffering is useless and will not serve any of the purposes mentioned above.

However, unfortunately, when it comes to animal suffering, Catholicism has not been able to develop any theological justification for such a phenomenon. The reason for this is quite simple: according to the Doctors of the Church, especially Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, there is no life after death for them. Spiritual beings capable of subsisting apart from a physical body are only angels and human souls. Heaven will be inherited only by humans, for the animal soul is mortal, says Aquinas, based on Aristotle. Therefore, all the pains of animals are useless. There is no redemption for them, no hidden treasure, no value at all in their suffering. They suffer for nothing, in vain. They suffer just to suffer, simply.

This happens because the Bible, and especially the doctrine developed by the Church, is extremely anthropocentric, caring about nothing but God and His “special” creation, the human being. So much so that “all things were made for the pleasure of man.” Thus, the Bible and the Church Fathers teach that animals are inferior slaves, whose skin is destined to make clothing, whose flesh is to serve as food for human beings, and whose milk is not meant to nourish their offspring but rather to quench the thirst of men. These examples extend to the use of animals in religious sacrifices, for God, for some reason, forgives a human being when an animal (an innocent life) is slaughtered on the altar of the temple; as a means of transport; and as slaves in fields, to pull plows.

Moreover, the “great” Thomas Aquinas teaches that humans have no duty of charity towards animals, although he suggests that we treat them well because the treatment given to animals reflects the treatment given to humans. Aquinas meant that animals should be treated well not for their own sake, but because of (guess what) human beings. Aquinas adds:

“No irrational creature can be loved with charity. And for three reasons. The first is that we have friendship with whom we wish well. Now, we cannot properly wish well to an irrational creature, which is not capable of possessing any good. Second, because all friendship is based on sharing life, for nothing is so proper to friendship as living together, as the Philosopher (Aristotle) says. Now, irrational creatures cannot share in human life, which is rational. Therefore, we cannot have any friendship with irrational creatures, except perhaps metaphorically. The third reason is charity itself, which is based on participation in eternal happiness, of which the irrational creature is not capable. Therefore, it is impossible for us to have the love of charity towards the irrational creature.” (Aquinas, 1980, p. 2,232)

A terrifying text, I know, and there are those who call this man the “Angelic” Doctor. I’m not sure exactly what kind of angelic category Aquinas fits into. Continuing, as you can see, the Catholic God has given no purpose to the suffering of animals. Think of a kitten being eaten by worms or whose eyes have been gouged out by some wretch. These pains won’t educate it, that is, they won’t teach it anything, because Catholic doctrine calls it irrational and, as such, incapable of learning anything. They won’t earn it heaven, they won’t lessen its punishment in hell, they won’t shorten its time in purgatory—in short, all the justifications the Church found for human suffering find no shelter in animal suffering.

Animal suffering in the Kardecist (Spiritist) view

I’ll be brief. In the Spiritist view, the justification for suffering is the same for animals and humans. Since we all have a common beginning (life starts in the atom, then moves to the mineral, then to the plant, animal, humanoid, higher life forms, until pure spirits—in other words, we humans were once animals in past lives, and current animals will one day become human), suffering in the various forms of life serves to teach and help in spiritual progress. Kardec gives the example of a diamond that needs to be polished to reach its best version. If the diamond could feel, the polishing process would surely be painful.

Conclusion

Therefore, based on all that has been said, the conclusion I have reached is that the Catholic God is evil, for He creates beings to suffer needlessly. I do not want to and cannot believe that such a wicked being exists, which is why I prefer Kardec’s view.

I have studied this issue deeply. I have read the Church fathers, the Theologians, scripture and the relevant encyclicals and I am completely convinced that the idea that couples can't allow ejaculation anywhere but inside their wives is just not true. I'm not talking about using pulling our to avoid pregnancy but other acts you might do when there isn't a chance for pregnancy or when you're open to life and trying. For example for fertility a doctor may suggest ejaculation outside the vagina two days before trying to conceive to improve sperm quality and make the chances of conception better. This is apparently a sin worthy of being ripped apart by demons for all eternity.

I can't accept that a couple who does something other than intercourse when there is no chance of pregnancy when the wife is already pregnant is going to hell to be tortured forever. It's just insane to even think about.

I have very good arguments, and I have tried to see people's arguments for why it's true, but I just don't believe it. I know in my heart of hearts this is a man made not Jesus commanded taboo. It's not in scripture.

Otherwise, I am devout. I attend mass weekly, sing in a choir, avoid sin, help my community, spread the gospel, keep up to date with the Church, defend against abortion, pray regularly, volunteer for my chapel, don't use contraception.

However, I can't and won't come to see this as correct and don't think I can abide and live by it. I can explain my reasons, but my experience has been that no one has been able to successfully win this debate with me once I present my full arguments.

Another aspect that is bothering me is how Pope Francis has praised Lutheranism, allowed Anglican masses, and said every religion is a pathway to God. If that's true and Lutherans are going to heaven, why does it matter if I follow this taboo? Lutherans don't, and the Pope put a statue of Martin Luther up and praised them. I doubt he thinks all these protestants are going to hell and they don't practice this level of strict sexual taboo.

Do I leave and become Lutheran or something?

It is said that the Catholic God wants the salvation of all and that He died for our sins precisely for this reason. However, when we take a closer look at the Church's doctrine, we realize that this is not quite the case. In fact, it seems that the Catholic God does everything to hinder our salvation.

First of all, God is omniscient, meaning that He knows and is aware of all things—past, present, and future. When He created Lucifer and the fallen angels, He knew in advance that they would rebel and all the evil they would cause to humanity. Moreover, according to Thomas Aquinas, God made the angels in such a way that once they decided not to submit, they could no longer turn back or repent of their choice, solidifying their will. See, God makes it impossible for demons to repent and choose the side of "good" because He created them in this manner, incapable of reversing their decisions.

Furthermore, being omniscient, God also foresaw Eve's sin, yet He chose to "test her." After the commission of original sin, He could have simply forgiven them with a mere snap of His fingers or something of the sort, as it is said that He is love and goodness and that His mercy surpasses His justice. However, God did not want to forgive Adam and Eve so easily, and we know that being God and omnipotent, He could indeed have forgiven them in any way, without requiring anything in return or even demanding something of little value in exchange for His forgiveness. He could have told Adam and Eve, for example, “I forgive you, as long as you do 50 sit-ups.” Everything would have been much simpler.

However, this is where things get complicated, as God did not want to forgive them so easily. He actually wanted a grand sacrifice, to sacrifice Himself, for the Doctors of the Church say that each sin against God is infinite because His majesty is infinite. Thus, only with an infinite sacrifice would it be possible to restore His glory and appease His wrath. However, we have seen that this reasoning does not hold up, as being omnipotent, He could have forgiven them just as easily, as demonstrated earlier. If He were limited by the need for an infinite sacrifice, He would not be omnipotent and would cease to be God.

Moreover, being omniscient, God knows in advance which human beings will choose to follow His laws and “love Him” and which will be indifferent to Him. He knows this even before creating the soul, before its conception. And even so, knowing, for example, that a soul will reject Him, He decides to create it, knowing it will spend less than 100 years alive on Earth, leading a suffering life (since most of humanity suffers greatly) only to end up condemned to hell ("to be condemned," as the Doctors say) and spend eternity there, in the worst way, with the worst punishments and torments, with individualized torture designed to fit their profile perfectly. I reiterate, in hell, that person will receive treatment that displeases them the most, and this will be forever, that is, much more than a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, or a billion years.

