May 25, 2004 Tough Questions, Great Answers: How to Explain your Faith

by Fr. Kevin F. Lutz
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Started with a prayer

I'm going to be talking a little bit tonight about tough questions. It's hard to live in this world without being asked a lot of questions that challenge your faith and many a Catholic has collapsed under the inability to answer the question and assume that if I can't answer it, I'm wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you bring in the most brilliant Communist in the world who could articulate every aspect of communism, who knew it frontwards and backwards. At the end of it, he may be very persuasive but I don't want to live in a communist country.

My inability to answer his challenges is nothing more than my inability to answer his challenges. The question is this, I want to be free. And the real question is this too, I want to be Catholic and Catholic for the right reasons. If I'm challenged, that's a challenge to learn my Faith better. It's not to say, "Gee, that was a really tough question, I don't know if I'm saved or not, perhaps I'm in the wrong Religion since my religion doesn't have an answer for that." Your religion has very intelligent answers to very tough questions and that's what maturing in your Faith is all about is learning how to answer those tough questions.

Now one time there was an old minister who was preaching and he was using a lot of big words and throwing things around. This was more in the days when the big top preaching went on. And sometimes you would get heckled. And somebody heckled this man by saying, "God doesn't need all your fancy learnin'." to which the minster said "And he doesn't need your ignorance either". So we don't want to necessarily be people with big words and ideas, we simply want to be people who know our Faith and see the big picture of being a follower of Christ.

So, one of the things you'll have to do is study. This is not a comprehensive course tonight, this is just a friendly introduction to some questions and I hope a wetting of your appetite to look up answers to these simple questions. I look at these as the seven fracture points between us and others. And they fall under these categories but I know you can break them up and many different ways.

Now I know I need to talk fast, I'll try to talk as fast as I can to give you something here.

The categories we'll look at are:

• God
• The Church
• Mary
• The Eucharist
• Priesthood
• Salvation
• Catholic Customs

I'm not going to follow the exact sequence here.


I'm going to jump into the Bible. How many of you have at least one fundamentalist friend who has tried to lead you out of the Catholic Church? (Many raise hands) Well, I definitely chose the right topic here.

Now you probably have been asked, why does your bible have seven extra books? I am going to give you a snappy answer for that later. For right now we'll look at one historical fact. This is a good reason for you to come to the museum. Holy Family has this great museum and in that museum we have a collection of bibles. Among them we have a facsimile of a Guttenburg Bible. The bible was originally printed around 1455, Pageant press reproduced it in 1960 they made a limited edition of 1,000 copies which were distributed around to colleges and seminaries and the like and we have one of them at Holy Family.

I bought that bible for one specific reason. I got up in the pulpit, the bishop was there for confirmation we had been following this on the Internet. I said "Welcome bishop, blah blah blah, please give to the Bishop's annual appeal." You always say that even if he comes in October. Then I said, "There is a bible on the Internet we have to have it goes off sale at 5pm and it costs $5,000. If you just got your tax refund or you're feeling particularly rich or generous, please come see me before 5." Half joking/half serious. At 3pm a man came knocking and he was there with a $5,000 check and said, "Get that bible." At 4:59, it was still sitting there unpurchased. I had my hand on the tabernacle, the other man had his hand above the enter key on the keyboard, and I'm saying, "please let us get this..." We got it! (That was the shout that came from the other room.) I kissed the tabernacle. The bible arrived shortly after and it is on permanent display and it's open to the first book of Maccabees.

So when someone says why did you add seven books the bible. I say, "Not only did we add them but later we invented time travel and then we went back before the reformation and tucked them into all the pre-reformation bibles." The burden of proof is the other way, "Why is your bible missing seven books?"

Now, Chick Publications which bears no resemblance to facts, facts are stubborn things. Whether you like it or not, this is a spoon, you may choose never to eat with one again and be that uncivilized but it will remain a spoon. Facts are what they are and the pre-reformation bibles have those seven books. Don't ever allow the conversation to be framed this way, "Those are extra" anymore than a one-armed man coming up and saying, "Oh, I see you have an extra arm" no, two arms is standard equipment on a human being.

So, the seven books are there. Now I had a protestant minister challenge me on that very question and said, "Your own St. Jerome didn't believe in the inspiration of those seven books." Now is that true or false? That is true. St. Jerome did not believe it. Is he known as St. Jerome or Pope Jerome? He's known as Saint Jerome because he was obedient to the Church. When the pope said those seven books are in there, he obeyed because he accepted the authority of the Church because he was not and we are not Protestants. There's nothing wrong with being a protestant, but if you are a protestant you have the right to dissent like that but we as Catholics do not have that right.

By the way, any readers of National Review in here? Remember Florence King? She used to have the back page, she's retired now. One time she had a whole list of pet peeves. One of them was great it said, "And now a word to all those Catholics who think you can be good Catholics and dissent from everything the Church says. Congratulations, you're Protestant!"

