Catholic Answers Live

Open Forum – Questions Covered:

02:41 – How do statements by Pope Eugene fall in line with Vatican 2’s teachings on those outside the Church?

11:50 – I’m traveling outside the country and will be going somewhere where it’s not safe to leave the location. How do I handle going to mass on Sunday when safety is a concern?

13:53 – What is the most reverent to receive communion?

16:30 – Would a person need to be re-baptized if they were baptized in a protestant church with the trinitarian formula but they didn’t believe in regenerative baptism?

20:11 – There have been people starting to teach that certain saints were gay. How do I respond to these claims?

28:31 – Why do we say “we believe” instead of saying “we know?”

34:36 – In the RSV-CE and New RSV-CE translations of the wedding at Cana, one insinuates Mary as co-redemptrix. Which is the proper translation?

41:57 – Is there really a gay agenda in the Church or is this just a conspiracy?

49:44 – How do I bridge the gap with my protestant family when their church teaches that the Mass is blasphemous?

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Questions Covered:

09:26 – How do I explain to my friend that my baptism is valid even though I wasn’t submerged?

16:58 – When a clergy member performs a baptism do they have to use the Trinitarian formula?

22:15 – I was just asked to be a godmother for baptism at a nondenominational church. Is this ok for me to do?

33:30 – When you are baptized Catholic, are you always a Catholic even if you reject the Church?

41:22 – Why do we Catholics not recognize universal salvation?

47:28 – Were my children validly baptized if the priest was one involved in the priest sex scandal?

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Questions Covered:

04:06 – I’ve recently turned to Sedevacantism. Are there any proofs in Church documents for baptism by blood and baptism by desire.

19:04 – Could someone experiencing a spiritual “rebirth” serve as a replacement for baptism?

23:32 – I grew up Catholic then was re-baptized as an adult as a protestant. How was I validly baptized as an infant if I didn’t choose it?

41:04 – Was Mary baptized?

43:43 – I adopted 3 children and they are just under or at the age of reason. My priest says that we can’t just baptize them. Why is that?

51:55 – Why does the Church consider Mormon baptism invalid?

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Questions Covered:

05:21 – I am a bit of a survivalist nut and I am always preparing for the collapse of civilization. I was just wondering, if there was a nuclear war or really any kind of catastrophe that would trigger a societal collapse, and the chaos was so widespread that most of the bishops and all of the cardinals were killed, how would the new pope be elected? Could the surviving bishops (who I would imagine would not be cardinals because most likely they’d all be remote rural bishops) elect the new Pope? Furthermore, what if all the bishops were killed? Could regular priests somehow advance one of their own to the bishopric? If not, could they at least lay their hands on laypeople and continue apostolic succession that way?

19:12 – When the Magi came, do you think it made the Holy Family wealthy? Enough to travel and stay in Egypt, provide for a 3-year ministry of 13 plus, and for the care of his beloved mother Mary until the Dormition?

22:43 – Are the laws of logic and thought — identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle — true of all *possible* universes, or only of ours? Would multiverse theories or alternate dimensions modify these rules? And do the laws *certainly* apply even here, or could one argue that maybe an extreme form of Scotistic “haecceity” versus “quiddity” means that maybe they don’t?

28:19 – Why is most lunch meat round when bread is mostly square?

36:28 – Jimmy, huge fan of your work, your terminal intellect and towering beard. Or maybe I got that backwards. If we, in the eschaton are given our infallible bodies and the new Jerusalem in essence becomes our planet krypton… can you postulate on what we will do in the eschaton? Saints are generals in God’s army etc? But what will our missions be? Will we go and evangelize the universe of fallen creatures? If so, will Christ have to incarnate on that world to save them or will we as we have been “made Gods” or is that a blasphemous thing? If we do hypothetically have to incarnate for them, would our infallible bodies change to the alien form we incarnate for thus we become aliens only until we go to the next world? Or if only Christ can do the incarnating / saving would be or are there already millions of incarnations of Christ and his form in heaven adjusted to whatever creature he’s interacting with?

44:40 – Why did Humans take so long to be advanced just recently with agriculture, medicine, economy, infrastructure etc. What were they doing for 200,000 years!?

52:45 – With admission by the USA of ufos, what do we think about extraterrestrial beings—souls, evangelizing, origin, etc.?

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Questions Covered:

02:28 – Where does the idea of toll booths come from, and why didn’t it make its way into the Western church?