Continuing, this infinite sacrifice was accomplished by delivering Himself to death, over which He triumphed by rising three days later. And now you might think: “We are saved, Christ has set us free!” A delusion, for the salvation of Christ does not come for free. You must fulfill a series of rites and prerequisites to earn the merits of Jesus and gain entry to heaven. First, you will need to receive the sacrament of baptism and be a member of the Catholic Church, that is, to be in communion with the Pope, as we proved in a previous text.

After entering the Christian life, a person must avoid committing sins. And that’s where things get interesting, for it was God Himself who created the list of sins, that is, the list of things that offend Him. He sanctioned the criminal code, I mean, the code of sins, and included whatever He deemed fit. For example, He included in the list of sins things like masturbation, sex outside of marriage, gluttony, swearing, and other contingent things that might not have been included. A considerable part of these behaviors considered sinful are natural to humans; they are things an average person is inclined to do when they feel like it or as spontaneous manifestations of their personality. Therefore, the Christian finds themselves unable to express their being, to act naturally, having to be “on guard” all the time, always worried about not offending His Majesty, who is easily offended by practically everything. Thus, the Christian cannot relax, does not have a moment of peace, is in constant alertness and self-analysis, for any movement could be sinful.

Not only is it insufficient to declare the sinfulness of basic human behaviors, but the Church also teaches that just one mortal sin is enough for a person to lose the state of grace and go to hell if they die without confession. In other words, God established through His Holy Church that it is not twenty instances of masturbation, not 15 episodes of gluttony, not ten instances of sex outside of marriage, but rather that such behaviors practiced just once are enough for a person to spend eternity being tortured in the worst possible way. In other words, God can condemn someone eternally because of five minutes.

Moreover, it is worth recalling the numbers from Saint Leonard of Porto Maurizio in the book "The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved," which attest that Christian salvation is one of the most difficult entrance exams in history, if not the most difficult, with an incredibly low approval rate. As I wrote in a previous text:

“Out of 33,000 (thirty-three thousand) people, 5 (five) were saved, and out of 60,000 (sixty thousand) people, 3 (three) went to heaven, first passing through purgatory. In the case of the first judgment, the proportion is 1/6,600 (one out of six thousand six hundred), and in the case of the final judgment, the proportion 1/20,000 (one out of twenty thousand) is obtained through simple arithmetic. If all divine judgments are like this, it is correct to assert, according to Saint Leonard, that the probability of a human being reaching heaven is between 1/20,000 (one out of twenty thousand) and 1/6,600 (one out of six thousand six hundred), which, in percentage terms, is equivalent to 0.005% to 0.015% of people being saved since the Redemption brought about by Christ, at least (before the sacrifice on the Cross, the number would certainly have been lower).”

We have already seen that the list of sins was made by God, and that the number of sins necessary to go to hell (that is, one) was established by Him. Furthermore, the exceedingly high rate of the damned has been demonstrated. It seems that everything He has done so far has been to hinder our salvation, not to facilitate it. If He genuinely wanted to make salvation easier for people, He would remove some behaviors from the list of sins and/or increase the tolerance, that is, the number of times one could sin without going to hell (how about allowing ten times instead of just once?).

But the difficulty does not stop there. Just as Jesus made the angels incapable of reversing their first and most important decision, He also established that once a person dies, they are unable to repent of their sins. And why is this, if not to prevent souls from leaving hell? If they do not repent, there are no reasons to save them, but once again I repeat, who prevents their post-mortem repentance is God Himself. Thus, He does not care to remove them from hell out of pure personal whim, considering that the condemned chose not to flatter the divine ego while alive. Such divine behavior resembles, at the very least, a narcissistic individual.

Furthermore, some theologians admit that souls in hell can repent. But then, what goodness would there be in a God who hears the cries and repentance of His children and solemnly ignores them? He watches the suffering of billions (perhaps?) of souls, sees them begging for forgiveness in the worst possible place, and is unmoved. If He were moved, He would find a way to take them out of hell; after all, He is omnipotent and, in theory, is not limited by His own rules, being the one who creates them. Or does hell (His creation) prevent God from taking them out of there? It would be absurd to think so.

The Church should have adopted the thesis of apocatastasis by Origen and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Cappadocian Fathers, according to which, at the end of times, all will be saved and redeemed by the blood of Christ, even the demons. Such doctrine aligns much better with the idea of a benevolent God, but unfortunately, it was set aside by Catholicism, which preferred eternal hell, perhaps as a means to effectively threaten people and achieve conversions.

Therefore, God knows in advance who the condemned are and does everything to hinder our salvation, always choosing the most difficult means for humans while still requiring to be called good. I believe that in the way Catholic doctrine is presented, it would make more sense for God to be called evil. However, if it were possible for the Church to change dogmas, adopting apocatastasis in place of eternal hell would make it possible to conceive of divine goodness, for the sufferings of hell would be means of purification for souls to enter heaven, and not mere capricious and senseless divine vengeance.

So, generally the answers christians give to the problem of evil (why is there evil in the universe if a good God created it and sustain it?) are that they are a result of human free-will, or that God allows evil because he can bring good out of it. And I can even accept the idea that some amount of evil would perhaps be inevitable in a world populated by free creatures as are human beings. However, I’d argue the problem of evil goes far beyond that.

In the eighteenth century christian philosopher Gottfried Leibniz established the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds: as God is omniscient, he knew all the worlds that could theoretically exist (that is, worlds which don’t entail any contradiction). So, a world with free human beings and absolutely no evil or suffering at all would not be possible. It’s a contradiction, so it could not exist. After thinking about all the possible worlds, as God is good, he must have chosen the best one to bring into creation- even the second best, or the third best, etc., would not be good enough for an omnibenevolent deity. This means our world is the best there is.

Now, this obviously sounds ridiculous, and was very smartly ridiculed by Voltaire in his novella Candide. We certainly could very easily think about a world that was in every point equal to ours, except by the fact that a single child who in our world died of cancer, in this hypothetical world would come to live a happy and fulfilling life until their old years. This world, anyone would agree, would be a better world than ours, even by just this one person. But there is really no reason why this world couldn’t exist. Therefore, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.

Then it becomes obvious that God did not create the best possible world. Assuming he existed, he created ours, which could be better. Why? Some other christian philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas in a more or less analogue debate on the Middle Ages, would say there is no such a thing as the best of all possible worlds, as God could always create one more good person in any world, and this world would then become better. So the idea of a best possible world is as impossible as the idea of the biggest possible number- we could always just add 1 to this number and it would become even bigger. Fair enough, but if that is so, why didn’t God create, like, the world with the least amount of suffering, or least amount of suffering by happiness ratio? As is obvious by the above example of a world equal to ours but with one less child dying by cancer, our world is not the world with the least amount of suffering by happiness ratio. It could easily have more happiness and less suffering. So there is no reason God would not have done this. Except that the most likely explanation for this, which is the simplest explanation (Ockham’s razor), is that God doesn’t exist. Another solution, sure, would be admitting that God is not that good, or that interested in humankind.