Now the pre-reformation bibles have those in them, but let's suppose Martin Luther was right, throw them out. Who knows what this phrase means? "Throw Jimmy on the Fire" Okay, the book of James, it speaks of Faith and Good works, egad! And of course, works cannot save you, but they fail to make the distinction like the bible clearly makes between the works of the Law such as abstaining from pork and circumcision or the unclean time of a woman, and charitable works which the Lord was constantly doing and encouraging and even the whole description of the final judgement is about good works, "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink." (Mt 25:35-ff)

So the bible when it condemns works it's doing so for works of the Law. So the things that Martin Luther condemned were works in general he saw that they could not amount to anything. Now James, very explicitly that the Devil believes and he trembles and that if you have Faith without works your Faith is dead and it does not have the power to save (James 2:26). He couldn't abide that and so he said "Throw Jimmy on the Fire" So I always say, If Luther was right then take out of your bible, 2nd and 3rd John, Hebrews, and Revelation and Jimmy. And if he was wrong then put the seven books back in the old testament where they were. It's as simple as that. You can't have, but they do, a Protestant old testament and a Catholic new testament. But that's what it is, the King James version of the bible is just that.

What authority are there for the books that we have? 20 councils. Now there have been 20 ecumenical councils, some of them regional and minor but there are 20 councils in Church history that list the Books of the bible. The earliest were the councils of Carthage and Hippo and later that listed, and finally Trent put the penalty on. So how do they say we added them at Trent? A little bit like this, suppose your mother said, "Don't come in late, Don't come in late" and finally after the 20th time you have come in late and she says, "If you come in late again, I'm going to punish you and ground you for a week." You say, "Finally you're making rules that I have to come in on time." Now, she's been saying it all along, but you didn't get the points and now we'll have to add penalties to it. The council of Trent added penalties namely excommunication for those who denied the appropriateness of those books.

So when this minister said this about St. Jerome I said "And he submitted to the authority of the Church because he was not the Pope." And if I'm not going to submit to the authority of the Pope then I'm certainly not going to submit to the authority of a German Priest who's angry at the Pope. In the whole ranking of things, That's certainly farther down the line.

Now, first of all, the question is the integrity and totality of our bible, our bible is complete. But I had a minister who said to me in a challenge, a friendly challenge. There's a minister who is a dear friend of mine. We promised each other shortly after we were ordained that we were going to try to save each other. I said, one of us is wrong, either I believe too much or you don't believe enough. You know Certs is a breath mint and it's a candy mint and they can be both, but you cannot be the Catholic Church and not the Catholic Church and both be equal and true. And if I hear one more person say "Can we stop talking about what divides us and start talking about how we can get along?" No, I'm tired of that, let's start talking about the hard questions. We've been spending 400 years separate because nobody will talk about them. Let's talk in a friendly, honest, intelligent way and talk about what divides us and why. And if we find out we're wrong then let's go home to Wittenberg but I think they will come home to Rome, let's pray for that.

Now, along with some other questions, this minister and I, by the way, he's made some progress, when I first met him he was a member of a north-end church here of the fundamentalist evangelical flavor. And nice enough guy and church, and years later, he's moved into the Lutheran Church because he said he needed liturgy. I said, "Well, at least you have an alter so you're getting close." I said, "We've gotten you to the Rhine river, we've got to get you to the Tibre." You would have thought was funny if you knew Geography better. No charitable laughter please. At any rate, I keep saying to him that he's going to become Catholic because he's moved closer to us. He said, "The most mystifying thing about us the Bible clearly supports your interpretation of the Eucharist over ours but I just can't accept it, I'm just not there." I say all in good time. It's been 25 years, and he's budged and I'm getting more conservative.

Let's take another look at a question. Aside from the bible, and also the King James, that bible is thought to be by some (mistakenly) the first English Bible. It is dated 1611, that's a fact. In the museum, something else worth seeing, is the Rheims New Testament, the Douay-Rheims that some of you still use. The old translation translated by English priests in exile from the Throne. They produced it in 1582. What happened between October 4 and 15, 1582. I'll give you a clue. October 4, 1582 Teresa of Avila dropped dead. She was buried October 15, how many days of viewing did they have? (1) yes, one, That was the year of correction, nothing happened, those days don't exist. The calendar was out of whack for where the moon and stars were and it was much easier to move days than planets so they cut 10 days out of the calendar. 1582 was also a good year because that was the day Douay-Rheims was published.

As we continue on this, that's the year the bible was put... and that wasn't the only English version that was just the most widely used. There were bibles in the German language, Catholic Editions circulating and one of them can be seen up at the Josephinum in their rare books collection printed 30 years before Martin Luther was born. So the myth that the bible was always in Latin to keep people from knowing what it said is just completely a myth. By the way, in that era, even the poor spoke some degree of Latin. There wasn't a hostility to speaking more than one language as there is now.

Another thing about the bible, there's a saying in one of those chick publications that the Bible was chained in the Church to keep people out of the Word of God. There's more truth in that than you might realize. (Talking to someone) Just answer yes or no, do you still beat your girlfriend? (No) Thank heaven's you've stopped. Do you still get drunk every Saturday night? Thank heaven's you've stopped! That's actually a double question, the idea is that the question is very loaded, you can't answer it with a yes or no. So when you hear the Bible was chained to the church to keep people out of the Word of God an element of truth. But the chain was on the binding to keep it on the stand. Now you don't remember this unless you remember superman, but there used to be something on the corners called phone booths. There were phone books in them, they had chains, they didn't chain them shut, they chained them to keep people from walking away with them. Of course they gave up on that after a while because people would just tear out the pages they wanted. Now, the bible was chained, but most books were chained, they were very valuable they were guarded against thievery. If you were really determined to do it then it could be done but you'd do a lot of damage to the book in the process.

