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As we continue our inquiry as to what it means to be a saint, we need to answer the question: “How does someone become a saint?” The answer depends on precisely what is meant by saint. If saint is taken to refer to simply being united to Christ (and thus a Christian), then the answer is baptism. St. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.&rdqu …

The Question of "Where is that in the Bible?" “Where is that in the Bible?” This is the most common question I receive when I discuss the Catholic faith with Protestants. They ask me questions like: “Where is purgatory in the Bible? Or the Mass? Or the pope? Or the rosary?” These questions assume that Christians should only believe a doctrine if it is explicitly taught in Scripture—what is called sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”). The 1647 Protestant Westminster Confession of Faith expr …

Identifying Infallible Teachings Sometimes people ask, “Is this document infallible?” The question is problematic because the Magisterium doesn’t issue documents whose teaching is infallible from beginning to end. Instead, it issues documents that contain individual propositions that are infallible. In Ineffabilis Deus (1854) and Munificentissimus Deus (1950)—the documents that defined the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary—only a single sentence in each document was infal …