This video presents a traditional Catholic response to Protestant arguments, particularly those raised by Wes Huff in his video 'Six Reasons Why I'm Not Roman Catholic.' The Catholic perspective argues that scripture alone cannot be self-sufficient because: (1) The word of God came to humans orally through prophets, not in written form, and was recorded by human scribes who introduced fallibility; (2) No original manuscripts exist today—only copies and translations with variations; (3) For the first 1,500 years, most people could not read scripture, making it inaccessible; (4) Christ established a magisterial authority (the Church) to guide interpretation, which Protestants reject; (5) The Bible never claims to contain all truth needed for salvation, as St. John's Gospel states that not all of Jesus's teachings were written down. The Catholic position holds that salvation requires faith, hope, and charity, with works as evidence of genuine faith, and that the Church provides an infallible guarantee of scripture's accuracy.
What Catholics Believe - 6/02/2026 Live StreamAdded:
The following program was made possible by the generosity of those who have determined to hold fast to the true Roman Catholic religion as expounded by the Roman Catholic Church before the disasters of Vatican 2 and the so-called new mass.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Come Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of thy love.
Send forth thy spirit and they shall be created and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. Oh God, who did instruct the hearts of thy faithful by the light of the Holy Ghost, grant us by that same spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in its consolation.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hello and welcome to what Catholics believe. I'm Thomas Ngley. I'm here with Father William Jenkins. He is a traditional Catholic priest. He is the superior of the society of St. Pius the 5th and he also serves as the pastor of Immaculate Conception Church right here in Norwood, Ohio. Hello father, how are you?
>> Very fine Tom, thank you. And yourself?
>> I'm well father.
>> It's good to see you. Of course.
>> You too, father. Uh father, prayer request begin?
>> Always always Tom? Of course we still praying for the repose of the souls of our recently deceased of course Monica Kit, Donald Pots and Richard Welt. Uh praying for also Karen Kungl and uh Robbie Robbie Brockman and some of the other dear souls we know, Father Dresser, Father Dreer, I'm sorry, Father Joseph Drager passed away. Um and uh so you know, not only the recently deceased, but all of the deceased over the past years and uh I still remember them all u actually going back all those years. But uh uh also this this the sick and those who are trying to recover from illness. Uh please remember father Marashka again. Of course he's still still trying to recover from that uh surgery and it's been a real tough road for him. Um but I do ask your prayers for so many others we know who are suffering right now. Just ask him keep keep them all in your prayers.
>> Yes. Absolutely.
>> Pray for our country. Pray for the church militant. of course as you pray for the church suffering in purgatory and uh pray for the captive peoples. Uh, Bishop Mendes was one of instrumental in starting the age of the Captive Church back when he and Natalie White actually weren't part of that. And um they they both knew Bella Dodd actually uh kind of confidants of hers and she was of course in the Communist Party in America for quite some time. So she knew what was very well from in the ground level what was going on here. Um and so um you know they teamed up to aid to the church uh captive people captive church behind the Iron Curtain being held by socialists and communists Marxists. So we need to continue our prayers. I mean we have socialist governments, communist governments. Uh we should be praying for the people of Cuba, praying for the people of Mexico, praying for the people of Canada, let certainly praying for the people of the United States of America too. and uh so many others. Um we need to actually pray for pray for one and all. Our prayers should not exclude anyone. Uh we should ask God to have mercy on us all. It's part of our obligation to make reparation to the sacred heart of Jesus and the immaculate heart of Mary for the sins of mankind.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, Father, we also wanted to mention um our Etsy shop.
We've mentioned that uh in the past on the show, but uh just uh recently we've had an exciting addition to that where we um we actually have available now for purchase uh very beautiful uh brown scapulars.
>> Um it's a very important devotion. We hope that all of our viewers practice that. Um but these scapulars, I believe we can put pictures of those on the screen. Um very beautiful scapulars. We have a couple different varieties. These are all handmade I believe by the Daughters of Mary and uh at our uh sisters convent in Roundtop, New York.
Um and they sell these among a lot of other religious goods to uh one of the main purposes is to help uh raise funds for their convents for their growing growing number of sisters that they have. Um, so we really encourage uh all of our viewers if they uh need scapular, they know those who who do need a scapular, they want to purchase extras to have some, um, maybe give them out, help spread this devotion. Um, so very great great work, great devotion. So those are, um, now available on our Etsy shop if they could please, um, please check that out. And, uh, also wanted to mention on there, uh, we're just starting the month of June month dedicated to the sacred heart of our Lord. We have um very very beautiful um brochures explaining the con the consecration the enthronement of the sacred heart in the home. Um very simple very beautiful brochure that explains that process. And we also have very beautiful prayer cards that were made by uh one of your parishioners here father um that have the act of consecration to the sacred heart that the family would pray in conjunction with that um enthronement ceremony. So, I really hope encourage all of our viewers, every single one of them to uh perform that enthronement ceremony to uh get some of those uh holy cards with that prayer in the back to pray that prayer every every day this month uh throughout the month of June dedicated to Sacred Heart. Try and spread that devotion to uh to the Sacred Heart. If you have those prayer cards, buy more, hand them out to your family members. Um really try and encourage that that devotion. So uh just want all our viewers to be aware of that and please do whatever you can in that regard.
>> So um >> wonderful. I should mention also the retreats >> ladies retreat starting >> June uh what is it 17th I think.
>> Sounds right.
>> Men's retreat >> June 24th and uh still have some openings and uh also of course the children's camp the boys camp and the girls camp coming up mid July through early August. Uh all wonderful events and uh people should take advantage of the opportunity to come or send their youngsters to the camps.
>> Yep.
>> Come to the retreats or send their youngsters to the camps. Very good. All right. Well, thank you, father, for that. Um father, we wanted to tonight spend some time on uh one Wes Huff.
Sure. Um I know many of our viewers are familiar with him and uh I guess I don't know exactly how he styles himself but a Protestant apologist um who has a very popular online presence. Um a very very great following online. He's kind of uh been making the rounds uh lately online uh visiting all the all the different podcasts. Um I know he was on Joe Rogan I think uh Michael Nolles and um just all the the popular podcasts. Um, he's been making his rounds there, but he's makes a lot of his own videos, too.
>> Wes Huff.
>> Wes Huff.
>> What is What is his claim to fame? Why is he >> uh popular?
>> I guess he's uh styles himself this great biblical scholar. Um but uh >> Catholic fellow >> Christian. He's Protestant.
>> Protestant fellow.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Okay. Um >> and that is is that what he's uh promoting himself as? A Protestant >> scholar, scripture scholar. And uh >> I've heard a few different labels that he said, but definitely the Protestant is very uh prominent in there. He always refers himself as Protestant, a biblically based Protestant, a historical Protestant. He's I've heard several several different different labels about Protestant. He always makes sure to to throw that in there.
>> I see. Is this somehow related to Charlie Kirk and his Protestant connection? Does he have the same approach to things? Does he >> um not exactly? I think he really leans more into the the scholarly aspect of things and tries to really present himself as as a biblical scholar who uh you know is familiar with with the uh the ancient Greek and the Hebrew and the the original languages of of the scripture and has uh travel the world.
>> There must be some controversy involved for them to have him on all these programs. Right.
>> He uh he he's >> a controversialist.
>> Uh he's he's been in debates. He he he'll debate uh people about uh different aspects of of the Bible and uh a lot of those those debates have kind of gone viral um for his defense of the Bible and and and in one way or another.
So >> I'm sorry what I'm trying to get at what is his point? Is it like defense of the Bible or defense of Protestantism?
>> Both. Both.
>> He's defending the Protestantism.
>> Yes. Really >> against the Catholic position. Is that is that why they're having him on?
um not per se against Catholicism. That definitely is a is a factor. Um but I would say just um I don't know against um just the um I don't know the modern world.
>> So why is there so much interest because there are a lot of people who are there's a big presence on the internet of people who are >> uh speaking Protestant interpretations of scripture and so on.
>> Why is he has he gone viral what they say now?
>> He's gone viral I would say. Yeah. Why is that still?
>> I don't know exactly, father. I think he's um he he's I don't know. I guess >> you're mentioning him for a reason, though. I'm trying to get to figure out why.
>> I get the only reason I can figure he's so popular, I guess, is he's he's somewhat good-looking and well spoken.
Um so I I guess people find that find that attractive in in today's world that he can formulate some points tonight here.
>> Tonight, uh I want to talk about because he put out this this video called uh six reasons why I'm not Roman Catholic. Um, several of our six reasons why I'm not Roman Catholic.
>> Yeah, several of our viewers have sent that to us and um, it's generated some controversy online. A lot of the I don't know popular quote unquote Catholic um, apologists online today have have put out videos responding to this. Um, but uh, as I say, some of our our viewers have asked, "Father, if you could uh, respond to this this video of these six reasons why I'm not Roman Catholic." And um, >> some of our own viewers have asked us to respond to that. Yes, right.
>> Oh, okay. Well, I was wondering, you know, what precipitated >> Yeah. You know, bringing him up, but if the viewers asked Y.
>> All right.
>> Definitely.
>> Well, um, I did the homework, father.
Uh, watch watch through the >> watch through the video. Uh, >> I admire you for that.
>> Multiple task.
>> Multiple times, actually. I watched through the video. Um, the first thing that jumped out to me, he >> and he convinced you. Not quite. Not quite, father. I had a few objections of my own. Um, he titled the video though, six reasons why I'm not Roman Catholic.
But then in watching the video, um, he has, I mean, at least eight different objections that he raises in there. So, I was a little confused right off the bat what exactly his six were. Um, if he somehow lumped some of them together or what. So, I was sort of confused about that right off the bat. But, there's at least eight different sections in there.
>> Really?
>> Um, >> could you run down them? one just briefly mention them one by one.
>> Yes. Uh the first reason why he's not Roman Catholic is the uh he titles the sufficiency of scripture and the sufficiency of faith, sufficiency of grace. Uh and then he um examines the papacy, prayer to saints, the mass, the changing unchanged church. Uh and then he had a whole section about justification. And then he had a last uh segment uh um addressing the question of whether or not Catholics can actually be considered Christians.