Nonetheless, that's one that contains a slight element of Truth, but think about it, wouldn't you be stupid as a priest to have a bible out there with a chain over it and say to people "Now you stay out of it, we don't want you to know what's in the book!" wouldn't you have the slightest curiosity about what is in there? But that's what they think Catholics are so dumb to believe. Now if you ever want to irritate little first graders, tell them you've drawn something on a sheet of paper but no one must come up to the desk to look at it. Even if it turns out to be blank, they have to know. Why would you put a bible there out where people can see it and chain it up? You'd put it in the sacristy and say, "Bible? I don't know anything about any bible."

So, first of all, you have a complete bible if you have complete bible if you have a Catholic bible. But they'll say, "Why don't you just use the one that's used by the majority of Christians?" and you say, "Okay then, we'll use the Catholic one!" He didn't know, you're certainly not counting denominations like each one gets a vote, because nearly a billion members and the Podunk church on Hosack Avenue has 7 members and they also get a vote against a billion people? No, no no. If you're counting heads, if you count us and the orthodox, we're more and even if you don't count the orthodox, we've got the field even by a long shot.

But it's also not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of which is the historical bible that contains the Word of God? There's many inspiring books, the imitation of Christ is a phenomenal book, it's the #2 best seller after the bible. At least it used to hold that place. Nonetheless, you won't tuck that into the bible. And there's passages in the bible that while are inspired could literally put you to sleep. Some of the cataloguing and listing, some of that doesn't really edify you but you can't take that out and replace it with something better.

The question is, I want the Word of God, I don't want some of words taken out and I don't want some added. That is the bible you have, that is the bible of the Catholic Church and the historic Bible of Christianity.


Some of the questions they raise are questions about the Church. They go, "Well, what denomination are you?" Well we were never a denomination, we were just "The Church" Lennie Bruce, how many of you know that name? By today's standards, you could have him at a PTA meeting, he would go up and slap Janet Jackson, but I digress. But he was no friend of the Catholic Church he was a comedian and vulgar and was arrested on freedom of speech issues a few times. He ended up dying of a drug overdose. He was kind of a tragic character but he was also a interesting minor icon of the 50's. But he always said of the Catholic Church, "It's the only 'the Church'". Other Churches are called the Methodist Church, but we're always "The Church" and they're normally not thinking about the Two Pig run Church of the Risen Lord.

How many Candles on your Church's birthday cake? Some people think that Christ invented Christianity and it morphed and molded into Churches, denominations. And then you meet that rare breed that says, "We're above the fray, we're 'Nondenominational'" I have something to say about that later. It would be like if you said "What's your name" and they respond, "I don't have a name." So, for the rest of the evening we'll call you "I don't have a name, would you like more coffee?" Okay? Whatever noise you make that will be your name, even if you say your name is no-name or nondenominational then that is your name, if nothing else even the phone book recognizes that. Catholic, Baptist, methodist, Unitarian, NONDENOMINATIONAL. You know, if they're not really anything, how did they get in the book?

When did Churches come into being? There are specific dates. If we trust history at all, and I think there is a common consensus, we trust the Magna Carta was signed in.....(1215) Thank you, I'm so happy when people know that. Let's suppose you had been there when our Lord said, "You are Peter and on this Rock I will build my Church." that was it. Let's suppose you were standing 10 feet away and you said, "That is a great idea , I like His ideas, I've been listening to them, I'm going to start His church!" You're already man-made and you're only 2 seconds late.

So if you come a millennium late, you're far too late. A good way to understand history is this, try to compress history into one day, From midnight to midnight you compress 2000 years. 6am is 500ad, noon is 1000ad, etc. a year would last 42.3 seconds. A good way to associate history and other churches like this.

The first 3 hours from midnight to 3am you toss and turn, perhaps you can't sleep, you turn on the TV, but you have a tough time getting to sleep, that's the age of the persecution. Now you get up around 6am that's 500ad, there's nobody around but us. It's not the Christian Church, if you read those documents, they had 7 sacraments, they had hymns, they had popes. They sang songs to Our Lady. All sorts of stuff were happening that there was a visible Church. The Eucharistic Prayer #1 the person to touch that prayer before John XXIII was Pope Gregory the Great who died in 604 AD.

I have yet to see a protestant Church say such a prayer, sing songs to Our Lady or do any other customs like Communion, Confession, Laying on of Hands for ordination. We're the only ones there at 500 AD.

You've taken your shower and you've had breakfast. It didn't go down very well because it's 622 AD. And what just happened? Islam, and north Africa is suddenly red with the blood of Martyrs. Now we go all the way, we speed this up to noon. We're still the only people there. We've been fighting with the east and the west, we've excommunicated each other a few times and we've kissed and made up but we're still hanging together. We've had lunch together. We get up from lunch and there seems to be a fight over the bill and the East and the West split and it's not repaired to this day 1054. Almost 1pm.

