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Just as the Church has official ritual books for Mass and the sacraments, for blessings and for exorcism, so there is also an official book called the Handbook of Indulgences. We will not take time here to explain Church teaching on indulgences; though it is important and woefully neglected, that would be the subject of another book. The traditional name for this ritual book is the Raccolta, Italian for collection. In the 1910 edition of the Raccolta, there is an indulgence granted for praying …

When people ask me why they need to go to see a priest in confession instead of going “directly to God,” I remind them that they already believe that you can’t “go directly to God” when it comes to another sacrament: baptism.Protestants believe that someone else (ideally, a Church minister) has to baptize you—you can’t baptize yourself. Protestants who believe that baptism saves us from sin consequently believe that we need the involvement of a minister …

The Catholic Church teaches us what actions are gravely sinful and must be avoided so we do not forsake our salvation.Once, I was talking with a poised young Protestant woman who was adept at citing the Bible. The topic of James 2 and its insistence that a man is not justified by “faith alone” came up, to which she quickly responded,“Of course, we are saved by faith alone. But true faith is never alone. Saving faith in Christ is always accompanied by good works. The works aren …

No True Scotsman is a type of logical fallacy that involves making exceptions when a claim is contradicted in order to prevent the claim from being falsified. It’s called the No True Scotsman fallacy because it follows a pattern of reasoning along these lines: Person A: No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Person B: But my friend Donald is a Scotsman, and he puts sugar on his porridge. Person A: Ah, yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his por …

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 …