>> I see. Okay. Interesting.
>> So I think it's actually nine.
>> So it's basically the standard stuff that Protestants bring up.
>> Pretty standard stuff. Yeah. There was nothing really.
>> Wish I had one of my 11th and 12th grade students here. It was I think any of my 11th 12th grade students could probably answer >> probably >> whatever whatever he mentions there.
>> Yeah, probably. But I I guess it's worth taking a look at because we have viewers who have asked us to >> respond, I guess. Right.
>> Yes, father. Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> I I think it's um I think it's worth the time, father. Um as I say, I don't think there's anything >> Sure.
>> too exciting in here. Just a lot of typical I think recycled Protestant talking points. But um just from an apologetic standpoint, I think it's always important to go to go through these. But this first one um the sufficiency of of scripture. um just read through a couple of his talking points here. Father, he said that uh scripture is ontologically unique. Um which I haven't exactly heard it phrased that way before. So thought that was unique to hear that uh scripture is ontologically unique. He said though that um that um reading scripture that doesn't preclude misunderstanding or misinterpretation. He says even when God spoke by the prophets, it didn't mean that Israel wouldn't misunderstand, twist, or misapply those words. He said that individuals may disagree. That is why the study of the uh original languages has been such a a core emphasis. Um he says that we are fallible and God is not. It is God's fault that we fall it is not God's fault that we fallably misunderstand God's infallible words. Um then he talks about this idea that uh solos scriptor does not eliminate all authority. Protestants acknowledge ministerial authority but not a magisterial or a leading authority. So there's a lot there probably we can go through some of that.
>> That's his first point.
>> That's the first point about the sufficiency of >> got a wide ranging point, right?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. By the way, let me just clarify something. And I was trying to get point why are we even talking about this? And the actually the reason why I was pressing at that point is because uh someone sent me a video responding to him and and actually the video that he that he put out and I started listening to it and I thought, "Oh, this is just the same old stuff." And then I listened to the response and I was wondering, well, okay, you know, that's nice, but it doesn't add anything to the debate or didn't clarify anything. And I was wondering why is this why is this significant? So that's what I was trying to figure out why why is this worthy of a response and you you gave the answer when you said our viewers were asking for that response because I didn't realize that. So uh now I'm I'm all about it. You know the sense we've got to answer what the viewers said. But when I saw what Wes Huff started saying, I only listened the first 10 minutes of this program. Um um and I thought it was there was really nothing there.
Um and then I I watched the entirety of the response by a man named Joe Heshmire >> from Catholics Answers, right?
>> And I thought, okay, well, he he answered a few points there. I thought, you know, not bad.
Um so but yeah I we should be taken seriously if uh people are asking and u you know maybe we could go down those points one by one. He starts out by this ontological uh the uniqueness of scripture right and I think that's probably as far as I got because as soon as I heard that I thought well you know what does that mean? And again, I couldn't figure out what sense that had. Um, and um, you know, I understood him means something. I'm not sure that that he understood that's what he understood.
But you know, he's making the point that scripture is something unique. Okay? And he uses the word onlogical because it's a big word and it's it's unique and it's very kind. There's nothing else like it.
So, but then he went to say and this is the basis for the sufficiency of scripture that it's ontologically unique.
He thought there was absolutely no logical connection between yet scripture or anything else being ontologically unique and uh being self-sufficient. That's no argument whatsoever for uh the self-sufficiency of scripture and it's ontologically unique. So I thought this is not going to go anywhere uh helpful.
So but um I see Joseph Heshmire address that that issue.
Um is sacred scripture ontologically unique?
And the answer is well yes in so far as he says it is the word of God and the word of God is necessarily ontologically unique. Okay. But the word of God did not come to us in written form. It was written down by us. Right?
I mean, even the prophets were not walking around with notepads and papers uh waiting for some uh you know, angel Moroni uh like a Joseph Smith or you know, Gabriel appearing to a Muhammad to start taking dictation, right? Um um they they were actually given the word of God in their minds orally and um if the prophets themselves did not record it in writing which is most likely than their uh their students their understudies did because the prophets said basically schools um sort of you might even call it kind of a religious life.
um you know they had assistants and uh and even successors you know uh like Elias and Elijah right and um and Gazi right uh so um these were called sometimes the children of the prophets in the Old Testament because they were their their servants you know m their pupils and uh they record the writings uh record in writing the words of the prophet.
Thus speaks the Lord God is what they would often enduce their their words with. But uh they weren't necessarily disseminating that message of prophecy by writing it down, making copies of it and giving out copies on the street corner. That wasn't how the words of God were disseminated those days. It was by tradition really. And um so it's a it's a big mistake to think that that's where scripture started. It didn't start. It started with tradition. It started with the word of God being given into these minds and hearts of these people and it being recorded from there. Um so uh you know the word of God is onlogically unique. There's no doubt about it. But uh when it starts being written down, you have human agency.
And uh that's when you have human agency, this is where you can have fallibility come in. Now the Catholic Church teaches that God not only revealed his word infallibly and gave it to the recipient, a prophet for example, infallibly so. So they understood infallibly what he was saying to them.
But it was also recorded by the sacred writers. The sacred writers recorded it infallibly.
But that does not apply to every single copy and every single translation that was made afterwards.
We don't have a single original of the recording of any either book of prophecy, any book of Moses, any sacrifial book of the Old Testament, any psalm. We have no original writing that of any of these books and in the New Testament too. We don't have a single original manuscript, single copy as they were written down um say for example by St. John the Apostle doesn't exist. It's long gone. All we have is copies, often fragments of copies and uh copies and on top of that then uh translations of those fragments of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies going back hundreds of years.
That's all we have. And for example in in this here we have a Bible.
And is this the word of God? It is the word of God. But it is the word of God that has come down to us through thousands of hands, thousands of pens, uh, translations, and these are all human enterprises.
And unless we can say that every single step of that way, every pen that recorded the copies, every copy that was made was infallibly accurate, the original.
And the translations that were made were infallibly accurate to a sense of what they were copied the translated from going back to the beginning. Then we see these are very fallible. So the word of God is infallible. This is a fallible production. This book this represents this is quite fallible. You see, and you know, you know, I may say, okay, if every step of the way, every copy that was made is infallible, then I can say, okay, you know, this goes back through a series of infallible steps to put this in my hand. the editori right the type setter it was all infallibly done so that I can say this is infallibly this represents infallibly the word of God that was first given in you know by God you know in a in a in an ancient language to an ancient writer and um even to Moses himself right and this represents that infallible word of God infallibly but the problem is I know that's not True. Why? Well, because if you go to the American Bible Society uh issue of the New Testament scriptures in Greek and uh this is put out by Catholic and Protestant scholars and a large body and they actually give you in the very book of the of the copy of the Greek Bible New Testament a list of all the manuscripts and codels and and all of the fragments as they are in all of the museums of the world uh of the of sections of the sacred scripture and they they code them all. They all codenamed and uh you see as you're reading through the bottom of the page all of those different fragments and the different little variances and they're little variances but they're variances.
They're variances in the actual text in the Greek text and the other languages.
And so you see that there was not infallible copying done because of these variations. you know, it's not word for word, letter for letter, accent by accent.
It's not like making photo copies of them. You know, they copied by hand.
Okay? So, we know that every copy that was made was not infallibly exactly identical to the one that was copied.
And it comes down like that through copy after copy after copy centuries. And this is in fact what we have as our Bibles have. But you also know though that um the translations are not all infallibly representing exactly the original meaning because we have hundreds of different translations and they're all different. And that's why they make all these different translations because they don't like the translations that are there. So they make other ones different ones to express how they think it should be translated. And that's where all these hundreds of different translations have come from. And this is just in the English language alone. We have hundreds of different translations just into the English language, let alone all the other languages of the world. Thousands and thousands of different translations. They're different, which is why they were written to be different. They don't all infallibly represent what the original exactly what the original meaning. They're that's why they're translated differently as I say.
So it's a fact. I cannot say that every step of the way, the copies of the scriptures that eventually wound up here and the translations that give me this English Bible are necessarily infallible every step of the way. What's the alternative? Well, my alternative is to say, well, this is a very valuable representation of what was originally a message given by God in his divine word long ago, which was ontologically unique, but it's been translated, it's been copied, and every one of those things makes it very fallibly human. It can be changed.
Um and um so can I can I have to say that this is uh well one translation that has come down uh to my hand today how accurate it is um I don't know I don't know how closely this resembles or even approximates the original word of God and its intent and its meaning and I don't know if it's been copied correctly. I don't know if it's been translated correctly. I don't know if it has been types set correctly. I don't know. Okay. And I have no way of really knowing except this man Wes Huff says, "Well, go back to the original language >> and try to read the original language."
And so I'm thinking, okay, this is what he's saying.
And I'm thinking, well, you know, the whole idea of scripture alone and this s sufficiency of scripture is part of that argument. The whole idea is complete nonsense. And I don't mean to say that to be insulting. I mean it because I consider it to be complete nonsense because scripture is the written word.
And when you know how scripture became scripture and how God's word became scripture, you realize that we're talking about a written word when for 1,500 the first 1,500 years of the New Testament, just the New Testament, uh fully 95% some say as many as 98% of the people could not read could not read the written word.
Not only that, but they had no means of reproducing the written word uh except by laboriously hand copying it word by word by word, word for word for word.