About 2pm when you're at the computer starting to play Solitaire because your boss has taken a long martini lunch. St. Thomas sits down and writes Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris, Pange Lingua and a whole host of other top ten things that are still sung even in this 21st century. After that, you've got a lot of wonderful things happening, the concept of the university, the rights of man, the Magna Carta and all these other things. It's still just us. We're building Cathedrals, and they have shrines to Our Lady, the Saints, devotions to the Saints is there. There are vestments being worn, liturgy being celebrated, Latin is the language of the Day.

And now we go all the way to 6pm, it's the evening meal. We're still the only ones there, if you try to find a protestant at 6pm in one day, you won't find one. The first protestant will appear about 10 minutes after 6pm. So right after the salad and before the entree, a German Catholic Priest, with lots of reasons to be mad at the Church got Mad at the Church. Did he have good reasons? Yes, do you have good reasons to be mad at the Church, yes you do. Do you have good reasons to be mad at your Family? Yes, you do. Are you from the Brady Bunch? You still have reasons to be mad, they never had a toilet! So, is that a reason to reject your family, reject your Church or anything else? No, it's not. If you want to improve it you make it better.

There's a phrase we never used until recently the Protestant Reformation, we always called it the Protestant Revolt. But if you suppose we're a family, and you're all weird and drunk and if God had met you He would have had 11 commandments instead of 10. So, you're outrageous and I say, "It's time to reform this family." and I move over here with you folks. That's not a reformation, that's a separation. I wish Martin Luther would have gone to Rome but again he may rightly feared getting burned up and it could have happened, but we're not the only ones who set people on fire. That needs to be said. Every religion has apologies to make and so far only the Catholic Church has done so.

If Martin Luther had fought the Church and reformed it, this Parish north of us may have been called "St. Martin's". We can't do much about it at this point except be knowledgeable about our faith. And not fight the battle of the reformation all over again. They were not capable, being in the middle of it all to have dispassionate discussion, it was a bloody fist fight and worse.

Now, as history marches on, you know when you pop popcorn. And we had some kernels go off earlier when I spoke of rough times. Do you ever notice that heresies always start with the clergy? You never have yet found a heresy that was started by a housewife in South Bend Indiana, and it quickly spread to Asia Minor. Now the people in Asia minor must be extremely gullible because every heresy always spread there.

Martin Luther, he ends up going far too far. He starts changing things. If he had staid like the orthodox we would have a mutuality, but he denied the Eucharist being a true sacrifice and that made the Priesthood, at that point, ineffective. If I, as a priest, did not intend to do a sacrifice then bread remains bread and wine remains wine and if I were a bishop and ordained someone with the intention to ordain him as a minister then all I've done is mess up his hair a little bit. I have not effected a a sacrament because a bishop must have the power and he must intend to ordain one to that office.

Let me finish up history real fast. You end up with people like the Latter Day Saints, they came up around 9pm. And the Jehovah's Witnesses they came up around 10 and 11pm and claim to be the true Church of Christ.


Now let me go through a couple of things and then I want to talk on "Once Saved Always Saved" Whenever you're talking to someone never be uncharitable. It serves no good purpose. Sometimes you can use humor but in the hands of one person it can be funny but in the other it can be a blunt instrument. You have to be careful, don't ever cross the line to uncharity. The Charity of Christ should be manifest always. That doesn't mean you can't be fun. I made up this list of snappy answers to irritating comments and questions but again, only in a friendly exchange.

Why do you worship statues? Because they made us. I said that to a woman and said, "They made us!" and she laughed hysterically. Another thing you can say is "We don't, now we worship banners."

Why does your bible have seven extra books? and you answer, As the three fingered press-operator said, why do you have 7 extra fingers?

When did you get saved? Good Friday, that's all there is to it.

when did you accept Jesus as your Personal Lord and Savior? When did the drowning man save the lifeguard as his personal rescuer? That's backwards Theology of Grace. It's like saying, "As of this point I accept gravity as my personal retainer on the Planet." Oh how big of you! Now well suppose a reject the law of Gravity I won't float into the air. But if I reject Christ, I will be lost. That's backwards to say I have accepted Christ. He in his own words said You have not chosen me, I have chosen you. Those are the very words of our Lord.

Why do you call priests Father which is forbidden by the Bible For the same reason you call instructors teachers, which is also forbidden by the bible. Now I was talking about that minister and early on when we were trying to convert each other. I was visiting in the hospital and I was riding in the elevator. Well there's a couple of doctors and a couple of nurses and a nice elderly couple there. I admired them for their willingness to go out for their Faith. These people were not shy while they spied my collar and thought it was time for an informal bible lesson. She looks at him and said, "Harold, doesn't the bible say call no man on earth your father?" "Why yes Maude, that's right." of course, nobody's looking and they're elderly people and I appreciated their good will that they were concerned about salvation even though their point was a little misguided. The door opened, they got off and then everyone turned to me to see what I would say. I said "I wonder what she called the man that slept with her mother?" It was one of those rare moments where you say, "That was good."