But my point is that if the problem of evil is put in these terms of not only the very existence of evil, but rather the amount of evil that exists, then the classic christian arguments from free-will cannot solve it.

Edit: my computer's auto-correction.

According to the wiki page,. Utraquism

was a belief amongst Hussites, a reformist Christian movement, that communion under both kinds (both bread and wine, as opposed to the bread alone) should be administered to the laity during the celebration of the Eucharist.

I'm an Anglican (ACNA), and there is much I do agree with the Catholic Church about, but this is one area where I don't. The laity should receive under both kinds

It is clear that people of all religions have abortions: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/10/people-all-religions-use-birth-control-and-have-abortions.

The main reasons (U.S) women have abortions are: unreadiness for a child, financial difficulty, relationship problems, being done having children, and personal or fetal health: https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives.

Some of these reasons can be sidestepped entirely or removed or improved with:

• Improved access to contraception; safer, cheaper, and more effective contraception; other forms of contraception (the male pill, etc.)
• Better sex education
• Better social conditions; financial and career support for new mothers; better wages in general; cheaper childcare, etc. (which all would hopefully be part of our future societies)

And we have seen declines in abortion rates in recent years, due at least in part to aspects of these.

However, the first two will not generally be available to some subset of Catholics (of course, most Catholics do use contraception). It seems likely to me that contraception avoidance already explains the overrepresentation of Catholics in the breakout by religion in the first Guttmacher link above.

I think a majority of people seeking abortions in the future will be Catholics who shun or cannot access contraception and recognize too late their reasons to not have a child.

I’m not sure what the Church’s position is on expanding the duties of clergy in general, but here’s my personal suggestion: Women won’t be allowed to join the priesthood or deaconhood; rather, nuns will have an expanded and more active role in the Church. This would include being able to perform Mass and the Sacraments. I feel this would go a long way in compromising the two views on the subject, as it would afford women the ability to perform the most visible duties of priests without actually being ones themselves.

Thoughts?

Hello! Admittedly a non-Catholic here, but respectful of those beliefs. I do have a question about the alleged apparitions at Fatima, Portugal. Two points:

First, what is meant by the apparition saying to the children: “God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If people do what I ask, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”? It seems to be saying that devotion to Mary’s “Immaculate Heart” can save souls, rather than through confession of faith in Jesus Christ as outlined in Scripture. Am I misinterpreting her words?

Second, the apparition commands these children to sacrifice, and they end up physically harming themselves with rope. I’ll leave it at that - any explanation is welcome.

This argument comes from an analysis of causation, specifically the Principle of Material Causality. In simple terms: "all made things are made from other things." In syllogistic terms:

P1: Every material thing with an originating or sustaining efficient cause has a material cause

P2: If Catholic teaching is true, then the universe is a material thing with an originating or sustaining efficient cause that is not material

C: Catholic teaching is false

(Note: for "efficient cause" I roughly mean what Thomists mean, and by "material cause" I mean roughly what Thomists mean, however I'm not talking about what something is made of and more what it's made from.)

The metaphysical principle that everyone agrees with is ex nihilo nihil fit or "From Nothing, Nothing Comes." If rational intuitions can be trusted at all, this principle must be true. The PMC enjoys the same kind of rational justification as ex nihilo nihil fit. Like the previous, the PMC has universal empirical and inductive support.

Let's consider a scenario:

The cabin in the woods

No Materials: There was no lumber, no nails, no building materials of any kind. But there was a builder. One day, the builder said, “Five, four, three, two, one: let there be a cabin!” And there was a cabin.

No Builder: There was no builder, but there was lumber, nails, and other necessary building materials. One day, these materials spontaneously organized themselves into the shape of a cabin uncaused.

Both of these cases are metaphysically impossible. They have epistemic parity; they are equally justified by rational intuitions. Theists often rightfully identify that No Builder is metaphysically impossible, therefore we should also conclude that No Materials is as well.

Does the church actually teach this?

The church teaches specifically creatio ex nihilo which violates the PMC.

Panenthism is out, as The Vatican Council anathematized (effectively excommunicates)  those who assert that the substance or essence of God and of all things is one and the same, or that all things evolve from God's essence (ibb., 1803 sqq) (Credit to u/Catholic_Unraveled).

This leaves some sort of demiurgic theology where a demiurge presses the forms into prexistent material, which is also out.

I hope this argument is fun to argue against and spurs more activity in this subreddit 😊. I drew heavily from this paper.

Let me start off by saying I consider myself agnostic. I’m 27 years old awhile ago I read the case for Christ and it didn’t really sway me to Christianity. So my question is since I’m going to hell. What do we know about hell? I usually picture something like Dante’s inferno Red Devils with pitch forks torturing people forever and they are conscious of it. Is that what hell is literal eternal conscious torture for un saved either by demons and devils with pitch forks or by god torturing people forever and lots of fire and lava ? I have autism I’m on the autism spectrum aswell and have ADHD and OCD.

https://unorthodoxly-orthodox-catholic-47360584.hubspotpagebuilder.com/blog/the-iron-throne-roman-papacy-argument

A brief biblical typological argument supporting Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism

With the upcoming election, I see this as a relevant subject. There are issues on both sides of this one that are certainly controversial from a moral perspective. This is a season that brings up discussions with friends, co-workers, family, and so on in the realm of politics. I've never been a blanket voter of one side of any ticket nor have I ever felt that I support either side of a ballot in total. Its always a mixed bag. Not to say that I am on the fence about my vote now. But for conversation sake, I am certainly on the fence about immigration with a view leaning more towards "pro" in that category from a moral standpoint, but certainly "anti" from a material standpoint. I've heard arguments such as "an overrun of immigrants are a threat to the safety of communities" or "there is a legal process for immigration, coming here without approval is against the law" and so on. I lean "pro" from a moral standpoint, not to allow illegal immigration per say, but perhaps to expand the current system to make it more accessible. Given the financial position of the country at present, I do not think that the argument about providing cash or cash equivalent services as a blanket policy should even need be discussed. At this point, even the salaries of federal employees are landing on the wrong side of the balance sheet. But with the idea of caring for the poor, the dignity of human beings, and loving thy neighbor, I see no justifiable reason that we shouldn't expand access to legal immigration to match that of the time period my own ancestors came here. Again, from a moral perspective. I understand that immigrants are also being used as a tool for political agendas but this occurs on both sides of the aisle and I do not wish to debate which side of the aisle is worse than the other in this regard. I purely wish to discuss the morality of the fundamentals related to immigration policy.

Sometimes, people find the stories that I tell about my upbringing kinda hard to believe. When I tell those stories, it probably sounds like I was born in 1955, not 1995 - not just how I was a daily attendee of the Latin Mass, but also the prohibitions against reading certain books, like Harry Potter, listening to certain music, like the glam rock band Kiss, or watching certain TV shows, like Wizards of Waverly Place, the Disney Channel show. This last one is not a joke. My younger sister was not allowed to watch Wizards of Waverly Place, at first, anyway. Once my parents found out the extent of the magic use was for making pancakes, they let her watch it. But there was a time when this show came up in conversations about the degradation of America and all that. Also, my 7th Grade teacher at the FSSP affiliated school I attended told us that Kiss was an acronym for “Knights in the Service of Satan”. 