And that's how the Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures were copied from the original writing. They were copied by hand, letter by letter, word by word by individual scribes, the New Testament mostly by monks in monasteries who copied them for the great churches to have uh for the people to see in those churches and they were in Latin or Greek, right? Um but most of the people couldn't read whatever anyway. Um books are very rare and obviously if they had to be produced with such labor and they were so labor intensive and they were on the pigments at that time, inks at that time and they were on parchment and they were often bound in pigkin bindings uh if they were bound and so they were somewhat fragile.
uh they were on organic material I say and all entirely made up from organic material pretty much. So um the point is that to say that the salvation of souls and everything that God revealed to us for the salvation of our souls consisted of this writing that was inaccessible to the vast vast majority of people. They couldn't have read it even if they had it written. Even if they had a book they couldn't have read it is absurd in my mind. that is ser uh ironically enough it wasn't until about the just just before Martin Luther was born Luther was born about the 14 1480 or so early 1480s I think and just before then in uh 145123 um Gutenberg invented the movable type press now before that they had they understood the press they could ink wood cut, press it on parchment, pull it away and see an impression, but to take type and to rearrange it to words and print different texts and different pages that involved movable type and that was the great breakthrough the middle of the 1400s by Yanis Gutenberg and the Bible was the first thing he printed in Latin because those who could read could read Latin basically. Why write write put print something in a language that the ordinary people who spoke that language did not didn't read it like English right uh but those who were educated could speak Latin and so he printed Bible on that and um we we see then a an explosion of printing largely the Bible right after that so then Luther comes in and he can say scripture alone you know if he had been born the generation before I think they would have laughed him left him to scorn you know saying what do you mean cuz you're alone most of we can't read it most of us it's inaccessible to us but um the point is then no sooner had they begin printing it then they began printing the different uh translations immediately the joy came out first uh 10 or 11 years later came the king James version then there were disagreements about that In that translation they started translating other translations were coming along and beca it became chaos. It it became absolute meddling.
Everybody had to have his own translation make his own translation it seemed to express what he understood and how what he interpreted to mean which is exactly what the church was trying to prevent. Trying to prevent the the sacred scripture from being basically uh uh abused and uh and twisted.
Um, now the reason I'm mentioning this is because as absurd as as it is to say, well, scripture alone, scripture alone, your whole salvation depends upon uh knowing what's in the scriptures and you know, living what's in the scriptures, but you can't read it for yourself. So, somebody has to interpret it for you and tell you what what he thinks it means, what he says it means. Um but it's taking it to another level when this Wes Huff says well yeah because we can't really be sure what it means. Uh not because God is fallible but we are we are fallible. So and God's not responsible for our fallibility. So now we have to uh push people to learn the ancient languages so they can read it and try to understand it in the original languages. And so I'm saying, okay, now we've gone a step further than just saying they couldn't read like in the first 1500 years. Now we say in order to read it, we have all these translations, but I mean, who can really know for sure and understand because they're very fallible. So now we've got to teach them the ancient languages so they can go back to the Semitic languages to the Hellenistic languages, learn those so they can read them for themselves and try to then understand what they mean.
So this is actually taking it one step further along the line of just it's not only impractical. It is kind of absurd because he knows we're not going to have everybody learning biblical Greek.
>> Most of that doesn't solve the problem ofility infallibility.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, it doesn't it doesn't even address the problem of people still trying to read it and understand it and interpret it. You're right. Exactly.
Yeah.
>> So, you know, I thought this is nonsense. All of this is nonsense, but it always has been nonsense.
>> Uh, unfortunately.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, so I mean, this is we're just talking about the first couple points he makes here, right?
>> I mean, what else is >> what about this idea of of authority? He says that uh solos scriptor does not eliminate all authority, but uh says Protestants do acknowledge authority, just a ministerial authority. and you know it's Catholics that have this magisterial or leading authority and he said he rejects that and I just thought well okay what what kind of what kind of authority doesn't lead but that was kind of the definition of of authority um but uh of course of course Catholics believe in a ministerial authority um so I think it just has a totally messed up >> Christ came to serve he said right >> yes >> but he he certainly came to lead right >> uh he said I am your Lord You call me Lord and I am your Lord. Right?
>> And you are my friends. If you do the things I command you and you if you you do the if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Our Lord made it very clear. It's it's a matter of following his commandments. He gave authority to his apostles. Our Lord had the leading authority. I mean, I don't think Wes Huff would disagree with that. He gave the apostles authority when he sent them out. St. Matthew, right? The end of St. Matthew's gospel um to preach the gospel to sanctify him by the baptism and to teach other the world to command to ex to teach mankind to obey the commandments that he our lord had given to his apostles right he gave them real authority his own authority he uh entrusted to them now protestants seem to think that that authority died out with the apostles so that there's no magisterial authority to teach as it Now it's just ministry that you're there to serve. Sort of like Francis.
>> You're there to accompany them on this journey, but you can't, you know, tell them what they should do, you know. So, um, this is a complete rejection of what Christ sent the apostles to do. And we cannot agree with that concept of either the new order church of Vatican 2 or the Protestant church and thinking that the authority that Christ committed to the apostles is now just simply reduced to ministerial authority uh just kind of encouraging us and basically patting us in the back and and telling us we're we're doing fine um without actually giving command.
Christ gave Christ had the authority to command and he gave the apostles the author command that starts with magisterium teaching preach the gospel to all nations that authority still remains here as our Lord said to apostles the apostles I will be with you all days even unto the consummation of the world notice the meaning of those words I Jesus Christ will be with you the apostles all days even unto the consummation of the world. But the apostles were not going to be with us until the consummation of the world. So the fact that Christ said, "I will be with you all days under the consummation of the world," indicates the authority he's giving them will pure through to the end of time. And it does. So the Protestant notion that somehow that magisterial authority, that leading authority of the faith is somehow just sort of evaporated when the apostles died. That's nonsense. That's that's basically saying that Christ promise failed and we will never acknowledge that because it's not true. Um but you know with regard to u authority it comes back to what I was saying here. How do I know how do I know that this really does represent God's word that ontological unique God's word? And I say because that authority that Christ gave his apostles remains in the world and that authority has endorsed this and told me that there is no error in this in this that this represents God's word the very first word that God gave to the prophets to Moses to the apostles and so on this represents that and I have that infallible guarantee that it does and you know what time without that authority there is no infallible guarantee. And the Protestants all acknowledge that that without that there is no infallible guarantee that they even have the word of God anymore that what they have as their Bible even comes close to the original word of God that ontologically unique self-sufficient thing.
uh but this is not this book is not ontologically unique in the sense and it is not uh self-sufficient um it is not uh ontologically identical to the word that God gave the apostle but it represents accurately that word and I have that and I know that I have that conviction and certainty because the church that Christ established on his apostles the apostles who received from him the command to go into the world and preach the gospel and the guarantee that our Lord read with them in teaching that gospel. I have that guaranteeing me that this really is this really truly accurately represents God's word. But father, even if a Protestant had a Bible that that was infallibly guaranteed to to be uh you know an accurate accurate translation actually was God's word that they would still um I mean he admits in here that uh people misunderstand, misapply, twist what even is infallibly God's word. So even a step beyond that, you would still need an authority to settle those disagreements to explain what was actually meant by these things to untwist their misinterpretations. So you would still need a uh a ministerial authority to decide those questions. But his his great answer to that is just oh uh let's just study the uh you know the ancient languages and figure it out.
>> Yeah. And so I that's kind of a contradiction because you're you're still not solving for the fallible.
Well, it's almost like the shell game with them. Well, let's okay, we can't do this, so let let's, you know, move it around a little bit and see what's under this shell, and now we're going to go back and look at the old languages, and that'll solve the problem. It doesn't.
It magnifies the problem.
>> Yes. Yeah.
>> But, you know, Tom, what you just said is very important here because >> I mean, there was a dispute over what books belong to the Bible right from the beginning.
>> Yes.
>> And the church answered that question.
Okay.
Um, and to this day, Protestants recognize the 27 books of the New Testament that the Catholic Church defined way back in the early centuries as being truly revealed by God. They dispute the Old Testament books. That's their problem because they prefer to go by the teaching of seven of of six and 700 7th century rabbis. They prefer the decision of 7th century after Christ rabbis who denied Christ. They prefer to follow them in their maseretic text as to what really belongs in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament is all about Jesus Christ. Those rabbis rejected Jesus Christ. They altered the prophecies in their Hebrew scriptures in the Maseretic texts to exclude Christ.
And yet the Protestants decided that's what they're going to follow for their Old Testament scriptures. Instead of the Septuagent, which we as Catholics do, Christ himself, the apostles quoted the Septuagent, Greek Old Testament. They quoted it. It's being actually quoted in the New Testament scriptures. The Septuagent is being quoted in the New Testament scriptures that the Protestants use and yet they reject the Septuagent to follow the Maseretic text of the of the Hebrew rabbis of the year 700 who rejected Christ. But somehow that's their authority for the Old Testament. Incredible. Just inconceivable. But you know, it's all motivated by anti-atholicism.
>> Yes.
>> And that's why I was wondering about Mr. Huff. I mean, is is it just anti-atholicism that is his motivation?
Is that what determines what in what he considers to be evidence for his arguments that it's can be used uh to attack uh Catholicism? That was my question because that's where Protestantism started. That's why it was called Protestantism because it was a protest against what the Catholic Church taught and believed.
And I there are still many people motivated by that.
um still protesting as it were and that's the the the the first principle of all the decisions they make in you know finding fault arguing the faith you know but anyway I I gather from what you said that that doesn't seem to be West Huff's motivation being anti-atholic but he's he is using arguments to saying this is why I'm not not a Catholic and I would say looking at these arguments, I would say you're definitely not Catholic and that's why you're not Catholic.
That's true.
>> But again, your arguments are wrong.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, so uh in any case, uh again, we're just looking at the very first point that he's that he's raising.
And um this is very significant actually because all of the other points follow from this.
The fundamental error of all Protestantism is stretcher alone. And that's the first point he makes.
That's the first point that RC Sproul makes. Uh Protestant minister, evangelist starting everything starts with that.
They acknowledge everything starts with that principle.
But the fact is that the Bible never says anywhere that it contains all the truth that God revealed or all the truth that we need to know to be saved. The Bible never says that anywhere.
It says in sacred scripture that it is useful, that is inspiring, it is helpful, uh it is instructive and that is all true.
But it never says that it is everything helpful, instructive or true that Christ our Lord taught or was taught to the prophets of old in the Old Testament.
Never says that. In fact, when the Bible does speak on that subject, at the very end of St. John's gospel, which was the last book of the Bible to be written, the very end St. John closes his fourth gospel. All of the other scriptures, including the apocalypse, had been written by that time. And Sam says, "Not all of the things that Jesus said or did are written in this book."
And then by way of hyperbole, he said, "If they were to be written down, the world itself could not contain all that would have to be written." That's how he closes his gospel. That's how the last written book of the Bible ends by saying that.
