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You're talking to your Protestant friend and he drops this one on you.... "You Catholics think you need to earn your salvation" What do you say? Here, we'll help. The Protestant Reformation and Misunderstandings about Salvation The idea that Catholics think you need to earn your salvation is another holdover from the Protestant Reformation. When the Reformation began, Protestants preached that we are justified “by faith alone” (Latin, sola fide). They then accused …

"Who could be so callous, so stony-hearted, who so unmindful of brotherly love, as to remain dry-eyed in the presence of so many of his own kin, who are broken now, shadows of their former selves, disheveled, in the trappings of grief?" -St. CyprianThe Darkness:Roman persecution resulted not only in the death of Christians but also in an internal division concerning the proper response to those who apostatized and sought a return to the Church after the persecution. The divergent views created …

Earlier in my priesthood, I pastorally ministered to a man who had cared for his adult son during his son’s battle with cancer. As I came to know the man, he shared with me the account of his son’s life and holy death. When the son was first diagnosed with cancer, no one realized how serious it was. As the medical team did more tests, it became clear that the cancer was terminal, and that the young man’s physical life was nearing its end. In response to this news, the father t …

Another question that arises when we’re talking about our relationship with the saints, and the honor that is due to them, is, “Must I have a devotion to the saints?”Well, it depends on what we mean by devotion. If we intend to include within our definition of “devotion” the recognition of certain facts about them, then yes. For example, we must honor them by acknowledging their saintly status and our communion with them in the body of Christ. And, as mentioned in …

When we speak about reason, we mean uses of the human mind to seek and to understand the truth. We can use our reason in academic disciplines such as psychology, mathematics, and history. Reason is also exercised in producing various technologies and in living life wisely. Two uses of human reason are especially important when considering the relationship between faith and reason. One is found in science, in which people use the method of empirical verification to determine whether or not some …