Blog

The Canon of Scripture and Its Origin The clearest example of a sacred Tradition that both Catholics and Protestants accept is the canon of Scripture. The word canon comes from a Greek word that means “rule,” and refers to the Church’s official list of inspired writings. You can find this list in the table of contents of every Catholic or Protestant Bible.The canon of Scripture was first declared in Rome in A.D. 382and was later defined at two Catholic councils in North Africa(Hippo in A.D. 3 …

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 …

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 …

Purgatory is also found among many non-Catholic Christians. In fact, Christians who reject the doctrine of purgatory, in its consciously articulated form or at least the concepts that undergird it, are of the minority position. As we’ll argue below, such a widespread belief among Christians outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church gives reason to think purgatory is for real and is so intertwined with the sources of Christian revelation that Christians can’t get away from it. Be …

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 …