So again, I mean it completely obvious the fact that um or that the that claim that the scriptures as we know contain everything. Not only that, I mean, but I, as I mentioned before numerous times, if you if you look for what Jesus taught the apostles during those 40 days from his resurrection to his ascension, you'd say, okay, they must be in the gospel. That those teachings must be in the gospels from the resurrection to the ascension because all of the gospels end with the ascension of our Lord.
So those 40 days our Lord spent on earth after he rose from the dead the acts of the apostles 1 verse one St. Luke says our Lord taught the apostles about the kingdom of God and we know in the parables he's talking about the church that he established on earth where are those teachings you go to St. Matthew St. Mark St. Luke and you don't find you find practically nothing at all. A couple of the incidents you find uh doubting Thomas and so on. But the actual teachings of our Lord preparing the apostles for sending them out into the world to teach them to observe all things I've commanded you.
But those commands are not there.
Those things are not in the gospels until you get to St. John. And St. John tells us about our Lord appearing to the apostles in the night of the resurrection and saying to them, "Receive the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. The forgiveness of sins, the power of forgiving sins given to his apostles."
Later on, St. John says they were walking along the seashore and Jesus says to Peter, not to John, "You feed my lambs, you feed my sheep." giving the commission of the shepherd.
These are in there that they're only in the gospel according to St. John. And John recorded them under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost for a reason.
And this is a fact. So the argument that the scriptures contain everything that Jesus taught. That's not that's not so. In fact, why would it take St. John until the end of his life, almost the year 100 AD, almost two generations after Jesus had died. Why would it take him that long to actually write down in the gospel our Lord's words to his apostles at the last supper? They were recorded in St. John's Gospel, the last book of the Bible written.
Does that mean the Christians did not know up until then? until John wrote that down what Jesus said to his apostles at the last supper. Of course they knew that was this the preaching of the apostles.
But St. John wrote down moved by the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ did not as recorded in the scriptures write anything that we know of. The only indication when he was writing threat in the dust right with the adulteress they wanted to stone to death and we don't know what he was doing. the only ev indication of the Greek word right having to do with writing applying to our Lord and um Jesus did not only write things down himself he didn't command the apostles to write there's no indication say was yes our lord commanding the apostles to write down anything that he was saying and there's no indication for that matter until they began recording the gospels in Matthew and St. Mark and St. Luke and St. John and St. Paul sending out his epistles that they actually began writing and the gospel of St. Matthew wasn't even begin begun to be written until about 10 years after our Lord had died on the cross. What did they have all the time? The church existed before the first word of the first gospel was ever written down. The church existed for 10 years before that. It was saving souls.
The faith was spreading. martyrs were dying, right? And uh they didn't have any of the New Testament scriptures.
They had the faith from the apostles.
The preaching and that preaching then through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost was written down in the scriptures. Christ gave us the gospel by his life and his preaching and commanded the apostles to preach. The Holy Ghost whom Jesus our Lord sent to us. then commanded that certain of those the preaching be written down for posterity and he guided that by his inspiration and that's where the scriptures came from. Scriptures actually came out of sacred tradition not the other way around.
They are recorded sacred tradition basically is what we're looking at. Um, so, um, you know, we we just have to realize the truth of the matter and cut through all of this because it's fantasy. They see the only kind of fantasy as this book kind of floated down from heaven in English. And it didn't happen that way. But again, going back and learning the ancient languages is not going to make us any more fallible in our understanding than we already are.
>> Yeah. it'll just probably increase the confusion, you know. Um, so that's why you need an infallible authority here on earth and God provided it. What's the alternative? The alternative is that when our Lord died on the cross, he looked down at Mary, Mary Magdalene, he looked down at John the Apostle, the holy women gathered there, and he said, "You know, I've been with you for three years, and I've been teaching you, and now you try to figure out what I really meant.
Good luck."
That's blasphemy to think that that's that's what our Lord did. That's what he left us. He didn't leave us then even in sending us the Holy Ghost. You might say, "Okay, well, he sent the Holy Ghost to inspire us." That's true. But the Holy Ghost does not make us infallible unless there's an imagerial authority that Christ gave. That is the only possible infallible authority on earth. If Christ established a magisterial authority, and he did, and is in the Catholic Church, for all of the fallibility of human beings, Christ did leave us an infallible guide to know the truth. That is the mission of the Holy Ghost. And in that, the Holy Ghost has not failed us.
We see the truth of what Wes Huff is saying, how fallible we are because we see what they've done and how they twisted sacred scripture. going right back to Martin Luther, his, you know, um, yes, Wes, that's true. But I would ask him this. I would say, look, if it really comes down to a bunch of squabbbling among fallible people trying to argue, well, he meant this and no, he meant that meant the other thing, then why do you have any more authority to say what you say than what we say as Catholics? I mean, after all, the Catholic Church taught this long before Luther came along. So if it's just a bunch of infallible people kind of bickering about what it really means, wouldn't we have a better argument for Catholics that people belong believe this longer than you did? And you just redisco Luther discovered this later.
Now he has his opinion and we have our opinions and you're saying that basically that's all we've got is our infallible opinions. So wouldn't our infall wouldn't our fallible opinion somehow trump your fallible opinion? if it's nothing but failed opinions, you know, uh because we've got on record for hundreds and hundreds of years that what we believe is what the Christians believe before you and your friend Martin Luther came along.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I mean, the arguments they use are actually argue against them.
Every single argument that I that I hear them using actually if you follow it to its core, you find it actually proves them wrong.
>> Y if only you could get them to see that, you know, if only you get them to be willing willing to see it and to acknowledge it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I'm sorry, Tom. So, we're about a tenth of the way through, I guess.
What What else did you say at least on the first point? Maybe we'll take this.
>> That's about it for the first point, father. Uh that's the sufficiency of scripture, but his next point was the sufficiency of faith. Um nothing new here. I thought just kind of the typical Protestant talking points. It says salvation comes through faith alone. Um it excludes all human works. Humans cannot accomplish anything pleasing to God. Salvation is entirely God's work.
Um but he said that uh he said he says that Roman Catholics understand justification as an ongoing process instead of a definitive moment in time.
And that's kind of the uh the crucial difference between Protestant and Catholic.
>> Totally ignores Christian totally ignores our Lord's words in sacred scripture. They just basically cross out whatever they don't agree with, whatever they don't want to hear. Be ye holy even as your holy father. Be ye perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect.
Right? Our Lord demands it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Right? So, keeping the commandments is really a matter of loving our Lord and being faithful to him. Right? The the the eight biatitudes, beginning of the sermon on the mount, blessed are those who do this. Blessed are those who do that. Our Lord doesn't say anywhere, blessed are those who believe because they've done everything they can possibly do and all that's necessary to be saved. Our Lord never says that, ever says it. Blessed are those. And then he goes down the list. Our Lord talks about the the the poor in spirit, the meek, you know, our Lord talks about the pure of heart, the peacemakers. These are all things we do. This is the the these are the commandments of the new law here.
And they're not taken to replace the commandments of the old law, but they supersede them. They perfect them. As our Lord said in the sermon on the mount, chapter 5, he came to perfect the law.
And so uh but this has to do with actually living your faith. So you have to live your faith in practice in order to be saved. That's all Catholics are saying. And that's what Jesus Christ says too. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things I command you? St. Luke 6:46.
Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things I command you? St. Matthew chapter 7, the end of the sermon on the mount. Many will say in that day, Lord, didn't we do these things in your name and those things in your name? And you know, cast out devils and all the rest.
And our Lord will say, I never knew you.
I assure I never knew you. Is that you never knew me. I never knew you. That's what that's what matters.
So, um why does our Lord tell the apostles that they can go to the father and speak for themselves? Because the father loves them. Because as our lord said, because you have loved me. And that gives us access to the father. He loves us. He loved the apostles as Jesus himself said because they loved his son Jesus. And Jesus says, "If you love me, you only keep my commandments." Time and time again, our Lord talks about the need to hear the word of God and keep it. That's not just remember it, that's live according to it. So this idea you're saved by faith alone is totally contrary to the teaching of the gospel.
entire epistle of St. James too >> and the epistles of St. Epistle of St. James, by the way, even the Protestants, and this is another point that was made by um Joe Heshmire, >> he pointed this out, and I think that Wes Huff probably made the point that not all Protestants understand these things in the same way either. Even justification, they don't understand this the same way.
Well, that gets to the point, you interpret it your own way, and that's all you're left with. Is this what you're telling us? Even the Protestants can't agree among themselves. Well, of of course with private interpretation, everybody's left to his own devices to try to figure out what it means and they don't agree. That's why they keep translating it in different ways to express their own views. So, he's already acknowledging the failure of Protestantism that it really comes down to just kind of a uh a debate debate society, you know. Um, and they're not even debating over God's word. They're baiting over translations of copies going back hundreds of years that they say, but they have no way of actually knowing correspond to the original revelation.
And that's what they're debating about.
So it's it really is a tower of babel protest.
>> Yeah.
>> But um you know you talk take St. James where St. James says, "Faith without works is dead."
And he makes the point that you have to practice your faith and live your faith for it to have any power to save you.
Now, Pro classic Protestantism says, well, you're not actually justified by any good you do. Uh God imputes justice to you. It's sort of like whitewashing you with a coat of paint. reminds me of what Jesus uh commented about the supplers of the dead who were buried off over the brook of Kedran. Uh the festival days, the Jews would whitewash these supplers to make them look nice and clean and shiny in the sun and kind of dress up the city for these festival days. And our Lord, you know, talked about how you're whitewashing these things and making them look nice, but inside they're still full of dead men's bones. And he was referring that kind of to a model of the Pharisees that they look good on the outside but inside they're rotten to the core.
And um so this is the Protestant concept of having you know being imputed the justice of Jesus. It doesn't change you at all for who you are. It leaves you onlogically who you are a sinner and basically like a suppler. A whited suppler full of dead men's bones. That's all you are a sinner. And that's how you're going to go to heaven. That's why during the tish, the tabletop, he said that heaven is basically like a field uh mounds and this the so the saints in heaven are like mounds of dung covered with snow and that's it. That's heaven.
