My Biggest Pet Peeve with (some) Catholic Apologetics

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]So, when it comes to online Catholic apologetics, there's just one thing that kind of gets on my nerves over the years. Look, I've watched a lot of Catholic apologetics, and I've had the joy of becoming friends with several Catholic apologists. They're great. This isn't a hit piece on Catholics generally, nor will I be calling out any people specifically. And for the record, many of the best apologists don't do this thing that annoys me. However, as Catholic apologetics continues to really blow up online, especially in more traditionalist circles, I see this thing popping up and I want to talk about it, get it off my chest before I just go insane. So, the pet peeve is this. Some online Catholics talk about Protestants and Protestantism in a way that is just blatantly at odds with how the Catholic Church itself approaches these things.

[00:00:49]So, in this video, I'll go through a few topics contrasting how I see these things being discussed online versus how recent popes have talked about them. And I'm going to save my biggest pet peeve for last. First, I want to start with the question of valid sacraments, specifically the Eucharist. When I talk about the Eucharist on this channel, I routinely get comments saying, "Cool, but uh you're a Protestant, so you don't have a valid Eucharist. Your Eucharist is just bread." The general Catholic argument is that a valid Eucharist requires consecration by a priest with apostolic succession. We could also get into proper form and matter, but for today that's a good enough definition.

[00:01:25]So, in so far as Catholics say that Protestants don't have apostolic succession, then it seems like a pretty straightforward case. No apostolic succession, no valid Eucharist. Except it's actually not that simple. Here's what Cardinal Ratzinger had to say about this prior to becoming Pope Benedict the 16th. I count among the most important results of the ecumenical dialogues the insight that the issue of the Eucharist cannot be narrowed to the problem of validity. Even a theology oriented to the concept of succession such as that which holds in the Catholic and Orthodox Church need not in any way deny the salvation granting presence of the Lord in a Lutheran's Lord's supper. Did you catch that? Salvation granting presence in a Lutheran Lord's supper. That's not a small deal. Genuinely, what presence could be better than that which grants salvation? While we debate the validity of sacraments in YouTube videos, one of the Catholic Church's greatest minds of the last century, a man who literally became pope, is telling us to think more broadly than that. PMICs thrive on clear black and white answers, valid or invalid. But that's just not where the conversation is at today. In the context of the quote, he's specifically referring to Lutheran churches as Ratzinger was writing to a Lutheran. But I don't think this would only hold in Lutheran churches. Anglican Eucharists ought to be even easier to affirm in a way since Anglicans also have a theology oriented to the concept of succession.

[00:02:53]And according to the 1971 Anglican Roman Catholic dialogue, the two churches have reached a substantial agreement on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Say what you will about the ecumenical movement, but we can't pretend like it just didn't happen. And I fear that a lot of online apologetics likes to act as though that were indeed the case and Catholics and Protestants hadn't genuinely found common ground. Now, does this mean all questions about the Eucharist have been solved? Not at all. But I worry that we're incentivized to highlight disagreements and downplay agreements, which is to overlook the genuine advancements we've made in this area.

[00:03:27]Some of the greatest theological minds of our traditions have spent decades trying to forge these agreements. And now we're firing off our hot takes on Tik Tok about how Protestant Eucharists are just bread or Catholics worship wafers. We've got to do better on both sides of this. The second topic where this happens is justification. And the dynamic here is actually really similar.

[00:03:47]Protestants and Catholics online engage in back and forth about justification.

