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The Protestant Reformation was launched when a Catholic priest named Martin Luther thought he’d discovered something in the Bible that the Church had been missing for centuries. That discovery was salvation by faith alone—that is, apart from doing good works. This core Reformation doctrine of sola fide is a major dividing line between Catholics and Protestants.Just like sola scriptura, this doctrine ends up dividing Protestants from each other just as much (and s …

There are seven implications that baptism has for our lives as a Christian, each of which arises from a particular dimension of the sacrament. This is a great day to remember those!First, we must daily respond to God and his Word in faith. Baptism is “the sacrament of faith” (CCC 1253), which gives us entrance into “the life of faith” (1236). “Faith,” as defined by the Catechism, “is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all …

We have returned to the Levant, we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades—but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades. - Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937 In our age the Crusades are described as barbaric, wasteful, shameful, and even sinful.​​​​​Rarely are they called glorious. This is because the modern world embraces a false narrative about the Crusades. This false story, h …

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”Well, when I was a child, I thought you got to heaven by just being a nice person. My parents never took me to church, and the closest “Sunday school education” I received was from old Bible cartoons produced by the same animation company that made The Flintstones. I thought they …

When it comes to the practice of baptism, questions arise as to who can receive it. At first glance, such questions might seem a bit pedantic, something only for theological nerds. But as we’ll see, these questions are at the heart of many of the conversations that we Catholics have about baptism, whether we’re talking to Catholics or Protestants. So let’s take a look at a few special cases that come up more frequently than others. Can We Baptize Infants in the Womb? What abou …