That's a that's not very enticing, is it? To be in in a heaven which is populated by mounds of dung covered with snow. The snow is being imputed the imputed justice of righteousness of Christ to each individual.
Um you know Tom this is not good. Uh this is not what Christ taught at all.
>> Um but all the church has been saying is you can't profess to believe and then contradict in in actions what you believe and deny your faith in action.
your your your conduct has to be consistent with your faith. You can't be a hypocrite like the Pharisees.
So if you're going to teach right and wrong, you have to avoid what is wrong and live what is right. You have to have faith and hope and charity and charity enough to obey our Lord to be saved.
Um that's all the church has ever said and that's exactly what the gospel say.
uh you're not saving yourself, you're cooperating with grace. The next point he makes, you have to cooperate with the grace. And they they make a very serious mistake obviously in saying that look, if you believe in Christ, there's nothing you can do to save yourself.
And that's true. There's nothing we can do to merit heaven. There's nothing we can do of ourselves to repair our sins because our sins are against an infinite God. And nothing we can do or give has infinite value to offset that crime against an infinitely good God. And it's true. The church knows that. But so it is but to say that there's nothing you can do that has the power to save yourself that you just in the church don't resist grace cooperate with the grace it's a very different thing to say that nothing if you believe in Christ there's nothing you can do that will condemn you that's very different to say if you believe in Christ there's nothing you can do that will condemn you And that's not true.
The entirety of scripture, it talks about that if you do certain things, you are going to be condemned. If you commit certain crimes, break certain commandments, um you are going to lose your soul.
And in fact, your responsibility increases if you have faith in Christ.
And then you reject him and turn your back on him and defy him. So having faith in Christ will not save you if you're breaking his commandments. In fact, it makes you more responsible for uh it increases the malice of your rejection of him. You understand what I mean?
>> Mhm.
>> So Luther got it entirely wrong. It's not only a lie, it's it's like the big lie. There are certain lies that are just not true, but there are other lies that are the opposite of the truth. And this was the opposite of the truth.
All right.
Well, uh, what about his third point, father? It's kind of related. He talks about grace, the sufficiency of grace.
He says the the fundamental divide between Catholics and Protestants is whether grace accomplishes salvation by itself or requires human cooperation.
Kind of what he talked about. But he said uh, Catholics treat grace as a substance dispensed through meritorious channels, while Protestants understand grace as God's sovereign transformative power that operates independently of human merit.
And they can do that if they want, but they have to erase parts of the gospel.
They have to simply rip out pages of the gospel. Right? When our Lord talks about baptism, when St. James later, as you mentioned, talks about extreme, anointing the sick.
Uh he says the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. They call in the priests anoint him with the holy oil.
There were six times in scripture our Lord told the apostles to anoint with the oil because I mean and use the example like the the the anointing of the good Samaritan by the good Samaritan of the fallen Jew who was dying uh poured in oil and wine but the oil was a sab. It was considered life-giving. It was uh um it was very important in the lives of the Jews as a as a a a med medicine okay for its medicinal properties and um they would anoint the with crisis they would anoint those who are chosen their kings and call to some kind of a special service to God and u so here St. James in his epistle is talking about I think it's chapter 5 talks about anointing those who are sick. Let them call in the priest of the church. Let them anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. Right? So he's giving an actual um statement about using a material thing this o oil which is made to sing symbolize or signify something applying to the body and in the process of having a prayer of faith attached to it and that this is what he prescribes for those who are deathly ill. Um they ignore these things. Now, Protestantism has undergone certain changes because individual Protestants have come to recognize the problem with their fundamental thesis and they're trying to adjust now. They're trying to adjust in such a way that they don't concede that the Catholics are right all the time.
So, but they're trying to adjust in such a way to make it sound as though, well, we're we're going to, shall we say, u add some nuance to our original teaching. We're not changing our original teaching. So, when they say we're saved by faith alone, then they'll introduce the idea, well, it has to be saving faith.
>> So, they're qualifying it, saving faith.
Sproul does that. And I've heard other Protestants, you know, say, "Oh, we well obviously not any faith saves, but it has to be saving faith." So you ask them, "Well, what is saving faith?" And without wanting to sound too Catholic, they sell you, well, saving faith is where you can you have faith that actually is genuine. And so you it translates into action and the way you live your life and the way you behave.
And you say okay so saving faith has to be uh basically operative and you have to live the faith according to faith and would you say that maybe is out of out of love for our lord? Well, yeah. I mean, you know, and you're doing that because of love for our Lord, right? That makes it good. And you say, "Well, that's exactly what Catholics have taught for all these centuries. Why are you uh still uh disputing this, you know, uh why can't you just admit that you were wrong, you know, but you don't want to put it that way necessarily uh because they immediately, you know, you know, put up your dukes, you know, defend." But the point is as soon as they introduce the idea of saving faith to answer for example St. James, you know that they know that they are wrong and they have no way around it. They have to start uh modifying their their teaching and they're modifying it in the direction of Catholic teaching.
>> Yeah.
>> Because Catholic teaching is true. It's what is in sacred scripture.
>> Yeah. Okay. Well, next big one. Uh number four was the the papacy father.
Um, again kind of classic Protestantism.
He says that the rock in St. Matthew 16:18, the rock is Christ. It's not St. Peter. Um, but he says that St. Augustine said that Christian comes from Christ, not the other way around. The rock refers to St. Peter's confession of Christ's identity, not St. Peter's person. Um, he also says that St. Ignatius never mentioned a single ruling bishop of the church and his silence is very telling. Uh he says Steven of Rome in 256 is the first one to initiate Petrinebased claims. Uh he says Sylvester didn't even show up to the council of Nika. Uh so therefore he didn't even um claim any kind of special authority. Um so how would you respond to this?
>> Well, let's start with the last one.
Okay. Sylvester was a bishop of Rome and he was the pope. Okay. Under Constantine.
>> Not under Constantine at the time of Constantine. Okay. And in the year 324 uh the year before the council of Nika he had a council of the clergy of Rome and they condemned aryanism already in Rome and u that was the impetus for what followed the calling of the council of Nika and Sylvester did not go he sent legates from Rome I mean his own clergy who were at the council of Rome he sent them to represent him at the council in the east na na The emperors had a summer residence there. Seemed like a very perfect opportunity. But having all these bishops come in, they had a place to stay and this could be sponsored there uh at the expense of the emperor.
He sent chariots to bring the bishops with with soldiers to to protect them under uh you know actually it was kind of a kind of a what should I say quite a homage in a sense to uh to show them that difference and give them that protection to get them to that council safely.
Um it might have even been necessary because the aryens could be very violent and maybe the bishops needed protection from soldiers but whatever it was. Uh Constantine facilitated that. Uh did he preside over the council of Na in 325?
No. Uh he welcomed them but I mean it was his summer residence as the imperial summer residence palace and he welcomed them but after that he took the lowest place and he didn't speak for the rest of the council. didn't say another word for the rest of the council. At the end though, he did enforce the decrees of the council and he considered it his responsibility. Why would Constantine consider it his responsibility? He believed that he was the emperor because Christ had made him the emperor. He believed that when he had the vision in the sky of the cross and the hero symbol for the word the name of Christ in this sign conquer he believed that Christ gave him that command and he believed he owed his imperial authority to Jesus Christ. He gave basilicus for this reason. He believed that Christ actually was the one who had had actually uh was the one who had willed that he become the emperor that he win that battle that he become the imperial power and he wanted that to be at the service. He even thought of himself as kind of a secular bishop, not with religious authority, but with the authority, the imperial imperial authority to serve Christ. And he was going to use that authority to serve Christ and his church. And so he set about enforcing the rule the uh the decree against aranism, which condemned the the false teaching that Jesus Christ is a creature, a great creature, but not God.
I tend to think Protestants would applaud that and say that was true.
Thank goodness he did that. Right? But instead they turn around and say, "Well, that shows Constantine was dominating the church." We talked about that last time. One simple fact shows that that's absolutely not true. And it is again that when Constantine moved the capital of the empire in 330 eastward to uh Constantinople Bzansium, the pope did not go. He was not part of the imperial government. He wasn't a minister of state. He was the head of the uh the visible head of the Catholic Church, the successor of St. Peter, a vicor of Christ on earth. He stayed in Rome and paid a very great price for that over the ensuing centuries. But that was the single most important thing he could have done to show and Constantine left him behind. Did not go with him. He he gave him the Lateran Palace, built beautiful monuments over the graves of of the martyrs and especially the apostles, especially the apostles. And he left without the bishop of Rome, the pope, cuz he knew and respected that that he was not simply part of his imperial entourage.
They but they both understood this very clearly. Why would Protestants try to try to mischaracterize that now? you know, but in any case, the the the fact of the matter is that so that's why Sylvester wasn't at Nika. He didn't need to be at NA. The legates were there. The decision had already been made in Rome by him and the Roman clergy. It just carried over in Nika to the general council and through that became an ecumenical council. The church with his decree, this is the statement of the church. We are all united in this faith that Jesus Christ is indeed the son of God which is why they issued the first part of the nyine constant creed. The first part was about the divinity of Jesus Christ. The second part about 50 years later was about the divinity of the holy ghost. And so within that century the creed we have at mass was essentially completed. Right? Mhm.
>> So in any case, um I don't know what uh what point he's trying to make here. Do you uh I mean where was he going with that? Do you think >> uh that just that that Sylvester didn't didn't claim any kind of special authority?
>> Well, you know, also this uh Joe Heshmire, >> he answers the the idea of Ignatius of Antioch not bringing up the bishops. He answers it more than thoroughly. I think I think he gives it more attention than it really needs because I don't think it's any real argument at all. I think it's a paper argument. Um, but he does mention that that Irenaeus and Leon uh in the latter half of the second century gives a complete list by name of the bishops of Rome and talks about that being the central sea and all others must confirm their faith to that sea.
And I don't hear um I don't hear uh Mr. um Huff mentioning that. Maybe he did, but I don't hear him mentioning that.
So, it's amazing what things he conveniently leaves out as if they don't count. But that is endemic to pro Protestantism. They leave out the things that don't they're more like a prosecuting attorney. Leave out the exculpatory evidence, right, in their um trying to make a case against the Catholic Church.
