Catholic Answers Focus

Questions Covered: 

04:30 – Are there any questions that Catholics can ask Protestants instead of always being on the defense? 

04:30 – Are there any questions that Catholics can ask Protestants instead of always being on the defense? 

12:30 – How do I respond to my friend who asked me why Catholics believe vasectomies are wrong? 

20:52 – Does God have love for people who ultimately choose hell? 

29:43 – How do I respond to a Protestant friend when he brings up the 7 Churches in Revelation in response to the Catholic Church is the one true Church? 

35:28 – How does the Catholic Church prove that Jesus founded the Catholic Church?   

45:13 – How do I respond a Protestant arguing for Sola Scriptura.  I was stumped with 2 Peter 3:15. Can you help clarify? 

52:54 – Follow up to your response that God does not grieve like us. I don’t think I can use that defense because it contradicts scripture. Can you expound on your argument? 

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Catholic Game Show

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Questions Covered:

34:05 – I met my wife when I was 50. None of us can have kids but both of us willed to be together. She now has dementia, but I visit her every day at the home she lives at now. 

37:40 – I’m someone who’s trying to take the Faith seriously, but my partner is not. We are in the process of getting our civil marriage blessed by the Church. How can I present the faith to her in a sympathetic way? 

45:00 – Can you speak on the Church’s official teaching on people who want to get married but can’t have kids because of age? 

48:28 – How do we reconcile the Catholic view of marriage with other cultural views that exist? 

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Questions Covered:

01:45 – How is it remotely right that annulment due to canonical form means that a person who was baptized Catholic but left the church in their teens and was married in a protestant church isn’t really considered married by the Catholic Church and they could get it annulled if they came back? How does this actually work and what am I misunderstanding because I don’t see how that’s remotely justified 

10:42 – What would you say to a protestant who doesn’t see the need to go to church on Sunday? 

15:03 – Is it wrong to address the Angel Gabriel as “archangel”? I have learned from Wikipedia that he is an archangel 2nd in command. Is it a Catholic teaching to acknowledge Gabriel as archangel, what is the difference between the two? 

18:48 – Since the LXX was the basis for our current Bible, why weren’t all of the LXX’s books included in the Bible? 

21:15 – Question 1: When are Catholics required to give their full assent to the teachings of the Church? I heard an apologist mentioned that we do not have to follow Pope Francis’s teaching on the death penalty since he was making a prudential judgment. 

23:15 – Question 2: Since the Latin Church is in communion with Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches. Does that mean that Rome has implicitly canonized the Saints in the Eastern Church that were Orthodox since these saints were after the Great Schism like Gregory of Palamas? 

24:28 – Jimmy, how do you respond to non-Catholics who ask about the number of Catholics who publicly criticize the Pope – they question our claim of unity. 

31:58 – Please shed light on what this is about. Matt 27: 52-53. the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his 

35:00 – Can you explain purgatory in adult terms. 

41:58 – What is transubstantiation? Is there a good example of change in substance in anything besides Eucharist that would help people understand Eucharistic transubstantiation? 

47:43 – If (or when) we welcome the Eastern Orthodox Churches back into the fold – what could that mean for the Table of Contents for our Bibles? What books could plausibly make the cut, so to speak? 3 Maccabees but not 4 Maccabees? 

51:55 – I know of holy water and blessed salt to protect my family from evil. What else should parents know to protect their families? 

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Questions Covered:

06:00 – Does the physical material (for example, bone or hair or tooth or whatever) of a given saint’s relic bear upon its Wonder-Working Providence? 

11:56 – How can one better understand the trinity without falling into one of the many heresies there are? Why does it seem like there is a hierarchy when Christ says that the Father is greater than Him when all are equally God? 

17:23 – Is God “complicated”? It has been bandied about that God has “His” time to call us home. Regardless… I’m not sure that I think this. 

22:15 – When a new saint is canonized who identifies the attributes that one sees in depictions of that saint? This assumes that there is an actual selection, as opposed to a tradition arising that “sticks” by attrition as the years go by. Similarly, who identifies the patronages, if that’s a real word. Example: When St. Jimmy is canonized one day, who will decide that you’re always to be depicted wearing a cowboy hat, and that you’re the patron saint of philosophers from Arkansas? 

28:48 – Protestants call certain parts of Scripture apocryphal and we call them deuterocanonical. I want to understand why. It seems to me there is one canon of scripture and when I looked up deuterocanonical, it means second canon. Why do we have a second cannon of scripture when there should be just one cannon? 

31:50 – People advise people in difficult marriages to draw on the graces of the sacrament. For those with annulled marriages, were there any? 