When I was challenged by this minister on this very question it does look like we're disobedient to the bible on that question but we're not and here's why. When he said that I acted ignorant and said, "Where did you get that?" and he said he learned it in Sunday school and I asked who taught it to him and he said, "Mrs. Moody" they're always called Mrs. Moody. I said who was she and he says... I was trying to trick him into saying the word teacher. I was steering it until he said that word and he said "she was the Sunday school teacher." so I asked him what the line was after that passage call no man on earth your father. And he didn't know, and that's fine many times I can't remember the next line. But I said, here's the whole quote: "call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called teachers, for you have one teacher, the Christ." So, it's obvious that our Lord was talking about you because there were no Catholic Priests at the time but there were teachers so it was against you and not against me. So, Mrs. Moody was your Sunday School, what? He said, "That's teacher in a different sense" I said, that's "Father" in a different sense too. Just like Honor your Father and Mother, the Jews called him Father Abraham and even St. Paul called himself the Father of the Baptized. It's a term that shows a spiritual relationship.

I know you have some questions I'm going to do "Once Saved, Always Saved" and then we'll get to your questions. I had prepared copious notes because I was told this thing went until midnight but I was LIED to! (Laughter)

Once saved always saved, is that a biblical truth? No. Some years ago I was at Ohio State University, the Veritas Forum. Cool group, not Catholic but cool. They were having a debate and that's why we shouldn't be at war with other Christians, we should try to build the bridges in Truth. Not just where we get along but build bridges in Truth and bring people to greater Truth and knowledge in Christ.

Well, here was a debate between two ministers and there must have been 1,000 people in the auditorium. On the one side was a Fundamentalist minister who you could have stuck in a chasuble and put him in St. Patrick's and the people would have been clapping. He was that Orthodox. In the other pulpit was a former Fundamentalist minister who had founded a church that had lead 3,000 souls to Christ and he build up this large church like World Harvest or something like that and he had a crisis of Faith and at this point didn't even believe Jesus existed let alone was God.

I am sitting next to a row of squeaky clean kids and during a break I leaned over to one of them I'm wearing a pontiff 10 collar and I asked one of them, "Can I ask you a question?" Yes? "Do you believe in 'Once Saved, Always Saved'?" Oh yes, it's in the bible. "So you must be very happy tonight." Why? "That minister up there that doesn't believe in Jesus? Aren't you glad to know that the instance he dies even though he denied Christ even existed he will go to Heaven." and he looked at me very guarded and said, Well, maybe he wasn't saved to begin with. I shook his hand and said, "Welcome to the Catholic Church, that's our position, not yours." Stop telling people once saved always saved unless you're going to put that guy in heaven.

You must not only believe, but you must persevere in that belief. Are you saved? Yes, Christ saved you, He redeemed the whole world. Will you persevere with Christ, that's the big question.

"I found the Lord" I was a teacher before I was a priest and guess what I never saw happen. I never saw a kid walk into the office and say, "Mister Lutz, I found the truant officer." No the truant officer found you, you were the lost sheep/child. The parable of the lost sheep doesn't say there was a lost sheep looking for the Shepard and when he found him he went gallivanting into his arms and up on his shoulders and ordered him to carry him back to the flock. That's backwards grace. Our Lord is searching for us. So when you hear people saying they found the lord, no you didn't.

Years ago in the seminary some guy said something I thought was goofy and I didn't know why at the time. As a seminarian we were supposed to go to Mass and say the Rosary everyday and of course, Sunday Mass it was unspeakable if you missed that. Well, he got out of the habit of daily mass and then he stopped saying the rosary and then he said he realized how empty he was so he "came back to church." And at the time I thought, "No you didn't" Now it might sound believable but I'm going to tell you why it's not. About two weeks ago I dropped dead, the funeral people picked me up and started to embalm me. And then I decided I didn't like to be dead and got up and went back to my Church. That sounds ridiculous doesn't it? It would be easier for someone to do that than it would for a dead soul to come back to Christ. It was Christ who breathed life into him. "I realized I was dead inside and I came back to Christ." no you didn't, Christ shouted at you and told you. The dead can hear the voice of God, that's why Jesus stood at the food of the tomb to cry for Lazaras or else everyone would have gotten up.

The dead can hear the voice of God, so if you're dead in Sin, you can't just say, "I didn't like being that way so I came back to God." no, you followed the inspiration of Grace, you may not have known that's what you were doing. But when someone said they found the Lord, He was never lost, you were. And you can still be lost if you don't continue to follow Him.

I wish Once Saved, always Saved were true, but it's not and I'll give you reasons why it can be a very dangerous doctrine. I had a couple lying to me trying to get a hotel out of me turning out to be a prostitute and her pimp. And I do this, it's so easy the wisdom of Daniel, I separate them and I say, "Okay, if you're married, what Church were you married in?" and a whole host of other questions. And they never match up, you'd think the odds would favor but everything was completely wrong. If it was battleship nothing got sunk. So I said, "Congratulations, you're married, just not to each other." He takes the high road and says, "I'm not going to stand here and be insulted." and they walk out of the Church with rays of Truth shining out of them. Well, I'm not shy so I went after them with vestments flying and I don't know where I got this, perhaps I watched too many reruns of "Bells of St. Mary's" or "Ben Hur" I go, "Don't walk past the shadow of the Church without giving Glory to God, tell me the Truth right now you're not married, don't walk past that shadow." Where'd that line come from?! And like they had to obey that as if they didn't have to obey me inside but they obeyed that. I was trying to figure it out. He turns to me and said, "We're not married father." I said "Praise be God, praise be God." I kept up the persona.