>> Mhm. Most of what he says I gather in his uh that Wes Huff most of it is not defending Protestantism as it is defending his disagreement with Catholicism.
>> Yeah.
>> Not speaking of the truth of of of Protestantism but saying I'm not a Catholic because I don't agree with this.
>> I think that's that's true. Yeah. Uh what about uh Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 16 verse 18. Uh he says that you know when Christ uh talks about the rock upon which he will build his church. uh the Protestants say that uh Christ is referring to himself, not St. Peter.
>> Well, there are there are those actually uh Protestants, early Protestants who argued that in Greek the the word for rock is um feminine.
And they argue that when you put it into the masculine, it doesn't mean rock, it means pebble. as though our Lord was saying, "Thou art trouble," referring to Peter. And that our Lord turned his finger around, pointing to himself, and said, "And upon this rock," meaning myself, "I will build my church." As if to say, "This is how they're interpretation."
That Jesus is saying, "You are nothing but a pebble." Now, I'm the rock, right?
Upon this rock, I will build my church, not on you a mere pebble.
Okay? So there's pointing going on. It's not in the thrift here, okay? But it's in the pro minds of the Protestants that our Lord is talking to Peter as a pebble and our Lord is a rock. Now St. Augustine actually brought this up uh way way hundreds of years before Martin Luther was born. St. Augustine actually addressed that question about the significance of the male gendered uh rock and the female gendered rock Petra. Right. and one meaning rock as a substance and the other meaning like pebble and he he goes through and he goes through the the the word explanation of it and then St. Augustine comes to the end of that and he says it that that doesn't really matter at all though it has nothing to do with anything because we know as Christians we know that Christ did establish his church on Peter it's an established fact St. And Augustus says that in his day 400 AD it was an established fact that everybody knew that. So all this talk about Petra and Petrus and so on Petro it doesn't mean anything. It has no sign significance whatsoever.
Did Martin Lutheran know that St. Augustine had said that? Probably. Did he just choose to ignore it evidently?
Right. But if you go to St. Augustine writing on this you'll find that that's what St. guess said because the faith was of Christians in his day that Christ had indeed established the church on Peter here on earth.
>> So the argument is null on point means nothing.
>> Yep.
>> It's kind of nitpicking really is what it is.
>> Yeah. All right. Uh father, what about prayer to the saints? Uh Mr. Wes Huff says that it's a serious issue. He says it's okay to highlight heroes of the faith but should not pray to them. uh although he says theologically uh that he can understand the Catholic position but practical reality collapses the distinction between dullia and latria uh prayer is only ever addressed to god and sacred scripture and he says throughout church history prayer to saints often develops into superstition. There are countless examples of this um but he does say that he he does grant that prayer to saints goes with antiquity. Uh but however he uh finds it tantamount to idolatry.
>> Tantamount to idolatry. Okay. But not actually no just can't sorry uh well you know he he talks about dullia and latria uh and he makes a distinction but he said in practical order doesn't really work right there's no real distinction I'm sorry but there is >> because dulya has to do with worship of god and latria has to do with veneration of saints because of their love for god in the in Catholic minds yes there is a real distinction >> is it ever blurred in the minds of the individual well he admits that People can misinterpret scripture. People can misinterpret faith, too. They can, but they have to be taught. The church has to teach them what is the true understanding of these things. If you have a badly instructed Catholic, sure, he can make a mistake. But you don't look at the badly instructed Catholic to say, "Oh, that's what the church teaches. He's badly instruction because he doesn't know what the church teaches and he's misrepresenting it." So, don't point him out as an example of what the church teaches.
The fact is the church has always recognized praying to the saints. But the church is recognized there are four purposes. We've talked about this before, Tom. There's the prayer of adoration. There's a prayer of uh reparation or contrition. Adoration, which is giving our homage to God as our Lord, creator, sovereign lord, uh, you know, redeemer. And then contrition for the times we didn't honor God as we should have. So we have adoration and then the times we failed to ordain to adore God in contrition. Then we have thanksgiving in which we thank God for the blessings that he's given to us and supplication when we ask God for the things we still need. Okay, the blessings we still need.
So these are the four purposes of prayer. They're also the same four purposes of sacrifice too. Adoration, contrition or reparation, thanksgiving and supplication. They're easy to remember because adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication, acts spells acts, and adoration, reparation, thanksgiving, and supplication spells arts. So either way, I mean, it's easy to remember these four purposes of prayer in that order. And they're in that order because that's the order of their excellence of prayer.
And so the question is if Catholics pray, if true Christians pray to saints, how do they pray to saints? Do they ever pray the prayer of dully? Do they ever or or Latria, I'm sorry, Latria? I got that confused. My demensia is showing here. Latria is worship of God. Do they ever give worship to saints? No.
if they if an individual Catholic does uh he's either woefully ignorant ignorant of the faith or culpable of a great sin, right? And that would be where idolatry would come in. But no, we don't offer the prayer of adoration to anyone other than God himself ever. And the church would condemn that absolutely.
What about the prayer of contrition?
apologizing for having failed to give adoration to God um when we let's say sinned. No, we don't offer that to any saint. Okay? Ever because we don't owe the saint adoration. Quite the contrary, we certainly don't apologize for not worshiping the saint, right? What about thanksgiving? Can we offer a prayer of thanksgiving? If we feel that a saint, if we believe a saint has been of service to us, we could thank the saint.
But ultimately our thanksgiving goes entirely to God because no saint can create grace or give grace. They can intercede and beg for it for us on our behalf. But that's all they can do. They can pray with us and for us but they can't uh provide the graces we need.
We're all beggars to God. So thanksgiving really that is a third purpose of prayer goes to God. What about the fifth the the fourth and the final the uh purpose of supplication?
Can we invoke the saints to make supplication for us? And the answer is yes, we can. We can ask them to pray for us.
You know, you read the scriptures, you see St. Paul referring, addressing, greeting the saints who are here and saints who are there. They're commending each other to their prayers. And yes, if we can ask people here on earth um to pray for us, we can certainly ask the saints of God in heaven to pray for us. It comes down to the Catholic concept of heaven. It comes down to the Catholic concept of being saved. It comes down to the Catholic concept of what it is to be in the beatic vision of God.
It is not snow-covered dung hills. It's not that at all. So there's there's where you have this fundamental divide between the concept the Catholic concept of being saved in heaven and the Protestant concept of dying in your sins but with the reput the deputation of any of of justification from Christ totally totally different outcome.
So um we believe that we can enlist the saints to pray for us. And you know you can give all kinds of theological arguments for that cuz there are there are many many very compelling arguments why we can ask the saints in the bot vision in heaven to ask God to spare us to join their prayers to ours or our prayers to theirs and present them to God in heaven because that's what they do. They pray. They're wrapped in this via vision of God in the splendor and the beauty and the glory of God intimately and that's what they do.
But in God they see and they know us too. So that's why Catholics invoke saints so easily, so readily because we believe that through the the community of saints and saints now in union with God, they actually have not only access to God, but they see us and they know us. They see us as we are in the mind of God.
And when we pray, they know. When we evoke them, they know and they love us and they want us to join them in eternal glory. That's what saints do. They will the good of the other person and they will our good. So, but Tom, you know, one can argue this all you want, but there's one thing that I would like to do for and with Wes Huff.
I'd like him to get on an airplane with me.
and bring his friends and we'll fly to Rome and we'll go to the catacombs of St. Sebastiano. St. Sebastian who died a martyr for Christ. He was a member of the Ptorian Guard of Diolesian after all and he died as a martyr and his remains are there at in those catacombs and I would like West Huff and company to come with me to a place where the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul were were brought probably during the reign of Valyrian who came before Acclesian to protect them from being savagely marauded by barbarian attacks and so on. Brought from St. Peter's Basilica um the great monument Constantine built over the remains of St. Peter brought from St. Paul's outside the walls the great monument built over the remains of St. Paul uh after his martyd where the the remains of these two great martyrs were brought to the catacombs of St. Sebastiano in the middle late 200s and kept there uh sequestered there but the Christians knew that they were there and I would just like them to look at the what they call the graffiti wall. It's underground. It's the catech combs.
But there you can see and you're you're you're just inches away. I mean you're you're looking at this wall this more here that has countless invocations to St. Peter and St. Paul in Greek, in Latin, I don't know whether languages, whoever they came, these were pilgrims, Christians who came from all over the empire to pay their respects as it were to where the remains of St. Peter and St. Paul were being kept and they scratched onto those walls and their scratchings are perfectly visible right now to all who will see them. Uh, St. Peter and St. Paul, pray for the family of Fortunes. St. Peter and St. Paul, pray for my mother-in-law. St. Peter and St. Paul, pray for my children. Um, these are pilgrims.
They've come there during times of persecution long before Constantine.
uh and they leave their mark there by asking the prayers of these two martyrd apostles who had died over 200 years 250 years before and that's the testimony of the early Christians and you know I I don't see what any any any Protestant or non non-atholic could argue against those this is testimony from that the centuries of persecution the catacombs of pilgrims invoking the intercession of saints Peter and St. Paul and Christians true Christians have done that throughout all of these ages recognized the saints as the friends of God the children of God that they inherited heaven as St. Peter St. Paul said and they are in the glory of God right now.
>> Yep. Yeah. Right. Um his sixth point father is the mass uh the holy sacrifice of the mass. He says that at minimum it's theologically problematic but at most it's a denial of the work of the gospel. Uh he says the protestant lord's table does not have a sac or rather it does have a sacrificial component. However it's just sacrificial component of praise and thanksgiving.
It's not propitiatory. Uh he says the protestant posture is god to us. and he has a nice little graphic on the screen showing God with some arrows pointing down to us. But the Catholic mass has the priest offering Christ to the father. So it's it's not heavenly downward like it is at the at the Lord's table. Uh but it's rather earthly upwards. Um so he finds that offensive and he says that Christ sacrifice was once for all and it does not need to be repeated over and over in the Catholic mass.
>> Yeah, it isn't repeated over and over.