33:00 – I am having a discussion with a protestant who claims that power to forgive or retain sins was given to more than the apostles that night of Jesus’ resurrection. He bases this on Luke 24:33 (that says others were present) and John 20:19-23 being the same appearance. How do we know that these two appearances were not the same? Or were they? 

41:45 – In Robert Hugh Benson’s book “Lord of the World” the Pope establishes the “Order of Christ Crucified” in which the goal of the members are to seek out martyrdom. Is there a sense in which seeking martyrdom can be contrary to the Faith? 

47:27 – Why are Catholics seen as “haters” when we stick to our guns on items of faith, sacraments, and morals? I hate no one but I know there is a standard we are all held to 

50:24 – Can a practicing Catholic go to a Protestant Mass with a friend who is of this particular denomination as a friendly gesture? I know that the Catholic Church would not recognize the Eucharist within a Protestant service as being properly consecrated and thus null. Also, I do believe it is against church teaching to say some Protestant prayers that go against Catholic teaching. Can I have some clarification and guidance in regards to wanting to be friendly and charitable but within the parameters of Catholic responsibilities? 

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Questions Covered:

02:00 – Why do we believe that Mary is in heaven with her glorified body and not Moses and the Old Testament prophets?

08:03 – Regarding the prayer for the faithful depart, why do we pray for the “faithful” departed and not the unfaithful?

13:28 – Our Lord died for our sins but why do we still have to pay for our sins in purgatory?

20:00 – Why do we not have the same belief of the Eucharist as with Protestants? And why do we have the body and blood and they don’t?

28:53 – How do we know that guardian angels don’t leave them when they become adults? Do adults have them too?

34:34 – How do you address a non-Catholic on Catholic issues who only believes what’s written in the bible?

43:00 – Follow up on communion question: Can you receive communion at different non-Catholic churches?

46:07 – Why do we believe that at the end of time the Jews will come to the Faith and Catholics will leave it?

50:19 – If the Catholic Church is the one true Church, why is there a distinction between Catholic and Christian?

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Questions Covered:

04:32 – Why ask for forgiveness during prayer if absolution is only offered during confession? 

15:35 – Why do we believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary? 

20:07 – If God is all loving and merciful, why do we have to fear the punishment of sin? 

23:33 – If you sin with the thought that you will just go to confession after, will you still be forgiven? 

28:57 – Why Catholicism and not Greek Orthodoxy? 

36:59 – Why do Catholics believe in guardian angels and is it obligatory for Catholics to believe in them? 

44:06 – Why aren’t a wider range of Papal utterances protected by papal infallibility? 

50:32 – Why is it necessary to be married in the Church, even for fallen away Catholics? 

 

Resources:

https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/fed-up-catholics-shouldnt-turn-to-orthodoxy

 

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Is it really true that if you’re not angry you’re not paying attention? Joe Heschmeyer, author of The Early Church Was the Catholic Church, explains why anger at modern problems is not always a virtue.

Cy Kellett:

Ever hear phrases like, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention?” Joe Heschmeyer challenges those ideas next.

Cy Kellett:

Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. Joe Heschmeyer with us this time. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We talk with Joe about anger, specifically ...

Questions Covered:

05:38 – In Deuteronomy 22:28-29 It talks about a man lying with a virgin. What does it mean from the Catholic perspective? 

16:12 – I’m a 2nd grade catechist. They want to know why God judged Adam and Eve so harshly? Why couldn’t it be just a teaching moment? 

22:22 – What if a person holds back a sin due to shame before their wedding? Will that person’s confession and marriage be valid? 

24:30 – Why did God direct the Israelites to kill the other nations who were occupying the promised land if we’re all God’s children? 

35:43 – I’m blind and I just wanted to tell Cy thank you and I love your audio book. 

41:25 – My protestant friend called me and told me that he was convinced that hell doesn’t exist. Could you explain if it does exist and how you get there?  How could it exist if Jesus died for everyone? 

48:46 – If the sacraments are efficacious should we expect a temporal manifestation of that grace? 

52:22 – I feel drawn to become Catholic. How can I approach this with parents who are deeply opposed? 

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Questions Covered:

02:15 – Should we avoid any forms of media that can be linked to the demonic? 

12:18 – Why did the Church in the west retain the Latin language in the liturgy? Prior to the Reformation, were homilies delivered in Latin? How would you answer a protestant if they say that the Church kept everything in Latin to keep people from understanding? 

23:10 – My sister is going to marry a non-Catholic outside of the Church. Will her marriage be a valid Christian marriage? 

28:43 – Why do some bibles have different chapter numbers for the Psalms? 

31:35 – What did the souls that went to heaven do differently from the souls that went to purgatory? 

46:10 – Why do we believe that Jesus is not speaking in hyperbole in John 6? 

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