16:31 – Scotty had a little too much to drink again and staggers down to the control room at 2 am and accidentally beams up Cy. During the transport Scotty inadvertently pushes the wrong buttons and mistakenly erases Cy’s memory. Captain Kirk tells Spock to try the vulcan mind-meld hoping they can find out some information about this confused guy with the Society 315 t-shirt. During the mind-meld, Spock dies. Now Cy thinks he’s Spock. The crew decides to keep him around for entertainment purposes. Unfortunately, Cy begins worshiping Vulcan gods and then begins preaching about them and proselytizing to the crew like he’s Jimmy Swaggart. Kirk has had just about enough and drops him off on some planet in the delta quadrant where Cy lives out his days eating plants and worshiping green lava. Even though he’s now worshiping lava with full knowledge and consent, it’s through no fault of his own. He didn’t ask to be beamed up and have his memory erased and then brainwashed into thinking he’s Spock. Can he still be saved or is he lost in space?

24:02 – My question is: If a group of people were stranded on a deserted island, like in the TV show ‘Lost’, and there was no priest among them, could a lay person declare himself a priest and perform valid sacraments? Would the validity of the sacraments be contingent on how closely this person stuck to the teachings of the Church i.e. what if he had a suitcase full of Catholic books and was on his way to be ordained as a priest when the plane crashed?

33:38 – Seeing that “…the Lord opened the mouth of [Balaam’s] ass, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”…And the ass said to Balaam, “Am I not your ass, upon which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Was I ever accustomed to do so to you?”…..” (Num 22:28, 30) Did Balaam’s ass have a rational soul?

42:36 – Was it certain or contingent that Adam and Eve would fall or that the angels would fall? If it is certain, could God create other rational beings for whom their fall would be contingent and could they potentially persist perpetually in the state of grace and obedience to God? If it is contingent, could another human couple (same nature, different identity) have persisted in the state of grace and obedience to God perpetually in the Garden of Eden? For the angels, if they transcend space and time, how do we understand “before” and “after”, “in heaven” and “not in heaven” with respect to their fall?

49:54 – Suppose Middle-Earth really existed. Could God become incarnate as a man, an elf, a dwarf, and a hobbit all at the same time? If yes, could man, elf, dwarf, and hobbit Jesus interact with each other and maybe all go out for a pint?

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Open Forum – Questions Covered:

09:12 – Are the prophecies about the Jewish people being the new Jerusalem in the end times still in place in Catholic theology?

24:11 – What’s the origin of the belief of the immaculate conception?

37:29 – How does the New Jerusalem bible compare to new translations?

45:53 – What’s the difference when the Church uses the terms Universal Church vs Catholic Church?

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Open Forum – Questions Covered:

07:34 – Can one ask for intercession from a loved one who has passed away?

15:23 – What’s the evidence for the end of public revelation but the continuation of apostolic authority?

32:44 – Where’s the moral line when using cybernetic implants that would change the body?

45:16 – Isn’t dowsing still a form of divination because you’re still looking for a message about the future?

51:24 – What’s the difference between a doctrine and a dogma?

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Open Forum – Questions Covered:

06:50 – I teach RCIA. I have a former student who, after converting, left the church. What do I say to her when I run into her?

19:17 – How do I explain to my protestant parents why we close our prayer with the Trinity instead of in the name of Jesus?

34:03 – Did Solomon go to heaven?

37:18 – I call myself an atheist because the only thing religion solves is the life after death issue. It doesn’t seem to solve the issues of this world. What are your thoughts on that?

46:20 – Were the illumination of conscience, the rapture and the dark night of the soul terms made up by the reformers? If not, where did they originate?

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Questions Covered:

08:17 – My father is in hospice after a severe stroke. What do we mean when we say redemptive suffering?

19:20 – When and why did we change the fasting time before communion?

35:48 – Is oil an essential part of the sacrament of Confirmation?

43:20 – How legitimate is the claim that when one is saved, you are saved, past, present, and future?

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Questions Covered:

08:05 – What’s the earliest record of the Eucharist?

17:04 – When discussing the essential beliefs with a protestant. Is there a list that the Church has?

22:18 – Will there ever be an American or young pope?

31:24 – My priest told me some penance is to not eat all the food on my plate. What do I do with the food that’s leftover since it’s not good to throw it out?

41:22 – Can you clarify Jesus’ role as high priest and how that works with our atonement?

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