It's the same sacrifice. So that shows a lack of understanding. It is the same sacrifice as Calvary, right? Christ just makes that one sacrifice present wherever the mass is offered by making himself present in the two species of his body and his blood. But um you know I'm going to give you I'm going to ask you to make a choice here. Okay.
>> Okay.
>> Do you want to finish these points or do you want to resume them next week?
>> I kind of do, but it's up to you.
Father, I'd like to continue, but it's up to you.
>> Then we'll we'll carry on.
>> Okay.
First of all, the sacrifice of Calvary.
Okay.
>> Was that heaven downward or is that earth upward?
>> Earth upward.
>> Clement. Definitely.
>> Our Lord is hanging on the cross crying out to his father in heaven. Right. That sacrifice was from earth. The son of God came to earth to offer that sacrifice from earth. Right?
And we nailed him to the cross. And his first word, father, forgive them for they not know what they do. Okay.
And the next step is to forgive the good thief individually, personally. Absolve him, right? Promise him this day you will be with me in paradise. Okay. This is the forgiveness. That's the sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ was offered from Calvary earth, right?
Address on this earth. Okay.
And so the mass continues to be offered.
The last supper, Passover, meal finished. And our Lord consecrated the chalice of his blood, the New Testament.
Ending the Old Testament forever and beginning the New Testament forever.
Okay? In his blood. And then in giving the command, this is the new this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal testament covenant. Right? And our Lord commanded them to do this. We offer it for the forgiveness of sin. And you do this in commemoration of me.
Those are our Lord's words. And the church takes them very seriously. I don't know how you can just dispense with them and say, "Well, that's nice, but it doesn't really mean anything beyond, you know, the last supper." But our Lord said very clearly, "This is my body which will be offered up for you.
This is my blood which will be poured out for you." It was very timesensitive in real time. The body had not yet been crucified. The blood had not yet been shed, but it was to be shed and crucified very soon. Right? But our Lord gave the body and blood as they were at that moment. He gave them to the apostles in fulfillment to the promise he had made the year before to give them his body and blood. And by the way, uh again, Joe Heshmire talks about the need to eat of the sacrifices of the Jews and that this is what our Lord was providing for that we partake in his sacrifice by eating of him as they ate of the pascal lamb.
So in other words, that pascal lamb was just a prefigure. So Christ who is the true lamb of God, we eat of him as he promised a year before and so many people walked away because they they understood him in gross materialistic terms, not spiritual terms, not sacrificial terms. But we understand these in sacrificial terms. That is why we understand what our Lord is saying at the last supper.
They don't, the Protestants do not understand this in sacrificial terms.
Which makes me believe if they heard our Lord say you, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you." That they would have been those who walked away from our Lord, saying, "This is a hard saying.
Who can listen to this?"
But now they deny the sacrificial significance of what our Lord did at the last supper and the command he gave to his apostles to do what he had done.
to give his body and his blood.
At the last supper, the body and blood had not been sacrificed yet. Subsequent to that, the sacrifice took place. And now it would be the body and blood that were sacrificed, the body that did die on the cross, the blood that was shed on the cross, and the body and blood of Christ that were crucified, died, buried, risen, glorified now in heaven. All of that is what our Lord gives us. And uh at the last s at the last supper, he um was laying the groundwork for that, the sacrifice that was to come and giving it to us. Now we have it.
And you're going to be sure that during those 40 days that our Lord spent on earth that are not the teachings not recorded in the gospels when they came out of there they came away from those 40 days and then the 10 days and the arrival of the holy go ghost ghost of Pentecost they came away offering that sacrifice and St. Paul gives testimony to that of the people gathering there and St. Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 excoriates the people for trying to turn it into some kind of a party like in the modern modern liturgy turning it into a party and St. Paul says this is not a pardon.
This is the body and blood of Christ that you're offering here. And you can be guilty of the body and blood of Christ if you receive him unworthily.
You know, you have your homes to eat and drink in.
Don't come to the church for that.
You're coming here to offer the Lord's what do you call it? The Lord's supper, right? The Lord's supper.
Um, so I mean again, poor Wes is often in the, you know, wandering around the North 40 there in the high weeds and can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak. But, um, again, if you go back in the actual history of the church, and I would point in the direction of, uh, Justin Martyr 165 17 about 165 AD. He's writing to the emperor. He's writing to the father of Marcus Aurelius, one of the great persecutors of the church. the man's name, his father's name was uh um Antonyos Peus and he's Justin Martyr the the converted philosopher the once pagan philosopher of Rome now a Christian boldly representing his faith even writing a an apologia polyia an explanation of the of the faith in Christ to the emperors And uh in paragraph one in paragraph 65 66 67 he lays out what the Christians of his day believed about the mass. And he says in no uncertain terms we do not believe these are mere symbols but this is as much the body of Christ as was the body of Christ born of the Virgin Mary as the body of Christ died on the cross. We believe this is the body of Christ as much as the body of Christ to on the cross and died on the cross for us. We don't believe this is a mere symbol of his blood. We believe this is the blood that he was that he actually shed on the cross. He he leaves nowhere to go to get around the fact that the faith that he represents there publicly and it was as public as you can get published to the emperor. I mean, he represents what the Christian faith was at that time. And it's not the faith of Wes Huff. It's the faith of Thomas Nag and yours truly.
>> I your humble servants.
>> I think Wes Huff would acknowledge that and then he would just say that he rejects that though. He did say he talked about the Catholic understanding of the mass and the the real presence and he said, you know, I understand what they actually believe. I just I reject that.
>> Well, he rejects the faith of the early Christians.
>> He does.
>> Okay. So he doesn't believe as the early Christians believe. He wants to make up his own religion. This is typical of Protestantism. I will interpret these scriptures for myself.
>> Yeah. Yep.
>> In my own way.
>> He does.
>> I'd like to think that's not that true though, Tom. I'd like to think that that would give him reason to think well gee I I see that um here's a man testifying who died as a martyr before all the Christian people and the imperial power of Rome what the faith was and he died for that as this is the Christian faith and I don't believe that now is he wrong or am I wrong I'd like to think that was might actually think that he could be wrong >> maybe well uh his uh next main point here number seven he uh he talks about uh this idea that the you know the Catholic church is is the one true church because it's the unchanging church of Christ and uh he styles it the changing unchanged church uh he says uh the religion of Rome at the council of Trent is quite different to the religion of Vatican 2 following 1965 the theology of Rome has changed historical consistency is simply not there um then he refered says Cardinal Henry Newman uh this essay that he wrote on the development of doctrine in 1948 says that the council of Trent would not have agreed with Cardinal Newman's thesis uh he quotes the modern Catholic Church catechism uh that says the plan of salvation includes Muslims and then he says I'm sorry but this is not the teaching and the very clear medieval Catholic theology there's a clear change there's stark differences uh so the Catholic church then cannot be the one true Catholic church the one true church of Christ uh because they've gone so many undergone so many changes since the second Vatican council.
>> Well, maybe maybe Wes and you and I could have a little meeting and agree that the church that came out of Vatican 2 is not the same as the church, the Catholic Church historically.
>> Yeah.
>> That it has changed its teaching and its theology.
>> Yes, >> we could all agree on that.
>> Yes.
>> Right.
>> Yes. And we would say, "Well, Wes, I think you're looking through the wrong hand of the telescope here." Rather than saying, "Well, look, what came out of Vatican 2 was a stark difference, a real rupture, and therefore, uh, you know, neither before afterward could this be the true church." But maybe if you look it the right way, you think, well, uh, that's how we know that what came out of Vatican 2 is not the true church because what was before was the true church. And that still remains, but it's now been under attack.
And uh, you know that there is a great apostasy and it's going on right now.
Uh, this is part of the great apostasy.
And we could say to Wes, you do believe that there will be a great apostasy, don't you, Wes? and he would say, "Well, of course I've read 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. I know what St. Paul says. He talks about the Antichrist coming after a great apostasy." And we say, "Wes Wes, you're right. Exactly. That's what he says." So, we believe that because of that rupture of Vatican 2 that we are in a stage of that great apostasy. It's not going to be a one and out, but it happens overnight. It's going to take place progressively.
Uh I think St. Paul pretty much, you know, admits that interpretation. Uh that it takes place progressively, a great apostasy over a period of time.
And uh that is because we know that the new church that came out of Vatican 2 is not the true church because it is at variance and in opposition to the true Catholic church that preceded Vatican 2 and that still exists but is now being persecuted by the Vatican 2 church. Mhm.
>> Uh we agree that the cenidal church that uh came out of Vatican 2 that notably well Paul the 6 basically is a tribute.
Francis basically gave Paul the six the credit for you know setting up the Senate of bishops and so and getting all that going. Um and so basically it was taking place just as soon as Vatican 2 came to an end that they were constructing their new central church.
They didn't call it that necessarily. Um not until Francis and Leo have they been consistently calling it the cadital church but the concept was there and the the groundwork the foundation was already laid at Vatican 2 by Paul the 6.
So we would say you know because we do believe that the Catholic Church as she was before Vatican 2 is a true church.
Uh there are two consequences. one that the church that came out of Vatican 2, uh the cidal church is not the Catholic Church and that the Catholic Church is the true church and it still exists and it always will because Christ promised that it always would that his church would always exist. I will be with you all days even under the consolation of the world. So we know that the true traditional Catholic church is still here but it is you might almost say underground now. Mhm.
>> Uh or they're trying to force it into ground.
>> Yeah. I just thought that was that was an admission on his part that he um you know says the Catholic Church was essentially unchanged all that time from medieval times all the way up to the second Vatican council. Um >> that is you're right that is an admission of the unchanged nature of the church throughout all those centuries.
>> Yeah. So I thought he almost contradicts himself in making making that very point but I would just say of course it continues today. I mean, we we had the Catechismic Council Trent right on our uh table here. We have it right over on the bookshelf now. Um we have the exact same faith that all the theologians that he references had in medieval times. Um so yeah, sure.
>> I don't know.
>> Well, let's uh let's pray for Wes.
>> Let's do it.
>> Wes Huff and so many others like him. Um you know, you ask that God will give them the light of faith.
>> Yeah. Uh the trouble is if they're just picking and choosing what to believe that is totally contrary to the to the virtue of faith.
