A few months ago, when Taylor Marshall’s book Infiltration had just come out, someone asked me if I intended to write a review of it. I had no such interest, and already knew that Dave Armstrong planned to do so and that he would do a good job. But it occurred to me that it might help to put together, in a concise way, a documentation of Dr. Marshall’s frequent attacks on Pope Francis. (And as it turns out,... Read more
Strictly speaking, “infallibility” covers whatever teachings fall under a divine guarantee to be free from any possibility of error. That does not mean, and never meant, that non-infallible teachings—the Ordinary Magisterium—do contain errors. Still less does it mean that the pope could under any circumstances teach heresy. Pope Pius XII says in Humani Generis 20: Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes... Read more
Once upon a time Patrick Coffin was a decent Catholic apologist with Catholic Answers Live. But since those days he has gone freelance and embraced the alt right and now uses expressions like “red-pilled” and gives credence to stains like Milo Yiannopoulos and E. Michael Jones. (Mr. Coffin has blocked me on Twitter, by the way. We had never interacted once. That’s neither here nor there; I mention it by way of parenthesis.) This time, he’s not trying to give... Read more
My advice to the anti-Catholic apologist is: Stop trying to be clever, you just end up silly. Steve “Purple” Hays of Failablogue is a case in point of this sad state of affairs. (He calls his site Triablogue, for optimistic reasons known to him alone.) His latest screed is entitled “Catholic apologetics is self-destructive”—which must explain why it’s been around since Justin Martyr. When you begin that way, you’re in for trouble. “There’s a significant difference,” Mr. Hays writes in... Read more
When John Calvin reaches the “crowning point” of his rant against the “popish Mass,” he becomes truly incoherent. (As though he were not already the source and summit of incoherence.) But here’s Calvin’s “crowning point”: “[T]he sacred Supper [i.e., the Eucharist], on which the Lord left the memorial of his passion formed and engraved, was taken away, hidden, and destroyed, when the Mass was erected.” Jeepers, it was? So if I am to take Calvin at his plain word here... Read more
Steve “Purple” Hays asks the question at Failablogue. (He calls it Triablogue, for optimistic reasons known to him alone.) I am happy to answer Mr. Hays’ question, which he puts like this: “Hypothetically, what would the magisterium have to do for devout Catholics (or Catholic apologists) to conclude that the Roman Catholic church never was the one true church founded by Jesus Christ? Can the magisterium ever do anything, in principle or practice, to discredit Roman Catholicism? … What’s the... Read more
Cardinal Müller claims women’s ordination is impossible. He has Amazon Synod Derangement Syndrome, and has called it a “wrecking ball” bent on “restructuring the Universal Church.” We learn from this that the cardinal is very inept with metaphor, since wrecking balls don’t “restructure” anything. Maybe this is a minor problem. The bigger issue with Müller is that he says no pope, no synod, no council “could make possible the ordination of women as bishop, priest, or deacon.” “It would... Read more
Dean Dettloff at America Magazine seems to think there is one, but he doesn’t give us a Catholic case for Communism either. Much of his article is spent telling us that many Communists are very nice people, and they’re not all atheists, and a lot of their goals are things the Catholic Church is friendly to. I’m surprised any of that is in dispute. Dettloff does not tell us why Communism is a good way to achieve any of them;... Read more
We have heard, from those who deny that Trump’s tweet against The Squad was racist—you know, the one where he said they should go back where they came from, even though three of them were born in this country—that Trump wasn’t bothered by their race. He has no racist bone. He only objects to their hatred of America. If you don’t like it here, you are free to go. Sebastian Gorka said it himself, and Frank Pavone played the... Read more
But Alt! But Alt! When the Church says deportation is evil, it has in mind the deportations that took place in World War II. You know, like that pic. That’s the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Jews were citizens. The Church doesn’t have in mind deportation of criminals who are in a country illegally. The Church has never taught that all deportation is evil. Is that so? Is it? Now, you know, dear reader, I believe in going to Church texts... Read more
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