Anyway, I saw a news article that reminded me of how I grew up. OK, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but let me show you the article from the National Catholic Register:

Indian Police Hunt for Hindu Man Who Allegedly Disrespected St. Francis Xavier

https://www.ncregister.com/cna/indian-police-hunt-for-hindu-man-who-allegedly-disrespected-st-francis-xavier#:~:text=Police%20in%20the%20Indian%20state,who%20deeply%20venerate%20St.%20Francis.

Police in the Indian state of Goa are on the hunt for a Hindu man who allegedly publicly disrespected St. Francis Xavier and disputed the saint’s title as protector of the state, leading to complaints from the state’s Christians, who deeply venerate St. Francis.

And how did this Hindu man publicly disrespect St Francis Xavier? By: 

publicly questioned the authenticity of the relics of St. Francis Xavier housed in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa.

According to Indian News organization OP India,Velingkar, the man who was “disrespecting” St Francis Xavier: 

demanded a DNA test of the remains of St. Francis Xavier, who is called the patron of Goa…He said, “My statements speak of written history, not my personal views. The demand for a DNA test to verify the identity of the remains of St. Francis Xavier is gaining momentum among Buddhists in Sri Lanka and around the world.”...

Make no mistake, if the community that I grew up in suddenly gained sufficient political power, we would see religious police arresting people for questioning the authenticity of Catholics Relics too. 

But that isn’t what this video is about. I try pretty hard to keep my channel less political and more academic, and even though I don’t always do a good job, I do try. The rest of this video is going to be about St Francis Xavier, his life, legacy and relics, and why I sympathize with but ultimately disagree with the Hindus who question the relics of St Francis Xavier. 

I grew up learning about St Francis Xavier with articles and childrens books not too dissimilar from the one you see on the screen now: “The unlikely hero of India: St. Francis Xavier”, published by the Catholic News Agency

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252981/the-unlikely-hero-of-india-saint-francis-xavier?__hstc=198926896.d9a1ef3573c081b24d16f318d33d9867.1728409926434.1728409926434.1728480307912.2&__hssc=198926896.1.1728480307912&__hsfp=1896627464

Let’s read how the Catholic News Agency sums up Francis Xavier’s time in India: 

Upon his arrival in India in 1542, Francis immediately faced countless challenges in bringing the word of God to the people of this new and foreign region. For seven years Francis preached in the streets and public squares, laboring tirelessly across India and the Asian Pacific islands, contending with persecution from warlords and at times even from the Portuguese authorities meant to help him. 

After converting tens of thousands and planting the seeds of a renewed and lasting Christian Church in India, Francis began to hear stories about an enchanting island nation known as “Japan.” His heart was set ablaze with the desire to bring the Gospel to Japan.

After he had ensured the faithful in India would be properly cared for, Francis set sail for the mysterious new land, becoming the first to bring the Christian faith to Japan, on the complete opposite side of the world from his home in Navarre.

There is not a single mention of the Goa Inquisition, which was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition, in the Portuguese colony of Goa, India. 

In 1545, Francis Xavier wrote to the king of Portugal, King John III, requesting the need a Goan Inquisition. A translation of this letter can be found on page 160 of “A History of Christianity in India” by Stephen Neill 

"By another route I have written to your highness of the great need there is in India for preachers... The second necessity which obtains in India, if those who live there are to be good Christians, is that your highness should institute the holy Inquisition; for there are many who live according to the law of Moses or the law of Muhammad without any fear of God or shame before men".

The Inquisition didn’t begin in India until after Francis Xavier had already died. He wrote that letter to the King of Portugal in 1545, died in 1552 and then the Inquisition didn’t begin until 1560 but it lasted for 250 years, ending in 1812. Most records of the Inquisition were burned by the Portuguese in 1812, when the Inquisition ended, so we don’t have any official figures on how many people were imprisoned or executed, but we do know people were executed, and imprisoned, and died in jail and then were burned in effigy after they were dead. 

On page 110 of Goa, a Daughter’s Story, it is recorded that the Inquisition made speaking or writing in the traditional languages of Goa a criminal offense. On pages 114 - 115, it says that using traditional Hindu musical instruments was made illegal, as well as performing any kind of non-Catholic ceremonies like Hindu festivals or Hindu weddings. 

And even though the Inquisition didn’t arrive in Goa until after Francis Xavier died, I think that it is fair to say that he knew that this was what was going to happen and that is why he asked the King to send the Inquisition.  

Francis Xavier: The Man and His Mission by Sita Ram Goel collects some of Francis Xavier’s own writings about his thoughts about the people of India and how they needed to be converted to Catholicism. From pg 10-11: 

In a letter dated 20th January 1548, Xavier wrote to another Jesuit, Fr. Simao Rodrigues, that, “According to my experience, the only effective way to spread religion in India is for the King to proclaim by means of an edict to all his officials in India that he shall put trust only in those who will exert themselves to extend the reign of religion by every means in their power. The King must definitely order them to exert themselves with zeal to multiply the number of Christians in Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari] in order to attract to the faith of Jesus Christ the island of Ceylon, and to muster all the pious people, be they members of our Society [the Jesuits] or other that may seem fit for propagating religion.... If the King publishes such an edict and treats severely those who disobey it, a great number of natives will embrace the faith of Jesus Christ; otherwise no success can be expected.”

Xavier followed it up with a direct letter to the King of Portugal. He wrote: “Be pleased to order that, every time the Viceroy and the Government write, they set forth to you the present religious conditions giving the number of converts and their kind, the possibilities of converting more people and the means to be employed to do it. Be pleased to order that, regarding religion, only letters by those officials will be considered: that should in the country or province where they exercise authority no rise in the number of converts be evident under their administration, since it is evident that this number can at any time and in any country increase infinitely when the rulers are in favour of their conversion. Your Highness will hold them responsible and punish them, this being solemnly declared in the very chapters by which they are vested with authority. ... So long as the viceroys and governors of India do not under the influence of fear of losing their properties and their offices when not labouring for the conversion of a great number of infidels, your Majesty should not expect that a great fruits from the evangelical preachings in India, except that a great number come for baptism and that those already baptised make any religious progress.”

In another letter addressed to the Society of Jesus in Paris, he held the Brahmins to be the biggest hurdles in the way of Christianity. According to him, “There is in these parts among the pagans a class of men called Brahmins. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and to whom applies the psalm which says: 'From a unholy race, and wicked and crafty men, deliver me, Lord.' If it were not for the Brahmins, we should have all the heathens embracing our faith.”

Reading all of this, it is probably not shocking that modern Indian Hindus are not the biggest fan of Francis Xavier. Then consider the shady history of Catholic relics. 

Vice did this article in 2015 called “The Weird and Fraudulent World of Catholic Relics” where they highlight a bunch of the well known cases of questionable relics. Like that of St Rosalia: 

In 1825, a British geologist named William Buckland went to Sicily on his honeymoon. He and his wife visited Palermo and stopped by the grotto where the holy remains of Saint Rosalia were. Buckland observed that the bones did not look human but looked more like they belonged to a goat (Gordon 1894). When Buckland shared this information with the priests, they quickly kicked him and his wife out of the grotto. After Buckland’s announcement, the bones were placed within a casket so that outsiders could no longer view the bones too closely (Switek 2009).

https://commons.mtholyoke.edu/arth290brennan/2015/12/05/saint-rosalia/

Vice interviewed Paul Koudounaris for their article, an author and photographer specializing in macabre art, who says that he has photographed at least six different skeletons all supposedly belonging to St Valentine. 