[00:03:51]And I consistently get comments about how silly the Protestant view of justification is and how blatantly against the fathers it is. Meanwhile, in 1986, the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission stated, "We believe that our two communions are agreed on the essential aspects of the doctrine of salvation and on the church's role within it. We have also realized the central meaning and profound significance which the message of justification and sanctification within the whole doctrine of salvation continues to have for us today. Fast forward about a decade and a half and the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church released the joint declaration on the doctrine of justification professing a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification and shows that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations. Look, are these exhaustive? No. Are they like a million times more important than our internet debates? Yeah. Again, theologians made it their life's work to bring these about, and we just go on arguing as if they didn't happen. That's a mistake. We are far closer together on these things than people think. The goal should be to build on the unity we've found and use whatever disagreements we have, not as like a blood sport for online entertainment, but as genuine attempts to find more common ground, to have iron, sharpen iron, and to come to a greater understanding of the truth. And this leads to this idea of unity. And it's a really important one. And it leads me to a third basic idea. Online, we talk as though we're much more divided than we actually are. It's not uncommon to see posts about how Catholicism will triumph in America or orthodoxy will triumph in America or Protestantism will triumph. The basic idea being that we're locked in some battle against one another and may the best arguments win. Meanwhile, here's Pope Francis responding to something of this sort. He begins with like a hypothetical interlocutor saying, "Father, now I understand. It is a question of convincing others of procilitizing." The pope's response, "No, it is nothing of the kind. The gospel is like seed. You scatter it. You scatter it with your words and with your witness. And then it is not you who calculate the statistics of the results.

[00:05:54]It is God who does." Clearly, he saw this differently. But beyond our propensity for arguing, there's also the fact that we seem to view this as though we're on fundamentally opposed teams in the first place. But that's simply not the case. Well, at least not according to Pope Leo I 14th, who recently said to a group of Christian bishops from the Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox communions, "We are one. We already are. Let us recognize it, experience it, and make it visible." The implicit assumption of a lot of online apologetics is that church unity can only come about through conversion. The message is we are divided. Let us be one by conversion. But that is just manifestly not what Pope Leo is saying.

[00:06:36]He's saying that we are already one and our unity is deeper than the surface.

[00:06:40]The call to unity exists in fact only because of a pre-existing unity. And this really isn't that innovative. It's just Vatican 2. We have real but imperfect communion. Yes, there is work to do. But let's recognize that we're working together on the same team here.

[00:06:56]Okay. The final big point I want to look at is the question of the salvation of Protestants. And this is the one that I'm really passionate about. I think people who watch my videos will generally agree that like I'm a pretty mellow guy. Not a lot gets me really worked up. However, one thing that does deeply frustrate me is when online apologists speak about salvation in such a way that it implies, if not explicitly affirms, that Protestants should be anxious about their salvation because they are not part of the Catholic Church. To me, this is just a denial of Vatican 2 in Catholic theology since then. Francis Sullivan, a brilliant 20th century Catholic theologian, wrote the following about Vatican 2 in this topic.

[00:07:34]No salvation outside the church is no longer a problem for Catholic theology as far as the salvation of other Christians is concerned. Now you might think well that's just like one American Jesuit and like you know the Jesuits.

[00:07:47]Okay fine. How about I don't know Pope Benedict the 16th writing in his encyclical space are we? For the great majority of people we may suppose there remains in the depth of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth to love to God. in the context of the encyclical that openness to truth leads to salvation eventually. If Benedict thought that the great majority of all people would be saved, then I just like frankly have very little time for Catholic apologists trying to scare Protestants into becoming Catholic by making them doubt their salvation on account of not being Catholic. Catholic theology is better than that. I don't know why we're resorting to those arguments. Okay, I could go on, but by now I hope that you get my point. My main idea is not that we have no disagreements and Catholics and Protestants should just give up debates.

[00:08:33]Not at all. My main idea is that whatever debates we have should acknowledge the substantial agreement that already exists and we shouldn't downplay it for rhetorical effect. Now, some people might respond to this video saying, "These aren't infallible teachings." And that's true. But hear me out. Wouldn't it be a wise Catholic approach to say that the Pope's views are, I don't know, probably a bit more important than whatever is popular on the internet at a given time. Not to mention, it's not as though not infallible means free to ignore for Catholics, but that's a story for another day. In any case, thanks for indulging what was probably just a rant about a pet peeve. Let me reiterate, not all Catholic apologists do this. In fact, many of the best don't.

[00:09:14]Nevertheless, I think this is important to address as this space continues to grow. By all means, we can keep debating, but let's do it in a way that's informed by the current state of these questions and above all is shaped by faith, hope, and