So then I said Let's talk. You're not married and we don't give rooms for unmarried people. There's no question there. This is the language we used, you ever notice when you see a protestant and they walk up and they say, "Is the Father there?" Catholics don't say "The father" they just say Father. That's like saying, "Where's the Batman" it's just Batman.

Now, this guy is talking and I'm talking another language to him. I'm speaking "Fundamentalism of the West side." and I say, "How's your walk with the Lord?" He goes, well, I'm a backslider, Father. I need to get right with the Lord. So I look at the woman and say the same thing and pretty as a picture she says, "Oh, I'm saved."

When she was 12, she put her hand on the TV during a billy graham show and when he said, "Come to the alter" even though he doesn't have an alter when he has an alter call and an alter is a place of sacrifice which is a great mystery to me. How can you have an alter which is not a place of sacrifice, that's called a table. Anyway, she accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior, now will she go to Heaven on the last day? I think the Lord will look so mercifully on prostitutes they live such terrible lives. The Lord may just let them in as a category almost, but I don't want to presume salvation but on the other hand, one should not just do what I want just because one day I accepted Jesus and I even cried that day as if tears were an unmistakable sign of a true conversion. You may have been converted but you may fall away from it.


I was going to finish my snappy answers for common questions.

Why do you say wrote prayers? That minister I was talking about asked me this and I said, "You do too" and he said no we don't I said, "Yes, you do, you say, 'Lord, we just want to praise you, we just want to thank you." I said you say the same thing every time! And give us food to strengthen our bodies, you may change a word or two but it's essentially there. You say wrote prayers, they're just not written down. You can say to someone then, "Heard that before, why do you ask wrote questions?" The thing is we wrote them down they just write them off the top of their heads.

I would like to talk to you, I am a Jehovah's Witness With my luck you also sell Amway products.... And I'm in an elevator with you..... And we're stuck.

We would like to talk to you, we're Latter-Day Saints What do you possibly say? Say, I'm a former-day saint, and still continuing saint and I'm late to meet my Amway salesman. It's the only way to get away.

I don't believe in organized religion say, you'll love us, we're disorganized religion.

We're nondenominational just shake your head sadly and say, an orphan without even a name.

At any rate, have fun, learn, study, pray. You know if you want to look for a complicated answer to something research and research and in the end you'll be so happy. Don't take what I say at face value, question everything. Question every book that even your own Church writes. Please become educated and articulate Catholics. And realize that you're a member of a Church that goes back to the time of Christ, not one that started at 6pm, 8pm or just moments ago. Or one that has a doctrine that's never been heard of before like Michael the Archangel and Jesus being the same person.

That's believed by one Church, either the witnesses or the LDS. You belong to the Ancient Church one that even in it's earliest days was referred to as an "Old Woman with one mouth saying her prayers, and saying, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'" That's our Church, ever ancient, ever new and ever wise if you take the time to learn the answers to the tough question. I hope I have made you curious about a few.


Question: I have a friend who keeps telling me... and we call ourselves "The Church" she says in the book of Revelations, which I'm not that familiar with, she thinks is the Catholic Church is the one Church that ends up being evil.

The whore of Babylon, Revelations 17. Sitting there with the blood of martyrs all over her. I'll give you a good thing to say about that. You can almost do a trick, nothing insidious though. Just say to her, what do you thinking about when I say Alter, Chalices, white robes, holy holy holy, incense. And she'll say, "You're Catholic Mass" say, "No, the book of Revelation." The book of Revelation is how God is worshipped in heaven. That's what it's all about, the Mass in heaven. Everything is perfectly glorified, the Lamb is interceding there. The book of revelation is the missal in heaven. It has the first part, the warnings to the Churches that's like the Liturgy of the Word. And when it talks about the number of the beast, 666, which by the way is the address of this place! (Laughter) I was stationed at a church once where the address was 6606 I wrote to the post office and got the address changed to 6604. St. Joseph's in Plain City. At any rate, if you take the phrase, "A cute purple dinosaur" and you write it with the U using the old V and then you drop all the letters that aren't roman numerals and add them all up it comes to 666 which proves that Barney is the Anti-Christ. Depending on how you substitute numerical values for letters, you can make Hitler spell, you know, 666. You can do it with Nero, or almost any name.

It's interesting that she refers to that whenever they refer to "The Church" is us but any other time it's other than us. But historically that is not it at all. The book of Revelation is a book of consolation for the Church. It was written in code so that those who knew what it was saying would find a consoling message. Suppose I gave this talk without a collar on and someone would say, "Oh, you went over time ins coming the atheists of Ohio but you have 10 extra minutes before the start." So I wanted to speak to you in code so they wouldn't know what I was saying, I would possibly say, "As you know, on a certain night, He took something in His sands and he said something and later He took a cup and he said something else. And now we have hope." and you all say, "Thank you Father" they'd all be saying, "What the hell was that?!" It was a coded language. They talked of a city with 7 hills, they may have been talking about Rome but San Francisco has 7 hills and depending on how you count them even Columbus has 7 hills. I always say, take the Catholic Church out of the history, you don't have anyone showing up until 1517, up until then everyone is Catholic, they all go to Mass and receive communion they recognize to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. So take us out, and you really have a gigantic gap from "You are Peter and on this Rock" you go into darkness until a Catholic priest rebels against us.