And then there is that quote about the number of relics of the True Cross, from the 16th-century Dutch humanist Erasmus, who, in a satire on pilgrimages, wrote, “So they say of the cross of Our Lord, which is shown publicly and privately in so many places, that, if all the fragments were collected together, they would appear to form a fair cargo for a merchant ship.”

At the beginning of this essay, I said that I sympathize with the Bhudhists and Hindus who question the authenticity of the relics of St Francis Xavier, and this is why. I think that the entire history of relics would instill a healthy skepticism into anybody who knows much about them. Add to that Francis Xavier’s opinions about Hindus in general and the role that he played in the oppression of the people of Goa, and its no surprise that these modern Hindus feel that way. 

But, I also said that I ultimately disagree with the Bhudists and Hindus who are making this claim. Let’s return to that OP India article: 

Buddhists across the world, including Sri Lanka, have been demanding an investigation into the remains of St. Francis Xavier in Goa. They say that the remains claimed to be those of Francis Xavier are in fact those of Buddhist monk Rahula Thero. In 2014, an open letter was written by Sri Lankan activist group Rahula Thero to the Government of India and the then President of Sri Lanka, His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In their petition in December 2014, the Buddhist community said, “We the signatories, as concerned and right-thinking citizens of India and Sri Lanka and the rest of the world, request you to kindly intervene in resolving the long-standing dispute regarding the true identity of the remains of a body kept in a glass coffin in a church in Goa, India.”

It said, “There is a widespread belief in Sri Lanka, particularly among Buddhists, that the body in question is that of a highly respected literary giant and learned monk of Sri Lanka, Acharya Ven. The remains belong to Sri Rahula Thero (1409-91), while Catholics have been led to believe that it is the body of Francis Xavier, a controversial Christian Jesuit missionary who was accused of committing crimes against humanity by starting the infamous Goa Inquisition.”

The petition further said, “We believe that DNA testing or blood sample testing of the descendants of both the families will satisfactorily put an end to the centuries-old debates and theories. We demand that the body lying in Goa be returned to France and the controversial remains should no longer be kept in Goa as neither Goa nor India is a colony of foreign countries.”

While I fully support this proposed genetic profiling work, and I would also support radiocarbon dating the bones and stuff like that … I really do think that this is the body of Francis Xavier. We seem to have pretty good chain of custody of Francis Xavier’s body from the time of his death until his body’s internment in Goa. I know this doesn’t count as real research, but I asked Chat GPT and this response makes me fairly confident in the chain of custody. It seems as good as we can hope for, given the time period. The same guy who buried Francis in December 1552 was there during his exhumation three months later in February 1553. Then his body was interred at St Paul’s Church in modern day Malaysia for another nine ish months before being shipped to Goa, where it was interred at the Basilica of Bom Jesus. I like to think that I am skeptical about relics in general, but this chain of custody seems sufficient to me. I do not doubt that the body that is about to go on display in another month or so in Goa is indeed the body of Francis Xavier. 

Also, claiming that that isn’t the body of a 16th Century Catholic Saint because that body actually belonged to a 15th Century Buddhist “saint” seems like it strains credulity. If the body in Goa isn’t St Francis, I would expect that it would have been another Jesuit who died around the same time, who’d body was either accidentally or purposely swapped out for Francis’s because it was in better condition or something like that … not the body of a Bhudhist monk from 100 years earlier. 

But, importantly, I don’t think that it is necessary that the body belongs to a Buddhist monk in order for us to have important conversations about the legacy of Francis Xavier. Something that I didn’t speak about in this video was Francis’s work with the poor, but that would be important to include in an exhaustive conversation about the life and legacy of Francis Xavier, which this video is not. But what this video is, is a long winded critique of the “cultus” of St Francis Xavier, and indeed, the culti of any saint. As soon as someone gets canonized, it seems like, in communities that the ones I come from, any criticism about that saint is now forbidden. And indeed, in Goa, anyway, it is forbidden by law and you can get in legal trouble for trying to have this conversation. 

I think that the modern Catholic Church is better about this topic that the Trad communities like the ones I come from - frankly, I don’t know, since I was never part of a Novus Ordo community. But I think that Catholic Reddit is more similar to a Trad Community than it is to a Novus Ordo community, at least in this way. I almost never see critical commentary about saints or past actions of the Church. Its all apologetics about the Spanish Inquisition or apologetics about the Crusades or whatever. And I would love to see this change, in Catholic Reddit. I would love to see more Catholic content creators grappling with the complicated past of the Catholic Church. 

But until the Catholic content creators pick up the mantle, I guess you all are stuck with me being one of the few people talking about this stuff on Reddit. Sorry about that. 

Thanks for reading.

Works Cited 

Indian Police Hunt for Hindu Man Who Allegedly Disrespected St. Francis Xavier, by the National Catholic Register 

https://www.ncregister.com/cna/indian-police-hunt-for-hindu-man-who-allegedly-disrespected-st-francis-xavier#:~:text=Police%20in%20the%20Indian%20state,who%20deeply%20venerate%20St.%20Francis.

Christians call them remains of Francis Xavier, for Buddhists he is Acharya Rahul Thero: Know why people demand DNA test of dead body kept in Goa church, by OP India 

https://www.opindia.com/2024/10/controversy-dead-body-goa-church-christians-remains-francis-xavier-buddhists-acharya-rahul-thero/

Neill, Stephen (1984) A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707 https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Christianity_in_India/RH4VPgB__GQC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Sita Ram Goel (2019) Francis Xavier SJ The Man And His Mission

https://archive.org/details/FrancisXavierSJTheManAndHisMissionSitaRamGoel/page/n9/mode/2up

Taking the Measure of Relics of the True Cross, from the National Catholic Register: https://www.ncregister.com/news/taking-the-measure-of-relics-of-the-true-cross

Given:

1. "The same Holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason" (Vatican I); "[H]uman reason by its own natural force and light can arrive at a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, Who by His providence watches over and governs the world" (Pope Pius XII)
2. Some people don't believe in God through ignorance or misunderstanding of the arguments for God's existence.
3. The Church seeks the salvation of souls
4. Rational arguments can be developed, improved, and expanded through dialog, critical analysis, workshopping, A/B testing, etc., etc.

The Catholic Church should spend much more time, energy, and resources on developing proofs for the existence of God, in a focused, coordinated way (e.g. from the Vatican, or Councils of Bishops, not just a handful of Catholic laypersons).

And yet, much of the time, Catholic apologists simply point to Aquinas' Five Ways, and then, when a reader is unconvinced, they say that such a response is just misunderstanding, or a failure to put in the work of following a complex argument ("there are no shortcuts"), laziness, or dishonesty.

That's fine, and maybe they are right! But it doesn't seem like there is any movement to improve the accessibility of these arguments, or to develop new ones for a modern audience.