>> Yeah.
>> And some might one might profess belief in Christ and so on. The Aryans themselves could profess belief in Jesus Christ but they didn't believe as a son of God.
>> And uh so they did not have the virtue of faith and that is necessary for salvation. Catholic Church teaches that in order to be saved, you need to have these three supernatural virtues, beginning with faith, the substance of things to be hoped for.
And therefore, you have to have the virtue of hope. And you have to love our Lord enough. You have to love what you believe and what you hope in. You have to love it enough to obey and follow it and put it into practice and not betray it by your behavior. right >> to hear the word of God and to keep it.
That's what you need to have to be saved.
>> Y >> um so um I'd like to think that uh you know the worst hops of the world can um by the grace of God see that way clear and have the scales spoke from their eyes as they fell from the eyes of Saul.
>> Well, we can we can pray for that, Father. Um >> there's more, don't we? He had well he had one section he had another section on on justification but I thought he kind of just repeated what what you had already talked about when talking about faith and grace. Um so I I didn't really find anything new in there that you hadn't already covered. He just said that uh he wanted to talk about that again because he said that might be the main reason that he's not Catholic is due to that question of justification.
Um but I think you already addressed all all of his points there on that father.
Then the >> well I would tell them read the sermon on the mount from beginning to end.
>> There you go.
>> Okay. Is say Matthew chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7.
>> Yeah.
>> Read the sermon on the mount. See what our Lord says for himself. Not what your minister says, not what some commentator says. No.
>> Read what he says. And uh it's not you're saved by it. You're justified by faith alone. It's not that.
>> Yep. Well, then his very last section of the video, he talks about uh he asked this question. Are Catholics in fact Christians? Can Catholics be good Christians? Uh he says yes they can. Um a few points he makes though. He says uh the desire of the reformation was for unity under the banner of truth. Luther longed that Rome would abandon the unbiblical incremental traditions but Rome said no. And Luther didn't leave to start his own church. He was removed. Uh he says Catholics can be saved in spite of the teaching of Rome not because of it. He says, "Being a biblically based faithful Christian will make you a bad Roman Catholic and vice versa." He says, "A mature believer will have to leave Rome at some point."
>> Um, you know, that is really bizarre in a sense. Yeah. A bad Catholic, if you're a true believer, you'd have to you stop receiving the sacraments. Um, is that what it is? It's a bad Catholic. You have to stop obeying the commandments because you're a biblical believer.
You're gonna stop obeying the commandments because the church says, "Receive the sacraments."
>> Um, you know, the holy Eucharist, receive uh uh baptism, right? Listen to what the apostles says about what Christ says to the apostles about whose sins you shall forgive. They are forgiven.
You'd have to stop all that and give up all that. And it's all in the Bible. And you'd have to then not keep the commandments because that's like pretending that you can save yourself by obeying God.
>> And so the real key to that uh is to break the commandments to show that you're not thinking you're saving yourself by obeying God. You're going to disobey God and just believe and be a real Christian.
>> I sin boldly, right?
>> Sin boldly. Believe sin boldly, but believe more boldly.
Luther's solution to everything.
>> Uh something that he himself put into practice. Um by the way, Tom, uh when when you see one one thing that kind of um I don't know how should I put this um irked me, I don't know. When I when I read the responses to um such as Wes Huff and others, I find the responses very unxuous, not apologetic, but oh, it's so nice.
Wes is such a nice guy and he's so considerate and and you know, we we're want to be just friendly and you know, ooze um empathy and and so on.
um and attribute all the goodwill to you cuz you're doing so much good in upholding Christian uh whatever you know >> Christian principles or something like that. Uh do you find that irksome when people come across that way in these >> uh I find that the most problematic thing of all of this? Yes, father. I made that exact point. I thought the most concerning thing out of this whole ordeal um went to the comment section of this video >> less tough video and uh pinned at the very top there is a comment from uh Trent Horn um who >> full disclosure I don't know very much at all about Trent Horn. I've watched a couple minutes maybe collectively of his videos. He uh refers to himself here as as the council of Trent which I found a little bit I don't know offensive. Um, >> the council of tren >> the council of tren.
>> Um, but let's read his comment here under this video. Wes off six reasons why I'm not Roman Catholic. He says, "Thanks for the kind words about my content. Always happy to have an informal private chat with you about any of this stuff whenever your schedule freeze up. Keep up your good work defending the foundations of the Christian faith."
>> I found that >> defending the foundations of the Christian. I found that so offensive as a Catholic because you have a Protestant who's undermining the foundations of the Catholic faith. Um that just bothered me.
>> You know what?
>> It's a letter of uh the head of the society of St. Pvid Pandi saying to Fernandez, >> uh now we all we're all motivated by a love for Christ and a love for the church.
>> I thought what that is not true. is a man who ceasedly attacks our Lord and attacks the thing. How can you pretend this?
>> It's so phony. It's so condescending, it seems to me.
>> Yeah.
>> And that is offense for that reason. But you know, >> you know, Tom, I thought about that. Why do they come across as being so condescending as though Well, thank you for being so gental and so gentlemanly in, you know, the the way you phrase your attacks on the church and the Catholic faith and why you reject the Catholic faith. Yeah.
>> And you're you're such a gentleman and such a Christian the way you say this.
Well, you know, it occurred to me suddenly that you look back to the time when Protestantism was a thing when it was first becoming a thing with Luther and Calvin and Swingley and all the rest.
And they were not nice. No, I mean Martin Lutheran himself, you know, in a sense I can understand why somebody like maybe Joe Heshmire would say, "Oh, you know, Joe is such a nice guy and he means well and he has a great, you know, heart and all that and you know, we should sit down and have a cup of coffee together and talk about these things in a very friendly chattly way." I'm thinking, boy, it wasn't that way with Luther. I mean, Luther was savage. uh not only savage in his attacks, but the language he used was really profane and vile and vulgar language. Not just during his table talks, Tishy when he had too much to drink, but he would launch some of the most scantological foul attacks, calling everybody under his son who disagreed with him the most vile names, referring to um parts of the body that were less honest, you know, so to speak.
Um, and um, there there are websites that are dedicated to Martin Luther's insults. They're that memorable and they're supposed to be funny now in retrospect. I guess for sports people, you know, you hear the trash talk and think, "Oh, well, that's just part of the game, you know." Well, Martin Luther's language is much worse than this trash talk we're hearing the from the sports figures these days. And I can't help but think it was really shocking to people back then uh who heard him carrying on and praying like some well a donkey say donkey um these foul foul things and yeah I I guess you know if you realize gee this person is spiritually a descendant of Martin Luther. I'm sure glad he's not calling me a blankety blank blank all the time in our talk and and spitting at me and throwing things at me and hurling curses at me as his as his mentor did, right? Martin Luther and is famous for. Well, I guess maybe that would justify a little bit of being on the easier side and to appreciate civility.
>> Yeah.
>> Where it wasn't clearly before. But I mean if if a Protestant wants to see the kind of character of Luther and in his debating style and argumentation style, there are websites you can go to that highlight this and entirely devoted to Martin Luther's pymics and believe me I mean uh it is not edifying at all.
>> Well, father I I >> don't want to go back to that. I would never go back to Totally uncristian.
Yeah, I know it's the same thing, but I had a I don't know a little bit of a different take on it. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I mean the way I see this is is um almost like helping lead towards this this this one one world religion that they're trying to >> condescending they're seems to me could be totally wrong. It seems to me they're trying to break down any distinction between all the religions and uh yeah, we'll acknowledge these differences. Sure. you know, we have some uh some differences and and what we believe and what we say and everything, but really at the end of the day, we have these kind of Christian foundations that he talks about. So, you know, we really at the end of the day, we're all the same. We're all buddy buddy. We're all in this together.
>> It's a good point. You can see why that would kind of lead to that >> and that would again play right into the hands of modernism.
>> It's it seems like it. It seems that that um I mean it's not just this you hear that that all the time. And this is this is their thinking, you know, oh, we can we can disagree, but really at the end of the day, we're best friends and none of this really matters anyway cuz we're all we all believe in the same God. Muslims, Jews.
>> Well, that all this nicy nasty business.
>> It seems to me like it is.
>> Then maybe the the the the brutal uh crassness of of Luther would be preferable to that. Anyway, >> um I mean there are things that Luther said about, you know, the Pope and the bishops and the Catholics that I couldn't even repeat on this program. I wouldn't even repeat off the program.
You know, that's how bad they are.
>> Yes.
>> But you're saying, if I'm not misinterpreting you, that as bad as that is, it's preferable to all this that nothing matters in the end. You're still upholding the foundations of Christianity and we're all doing this together. We're all fighting the same battle. And then essentially we're all the same.
>> Yeah.
>> And so one world religion here we come.
>> It seems like it.
>> Oh boy.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm afraid you're right. I I I see that too.
>> Yeah.
>> Thanks for pointing that out.
>> Yeah. Well, I just um prefer a Catholic response to this, Father. And I think you did that tonight. So, thank you for indulging us. I know. Um apologize for the length of the program, but I think it was worth it. And uh yeah, thank you.
>> Well, you don't have to apologize for the length of the program.
I gave you I gave you the opport I gave you the out there. But uh but listen, God bless you all and all of our readers and >> and we pray, you know, at the end of every program we stand. We pray the memory for all. We'll be praying for Weshoff.
>> Yes. Well, and for Trent Horn and for Joe Heshmire and all the rest of the even for Martin Luther, we'll be praying that uh that some grace touched uh you know in so far as God in his omnipotent infinity and eternity could touch the soul of Martin Luther.
Um, love is to will the good of the other. And whatever we say here hopefully is motivated by that >> to to will the good of the other.
>> Y >> and that means true faith, true hope, and a true love for our Lord Jesus Christ and allegiance to him in word and deed.
>> Thank you, Father.
>> That's right, John. Thank you.
>> Thank you to all our viewers as well for watching this episode of What Catholics Believe. Until next time, we ask that you all remember the words of our lady at Fatima to consecrate yourselves and your families to the immaculate heart of Mary and to pray and do penance. Thank you. God bless you.
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