So in the book of Revelation, for those who look at it to find the end of the world, it's not there. It's a book that tell us how God is worshipped and how does it end? It says the bridegroom comes out to meet his bride, she is beautiful, the new Jerusalem. And they are joined together, that's the communion rite. The bridegroom is joined to us the bride. All of us are the bride, sorry guys but when it comes to Christ we are the bride the Church.

Question The inquisition, one of the comments I hear is the millions that were killed. What's the true numbers.

For the actual numbers I can't tell you off the top of my head but that's a good point to research but research more than one source and certainly not an anti-Catholic source like "Roman Catholicism" by Lorain Bentner or anything published by Jack Chick publications. According to Jack Chick, 92 million people died in the inquisition, that means that everyone in Europe including the inquisitors had to die four times. It's just silly. Read the "Characters of the inquisition" and the old 1908/1913 Catholic Encyclopedia has some good information. Now do we have some shame for this. Yes we do, was it also... it's like the crusades. These protestant kids came to my rectory after religion class and they wanted to hear the Catholic side. But one kid was angry and he said, "I can't believe what your Church did." and I said, "Where do you live?" he looked at me guarded like that. I said "I'm just kidding, but I want to know where you live because since you don't believe we had the right to protect our own people and protect the holy sites that were our before a new religion came and tried to inhabit the shell as it where." I said, "I want to know where you live because I want to kick in your door and take over your property and don't stand there and try to take it back." What was going on with the crusades? It was not a Muslim city, it was a city that was international in it's character and it was a Jewish city and a Christian city and by and large they got along pretty well in Jerusalem. I said only later was it overrun by the Muslims and people were run out, pilgrimages were attacked so the crusades were sent to protect the Holy Land. It is not stealing to take back that which is your own.

If someone took 100 bucks out of your wallet and you saw them. And you go to their locker and take your 100 back is that stealing? Some say yes, but it's not, it's your 100. Suppose they spend it right away and get a fancy watch and you take the watch? You followed them so there's no doubt they bought the watch with your money. No, it's not stealing because it was your money that paid for that. You can offer it up, but if you offer it up, you're not stealing. Now if you take the watch and the pen and pencil set, you're stealing.

The inquisition numbers were much more exaggerated and at the time many people preferred the courts of the inquisition because they were much more known for mercy than were the state courts. At this time, most countries practiced torture at the time too. It's still not the best chapter in our history but it's not as bad as the current stories being told.

Question: What about the Orthodox and the Third and Fourth Maccabees that I sometimes see. Or have heard about.

I have no idea. I don't know that question, I have not seen those books.

Follow-up: I have a revised standard version put out by New Oxford press. They have the protestant old testament but they have the duo-canonical books in the back and they have a 3rd and 4th Maccabees

I don't know that but I do know that sometimes books are broken up differently depending on the publisher. Sometimes a book will have different name depending.

Question: How would you say in general, what the Church apologetics has changed from the time of the council of Trent to Vatican II

I don't think that was a very apologetic age. The debates were very academic by very elite clergy on both sides. Apologetics in modern times is a much more refined science with the printing press and more research in the patristic era. You can find a lot more to answer a particular question than say a Catholic doing research 2-300 years ago. I'll tell you what one book, if you want to spend some money but it's worth it. The Faith of the Early Fathers by Juergans, it's got three volumes. The index alone is a delight to read because you can lookup what the Fathers of the Church taught.

Question: (inaudible)

These things tend, by and large to confirm things, we don't have any copies of the books, but the dead sea scrolls and things like that tend to confirm these ancient writings, they don't tend to shake Christianity. Don't get panicked by these other Gospels like the Gospel of Thomas and so on. Yes, there are other Gospels, they have been around a long time, they were not inspired and the Church never recognized them as such. If God had handed us a bible and said, 'Yes, this is the bible.' then that settles it, but God gave us rather, wisdom, a teaching Church with authority under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And one of the criteria was their usage in the Church there were writings that almost made it into the bible like from Ignatius of Antioch. One of the letters of clement almost made it. But the bible is now complete and nothing will ever be added or subtracted. Even if the best inspired book in the world is given by God it would not make it into the canon. God spoke in one long breath and that's why we say at the end of each reading , "The word of the Lord" An old scroll in the Torah there are no spaces in between the sections as if God spoke it in one long utterance.

Question: I the old testament, when there is a verse where you should not make graven images. I was wondering why it is okay now.

It's forbidden in the bible, the same bible that commands the making of graven images. And it does, the ark has angels with wings on it. If you're going to take that literally then pink flamingos are out because it says you should not make graven images of anything above the earth, on the earth or under the earth because I am the Lord. So even if you had a bird bath with a stone bird, that's technically forbidden by that. This was a very was a very suspicious time when people believed an object had the soul of that item within it. There was a belief they were powerful. When the Romans fleeing Rome they would take their household gods with them. I have never seen a priest fleeing a burning church going back to rescue the statues, but you do see him getting out the Eucharist. So, there is certainly no belief anymore except in some minds and I don't think anyone really thinks we worship statues anymore but perhaps some people believe we do.