Thesis: martyrdom is overemphasized in Christian arguments and only serves to establish sincerity.

Alice: We know Jesus resurrected because the disciples said they witnessed it.

Bob: So what? My buddy Ted swears he witnessed a UFO abduct a cow.

Alice: Ah, but the disciples were willing to die for their beliefs! Was Ted martyred for his beliefs?

Christian arguments from witness testimony have a problem: the world is absolutely flooded with witness testimony for all manner of outrageous claims. Other religions, conspiracies, ghosts, psychics, occultists, cryptozoology – there’s no lack of people who will tell you they witnessed something extraordinary. How is a Christian to wave these off while relying on witnesses for their own claims? One common approach is to point to martyrdom. Christian witnesses died for their claims; did any of your witnesses die for their claims? If not, then your witnesses can be dismissed while preserving mine. This is the common “die for a lie” argument, often expanded into the claim that Christian witnesses alone were in a position to know if their claims were true and still willing to die for them.

There are plenty of retorts to this line of argument. Were Christian witnesses actually martyred? Were they given a chance to recant to save themselves? Could they have been sincerely mistaken? However, there's a more fundamental issue here: martyrdom doesn’t actually differentiate the Christian argument.

Martyrdom serves to establish one thing and one thing only: sincerity. If someone is willing to die for their claims, then that strongly indicates they really do believe their claims are true.* However, sincerity is not that difficult to establish. If Ted spends $10,000 installing a massive laser cannon on the roof of his house to guard against UFOs, we can be practically certain that he sincerely believes UFOs exist. We’ve established sincerity with 99.9999% confidence, and now must ask questions about the other details – how sure we are that he wasn't mistaken, for example. Ted being martyred and raising that confidence to 99.999999% wouldn’t really affect anything; his sincerity was not in question to begin with. Even if he did something more basic, like quit his job to become a UFO hunter, we would still be practically certain that he was sincere. Ted’s quality as a witness isn’t any lower because he wasn’t martyred and would be practically unchanged by martyrdom.

Even if we propose wacky counterfactuals that question sincerity despite strong evidence, martyrdom doesn’t help resolve them. For example, suppose someone says the CIA kidnapped Ted’s family and threatened to kill them if he didn’t pretend to believe in UFOs, as part of some wild scheme. Ted buying that cannon or quitting his job wouldn’t disprove this implausible scenario. But then again, neither would martyrdom – Ted would presumably be willing to die for his family too. So martyrdom doesn’t help us rule anything out even in these extreme scenarios.

An analogy is in order. You are walking around a market looking for a lightbulb when you come across two salesmen selling nearly identical bulbs. One calls out to you and says, “you should buy my lightbulb! I had 500 separate glass inspectors all certify that this lightbulb is made of real glass. That other lightbulb only has one certification.” Is this a good argument in favor of the salesman’s lightbulb? No, of course not. I suppose it’s nice to know that it’s really made of glass and not some sort of cheap transparent plastic or something, but the other lightbulb is also certified to be genuine glass, and it’s pretty implausible for it to be faked anyway. And you can just look at the lightbulb and see that it’s glass, or if you’re hyper-skeptical you could tap it to check. Any more confidence than this would be overkill; getting super-extra-mega-certainty that the glass is real is completely useless for differentiating between the two lightbulbs. What you should be doing is comparing other factors – how bright is each bulb? How much power do they use? And so on.

So martyrdom is overemphasized in Christian arguments. It doesn’t do much of anything to differentiate Christian witnesses from witnesses of competing claims. It’s fine for establishing sincerity*, but it should not be construed as elevating Christian arguments in any way above competing arguments that use different adequate means to establish sincerity. There is an endless deluge of witness testimony for countless extraordinary claims, much of which is sincere – and Christians need some other means to differentiate their witness testimony if they don’t want to be forced to believe in every tall tale under the sun.

(*For the sake of this post I’ve assumed that someone choosing to die rather than recant a belief really does establish they sincerely believe it. I’ll be challenging this assumption in other posts.)

The Bible is a collection of independent teachings from God compiled by well meaning and exceptionally clever gentiles who had never met Christ into a manual for spiritual warfare. A manual for a war we were never meant to fight. Prove me wrong.

The Contingency Argument Against Catholicism

I have developed this new argument that shows Catholic teachings about the nature of God and creation are improbable if not impossible. The doctrines of divine simplicity and creatio ex nihilo are untenable in light of modern contingency arguments. I won't go into detail motivating these arguments for theism here: just examining what their conclusions entail.

The Modern Contingency Argument

In stage 1, this argument argues that an analysis of grounding relations establishes God as the ground of everything. A wooden chair is grounded by wood; the chair is the wood that grounds it. Wood is grounded by atoms, and so on. This line of grounding is thought to terminate somewhere, and stage 2 shows this is God, (or something near enough.)

The Problem

If God grounds physical reality the way the wood grounds the chair or the way pieces ground a puzzle, then physical reality is not extrinsic to God. God is not only transcendent (as the doctrine of Divine Simplicity states), but must also be immanent in reality as well, because ultimately reality is fundamentally constituted by God. This theological view is known as panentheism.

To further motivate the problem for divine simplicity, we need an account of how an utterly simple ground gives rise to multiplicity. This particular problem may not be insurmountable (some naturalist theories posit a singular simple "ground"), but we'd need to know how this is even possible with God.

We also have a problem for creatio ex nihilo. Physical reality isn't extrinsic to God, since it is grounded by God, since it is God. It seems that the correct analysis of creation is that physical reality is created from God the way a chair is created from the wood that grounds it.

Summary

I hope to spur more debate in this subreddit; it was fun to hop in and construct what is hopefully a fun and challenging argument for Catholics.

Escape routes

Something Josh Rasmussen (who I read in preparation for this argument) does in his papers is throw a bone to the other side, which I will try to do as well. An analysis of teasing apart grounding relations from material, efficient, and final causes could develop into an objection, though not immediately clear how to articulate and preserve grounding. Another is to just accept panentheism and immanence and find a way to harmonize it with simplicity.

This is the strongest argument for homosexuality that I could find: Prior to 1946, the King James Version triumphed the land and they used the phrase, “Abusers of themselves with mankind” for arsenokoitai. The word Malakoi indicates a weakness of character, a softness, and the qualities of being a woman(laziness, lustful, lack of self-control, weakness, cowardice, etc.). A man with "feminine" traits or was penetrated like a woman was called malakos. Arsenakoitai has never been properly translated and so could mean anything. But one strong meaning is younger men who are allowing themselves to be sexually used to climb the social ladder, and older men who are sexually using younger men for their own purposes.

 "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." (Leviticus 18:22). Means don't treat a man like a woman(laziness, lustful, lack of self-control, etc.), as women should be treated as women and men treated as men(but we don't follow the law of the torah anymore, some would argue that it's a moral law but the torah also prescribes death penalties for disobeying moral laws).

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature." (Romans 1:26). Natural is sex that has self control, is procreative, and has social male dominance. Unnatural means lack of self control, is not procreative(women having sex with men in a way that prevents getting pregnant), and one or both males are being dominated(woman is dominating).

