Blog

The word venial comes from the Latin word venia, which means “pardon” or “forgiveness.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a venial sin is a sin that “allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it” (1855). The rationale behind this teaching is that charity orders us to God as our life’s goal, or final end. That order can be either completely destroyed or merely disturbed by sin. This order is completely destroyed when we sin in such a way as to turn …

In a tiny little church on the banks of the Tiber, called the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Patri (also known as the Church of the Sacred Heart of Suffrage), there’s a most curious collection of artifacts from four different European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy) —sixteen pieces of cloth, paper, or wood, all of which are claimed to bear the signs of the scorched hands and fingerprints of souls in purgatory, a postmortem temporary state of existence where the souls of t …

“How can you believe that? Don’t you know the Bible says…”It’s a challenge we have to meet. If we can’t reconcile apparent contradictions between Scripture and Catholic teaching, how can our own faith survive? And if we can’t help our Protestant brothers and sisters overcome their preconceptions about “unbiblical” Catholic doctrines and practices, how will they ever come to embrace the fullness of the Faith?In this excerpt from Meeting the Protestant Challenge, Karlo Broussard gives an example o …

The rosary is a popular Catholic devotion that the Catechism endorses as a “form of piety” that expresses the “religious sense of the Christian people” (1674). But for many Protestants, the rosary, with its repetition of the Hail Mary prayer, contradicts Jesus’ command to “Use no vain repetitions as the heathens do” (Matt. 6:7; KJV). It would seem that the Catholic practice of praying the rosary is a direct violation of Jesus’ command.MEETING THE CHALLENGE1. Jesus wasn’t condemning prayers that …

Every Catholic has heard the challenge: “How can you believe that? Don’t you know the Bible says…” It’s a challenge we have to meet. If we can’t reconcile apparent contradictions between Scripture and Catholic teaching, how can our own faith survive? And if we can’t help our Protestant brothers and sisters overcome their preconceptions about “unbiblical” Catholic doctrines and practices, how will they ever come to embrace the fullness of the Faith? In this excerpts …