So homosexuality in the Bible is actually the exploitative use of others and unnatural doesn't automatically mean homosexual sex. But there's no same sex relationships that are condoned in the Bible. There's a lot that's not in the Bible like body modifications, gambling, celebrating Halloween, dinosaurs, the age of the earth, and protestants would say the intercession of the Saints and purgatory.

But homosexual sex is not procreative. Not all heterosexual couples can have kids either(and not all sex takes place when the woman is fertile), but adoption is always an option.

But one male is getting dominated during homosexual sex. Not all heterosexual sex is male dominated either.

But God defined natural sex as procreative. So heterosexual couples who can't procreate are not valid marriages? Most Christians would disagree as heterosexual couples, regardless of their fertility, are engaged in a union that is naturally ordered toward procreation and reflects the complementary nature of man and woman. In contrast, same-sex unions, by their nature, do not fulfill the procreative purpose that the Church associates with marriage.("naturally ordered toward procreation" refers to the belief that the marital relationship between a man and a woman is inherently designed for the possibility of creating new life.). Infertile couples by definition are not naturally ordered towards procreation. If someone is saying that a heterosexual infertile couple has the potential for procreation, you're basically relying on God to do a miracle that would magically make them be able to have children. And if we're relying on miracles to make a couple procreative, in theory, God could do that with the same-sex couple too.

But Jesus references the pornia code. No He doesn't, Jesus does not explicitly refer to a "pornia code," he addresses issues of sexual morality, including adultery and divorce, using the term "porneia" in the context of his teachings. Sexual immorality is adultery: engaging in sexual relations with someone who is not one’s spouse, fornication: sexual relations between individuals who are not married to each other, lust: engaging in sexual thoughts or desires that are contrary to the virtue of chastity, & prostitution and pornography: engaging in sexual acts for money or consuming sexually explicit material. Pornia can refer to Leviticus as it separates the Israelites apart from the pagans, meaning this is a ceremonial law(specific regulations meant to distinguish Israelites from their pagan neighbors). Christians are not bound by ceremonial law. Since the church is not the nation of Israel, memorial festivals, such as the Feast of Weeks and Passover, do not apply.

But the Bible says that marriage is between one man and one woman. The concept of marriage does change from author to author within the biblical texts, these variations are often reflective of different cultural contexts, theological emphases, and evolving understandings of human relationships. Our job is to synthesize these diverse perspectives into a coherent teaching on marriage. That definition of marriage seems to be descriptive rather than prescriptive (i.e. it describes what marriage is or has been, not what it will always mean), especially since marriage itself is so incredibly different now.

So what is the purpose of sex? according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, encompasses procreation(already discussed as false), unity, and relational intimacy. It is a sacred act that reflects God's design for marriage and human relationships, intended to be both life-giving(spiritually) and love-giving.

So to summarize, the bible doesn't condemn homosexuality(and when it does its ceremonial law) nor is sex supposed to be procreative(we must distinguish between the authors bias/culture and God’s inspired word). Understanding the cultural context of a biblical passage is essential for correct interpretation. The Bible contains approximately 1,100 cultural practices, concepts, or subjects.

What are your thoughts?

Hello r/DebateACatholic,

As you know, r/DebateACatholic has recently reopened under the moderator team of r/CatholicApologetics. A few months ago, we have opened up a discord server for the community of r/CatholicApologetics, and now we would like to extend this invitation to join to all of you. Our Catholic Apologetics Discord Server is open to everyone, regardless of religion. You can expect on our server the following:

•    Faith Discussions
•    Prayer Requests
•    Debates
•    Fellowship and Support

All are welcome, whether you’re a lifelong Catholic, a different denomination, or just exploring the faith. We only ask that you remain charitable and respectful. If you’re anti-Catholic, this may not be the right place for you.

Join Here!

EDIT 2: I have responded to u/PaxApologetica here as the comment was most voted and it became easier to respond to that one. Feel free to reply to that comment if you would like conversation. However Pax will get priority. Feel free to give me (free) literature to read. Thank you.

As a Muslim with a keen interest in theology, I’ve been curious about certain developments in Christian doctrine, particularly within the Roman Catholic Church. One question that has caught my attention is, why the Roman Catholic Church decided to add the term “Filioque” (which I know means “and the Son”) to the Nicene Creed, especially since it wasn’t part of the original version?^^[OrthodoxWiki]

From my research, it seems the Filioque clause was absent in the Creed established by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. It was later introduced in the Western Church during the 6th century and formally adopted in Rome by the 11th century.^^[Britannica]

This timeline (between the 6^th and 11^th C.) fascinates me because it highlights how the original theological statements, which were agreed upon by early councils, were later altered in significant ways. Given that this change was made unilaterally by the Western Church, I wonder if this implies that the Roman Catholic Church was the first to initiate a split from the Eastern Orthodox Church.

As someone who approaches these questions from an Islamic perspective, where the concept of God is strictly monotheistic, the idea of altering a central creed raises deep theological questions about the nature of God and the relationships within the Christian understanding of the Trinity. With this, I hopw to gain som einsight into this and some understanding.

Thank you for reading.

References:

OrthodoxWiki (n.d.) Filioque. Available at: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Filioque

Britannica (n.d.) Schism of 1054. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/event/Schism-of-1054

EDIT: currently writing a response to the more detailed replies though will try to ensure I reaply to every top level comment. Bare with. Thank you.

I'm really interested in knowing what your arguments are.

The idea that some societal sins "cry out to heaven for vengeance" and that Catholics need to make an act of reparation for such sins to appease God before He strikes out in anger, seems more in line with the old covenant than the new.

... this prayer will serve to appease My wrath.

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How they provoke His indignation and give us cause to fear the terrible effects of His vengeance!

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How long do we expect His Father will allow us to abuse Him? Do we, indeed, wish He would end His patience now and get to the part where fire comes down from heaven?

I was never Protestant, and I never knew Protestant converts to Catholicism growing up, but for whatever reason, Catholic YouTube seems to be comprised of primarily Protestant Converts to Catholicism rather than cradle Catholics. Maybe I am wrong about that, but that is how it seems to me. 

Regardless, comments like this one are easy to find on YouTube, under any video about Apostolic Succession:

In my opinion, Apostolic Succession is the most convincing argument in favor of Catholicism. When I was still protestant, I thought, if Apostolic Succession is true and I’m not a member of that Church, that’s scary.

This comment in particular was found under this video: 

Does the Catholic Church Have Unbroken Apostolic Succession? By Catholic Answers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La-EmKSKSPk

In this video, Jimmy Akin makes some claims that I would like to push back on, but he also makes some claims that I kinda just want to highlight, because I think that the case for Apostolic Succession that many Catholics seem to make is just waaaay over stated.

The claim that I would like to push back on is the following: 

Even though we don't have, to my knowledge, a list going all the way back to the apostles for every single Bishop, it is morally certain that we do have lines that go all the way back to the apostles. 

From 1:45 to 2:02 

Right away, I would like to call out Jimmy’s phrasing of “morally certain”. Is “moral certainty” different than regular old certainty? I am not sure, and I might need to ask Jimmy about this next time we talk, but for the sake of this video, I am going to move forward assuming that “moral certainty” at least includes “regular certainty”, meaning that Jimmy is implying that we have the highest degree of confidence that “we do have lines that go all the way back to the apostles”. This is the claim against which I would like to push back.

But I would like to highlight a few points that Jimmy makes first. Around the 40 second mark into the video, Jimmy admits that we do not actually have any such list:  

To my knowledge, there is not a single comprehensive list mapping all of the world's Bishops all the way back to the apostles. 

From 0:42 to 0:51 

And around the one minute mark, Jimmy admits that the lists that we do have only go back “a couple hundred years”: 

There is a registry within the Catholic Church that traces the lineage of all current Bishops back several hundred years. 

From 1:01 to 1:10 

Perhaps this is why Jimmy said “moral certainty” instead of plain old “certainty”? Again, I am not entirely sure, but its possible that Jimmy meant that, like, because the Church is certainly the One True Church, then we can trust the Church even where we do not have records of her claims. 

My response here, though, we be that someone could be pointing to the claims that the Church makes about Apostolic Succession in some kind of cumulative case against the Catholic Church, and so, if one person was undertaking such an effort, then to assume that the Church is the One True Church in order to justify Apostolic Succession would be to be begging the question. And I do think that the Church being incorrect in its claims of Apostolic Succession would be one small chip on the scale in a cumulative case against the Catholic Church. Further, I think that there are good reasons to be skeptical about the Church’s claims of Apostolic Succession! And this is because I think that the earliest sources we have about apostolic succession kinda contradict what the Church claims about Apostolic Succession. We will look at two sources, both from the late first century. 

First up, we will look at the Didache. The Didache, a greek word meaning “teaching”,  is a late first Century text, written as an instruction manual for Christians. It is an invaluable source for historians trying to learn about very early Chrisitanity, and in teaching 15.1, we read the following: 

Didache 15:1 https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-hoole.html 

Written ~90 AD 

Elect, therefore, for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not covetous, and true and approved, for they perform for you the service of prophets and teachers.

Notice that this does not say “Elect them, and then we, the apostles and those appointed by the apostles, will send an apostle or someone who was ordained by the Apostles so that we can maintain our Apostolic Succession”. It simply says “Elect for yourselves worthy bishops”. And then that’s it - the election itself seems sufficient for any person to become a Bishop. No apostolic succession required, not per the Didache. And the fact that there needs to be an election at all seems to mean that there would not be a Bishop already in that city. As in, if there were already a Bishop, then that Bishop would likely have appointed a successor. But since the Didache is telling people to elect a Bishop, and since the Didache was probably written around the year 90 or so, iit seems likely that the Didache is talking to “unincorporated Christians”, as it were. Christians who have heard the good news but who do not yet have any Bishop in their city. 

And for one more 1st Century source, we can look at Clement’s letter to the Romans: 

1 Clement 44 https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm

Written ~96 AD 

Our apostles … appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or, afterwards, by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church*, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world]; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. But we see that you have removed some men of excellent behaviour from the ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honour.*

Here, Clement seems to be admitting that, while some Bishops are appointed directly by apostles, other Bishops can be made Bishops by any “reputable man”, as long as this appointment has “the consent of the whole Church”. This sounds to me like what the Didache was saying, that Churches can “elect for themselves” whoever they want as Bishop. No apostolic succession needed. 

Both of these sources that I gathered today were presented a week ago by Dr Steven Nemes, on the channel “What Your Pastor Didn’t Tell You”. That stream is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81_QiSOIisg&t=2774s, and I highly suggest that my Catholic readers listen to that whole stream, but for the sake my video, I am only going to quote one short clip from it: 

It may be that people are not convinced. It may be that people say “Well, you know, in spite of all this, it's still possibly true”. Yeah, anything is possibly true, but the question is, given the actual evidence that we have, what makes the best sense? And I think what makes the best sense is the idea that Apostolic succession was a myth invented in the second century, it evolved, it grew bigger and bigger and bigger over time, but it has no basis in the facts. 

From 33:20 to 33:42 

Perhaps this is what Jimmy meant when he was talking about moral certainty? Maybe moral certainty just means “We can’t prove it didn’t happen”? I am not sure. Regardless, there is one more claim that Jimmy makes in this video that I think is worth addressing: 

The process [of ordination] has fail safes built into it, so it's not just one Bishop lays hands on you if you're going to be consecrated a bishop. It's typically at least three, so even if there was a danger that one Bishop might have been invalidly ordained, the other two Bishops putting hands on you will secure your ordination as a bishop.

From 1:22 to 1:44 

First thing I would like to say is… why are we so concerned about Bishops not actually having apostolic succession that we are having three Bishops ordain one Bishop? I thought that there would have been clear records of Apostolic Succession at this time, being only 200 years removed from the Apostles? This seems to me to be a ceding of ground, an admitting that there was at least a serious enough problem of non-apostolic succeeding Bishops that we need to triple up on Bishops so that certainly, at least one of them had to take! 

And I mentioned 200 years because I think that Jimmy gets this multiple Bishop thing from Hippolytus, writing in the third century. I will refer you to the 44 min mark in Dr Nemes video on What Your Pastor Didn’t Tell you, for more here, but the long and the short of it is that Hippolytus was writing in the 3rd Century, long after the Didache and Clement, so, this timeline checks out with the thesis that the myth of Apostolic Succession arose in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries as the need for authority among vying Christian sects emerged and as it became clear that Jesus wasn’t coming back again any time soon. 

Who cared about Apostolic Succession in the first century? Seemingly nobody. Jesus was coming back soon, and anyway, all the Christians were on the same team, so, there was no need for one sect to claim more authority than the other sects. But as time went on, Christianity began to splinter, and the sects that became the Catholic Church needed to claim more authority than the sects that died out, like the Valentinians and the Marcionites and all that. And apostolic succession seems like a good way to claim authority. I mean, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches still do that to this day, to claim more authority than the Protestant Churches. 

But, like Dr Nemes said, Apostolic Succession is simply not grounded in fact. It evolved, it grew bigger and bigger and bigger over time, and history is written by the winners. The Catholic Church is the result of the sects who won the Orthodoxy wars of the first centuries in the years of Our Lord… and so, the Catholic Church claims apostolic succession. But I think that the average Catholic should be far less certain about these claims that the Church makes, because the data simply doesn’t back them up on this one. Thanks for reading! 

If you read Pope Leo XIII's Immortale Dei, or the works of many post-liberal Catholic philosophers, or even just browse some of the Catholic politics subreddits, you will see that many important (or not important) thinkers in the Church believe that democracy is incompatible with Catholicism, that the Church and the secular state are not able to live in harmony. You can even see this in the political speech of Catholics in recent elections and in the ways some Catholics defend their vote for Trump. Preventing abortion is more important than preserving the American system of government. Catholic monarchy is the ideal form of government anyway.

Certainly, we don't want to go back to the anti-Catholic prejudice of American history, and I think there is a lot of complexity around protecting government from religion AND protecting religion from government.

But it certainly seems fair to ask a member of the Knights of Columbus what he believes and how it might affect his ability to do his job (https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/a-brief-history-of-kamala-harris-and-the-knights-of-columbus/).

Have a question yet don’t want to debate? Just looking for clarity? This is your opportunity to get clarity. Whether you’re a Catholic who’s curious, someone joining looking for a safe space to ask anything, or even a non-Catholic who’s just wondering why Catholics do a particular thing.