The bible although it makes statements, don't believe the statements are absolute. I met a guy once who believed the line "Call no man on earth your father" was so absolute he couldn't call his dad father. Doesn't the commandment, Honor your Father and Mother seem to fly against that, or "Father Abraham" Jesus used those words when talking about the rich man and Lazaras. And many times Abraham is called Father Abraham in the New Testament. These are not always absolute. They say Mary had sin because the bible says there is not one who is Just. No not one so that excludes Mary. If you take it that literally it even excludes Christ. So, you have to take a true sense of the words, an intelligent meaning in the phrase. No one can interpret the Word of God in a way that nullifies the Word but on the other hand, there is a certain literalism that misses the point of what it's really saying. And our Lord condemned that like when he speaks on some of the things the scribes and pharisees had done to nullify the Word of God. That you could take the money you should use to support your parents and dedicate it, now it was free and he said they had many other practices besides. So there's many times when a line in the bible is either a absolute or relative. Like at the end of Mass we say, "The mass is ended, go in peace." Now if some priest were to say, "Didn't I tell you to go in peace? Get out!" you know?

Words have a relative meaning. Interestingly enough, Fundamentalism, for as much as they will take that graven images statement to the fullest extent. They make an exception, Fundamentalist will allow for graven images as long as they're put out at Christmas, made of plastic and have 50 watt light bulbs in them. The most fundamentalist will put out those awful nativity scenes and they're allowed. If you make an image of a bird, turtle, whatever, it's graven. Now is the bible that absolute? I think we're reading it wrong if that's what God is trying to protect us from.

Follow-up: the point is that we're worshipping those graven images, we're praying through the saints, and we're worshipping Mary and the Holy Spirit and that's their point. It's not that we're making the images, but we are worshipping our saints.

Whoa, wait, are we worshipping our saints? No, no, no, this is a distinction within our Church. Protestantism doesn't have this distinction in their language. The Catholic Church has a precise word in their vocabulary to describe everything. Some years ago when I worked at Children's hospital. There was an intern that hacked into the computer, read his evaluation and had a fit. They found out he hacked it and he got into some trouble over that. Some of the staff wanted to throw him out, others wanted to give him another chance. I was just sitting there, I had no authority to vote. But the disappointing thing was that he wasn't so much sorry that he did wrong but that he got caught. And I was muttering out loud saying, "imperfect contrition" And sometimes people hear you and it's like E. F. Hutten everyone turns and says, "What's that?" I said, Perfect contrition is when you are sorry for something you did wrong because you know how Good God is and you don't want to displease him. Imperfect contrition which is enough to save you from hell is sorry because you fear punishment and judgement. It's minimal but the right reason for him to feel bad would be if he just knew he did the wrong thing. Instead he's angry because he got Caught. This protestant minister looked at me and said, "I love you Catholics, you have a word for everything."

And that brings me to the word, Latria. Latria is the word that would mean worship or adoration. Now Protestants say we should adore God alone, but we adore the Saints. Hang on a minute, I saw you at JC Penny last Sunday and you said you adored that bathing suit. Are you worshiping it?! Come on! Words have a relative meaning. I adore Pepperoni Pizza, yes the Pizza made me and I adore it. Stop it, do words have any meaning? So, adore, as an act of worship belongs to God alone. If a Catholic worshipped our Lady then that Catholic is guilty of idolatry and it's a sin. Now we pay honor to the saints. Now if someone dishonored my mother, there would be a reckoning for that. My mother has been dead for about 7 years and I still get people who say, oh, father, I worked with your mom at the phone company, I don't sit there and say, "Don't talk about her, talk about me!" No, I'd say, oh tell me. "Oh father, I come to your Church and I just enjoy your sermons, and I knew your mother." Oh thank you but can you please leave her out of this! What would be wrong with that? If you were to say I brought my mother along tonight, I'd like you to talk to her. I am not going to say, "I'm not going to talk to her, this is for young people, I'm not talking to old people." You'd think I lost my mind.

How can anyone not love the mother of our Savior? She should be our great treasure. So we honor her. When I meet anyone's mother it's an honor to meet their mother. Now if you're mother is the mother of a veteran who died in the service of our country, I esteem her twice as much. If you're the mother of a little child who died and you held him while he died, you have been to calvary already. I will esteem you twice as much among other mothers. When we honor Mary there is a technical word for that. The honor we give to Saints is called Doulia it just means honor. But Mary because she is so great among saints the word is Hyperdoulia. But worship belongs to God alone.

Now Protestants call their service worship. I met an ex-Catholic and people can be very dishonest. I'll give an example. She was coming on strong and she said, "In the Catholic Church we never talked to Jesus we only talked to Saints." Immediately in my mind this came to mind and I said, "Then you probably remember this prayer, If you don't mind I'll sing it from mass. 'Dear St. Francis, we ask you to hear our prayer because we're not allowed to talk to our Savior.'" and she's like nodding her head like she remembered that. I said, "You don't remember that at all because I just made it up!" (Laughter) Now, on the feast of or Lady, can you ever think of a prayer directed to our Lady? There's not one. They're all directed to God our Father, through Jesus in his Holy Spirit. There is never a prayer directed to any saint, in any Mass at any given time. Their names are mentioned there. "We honor Mary the ever virgin mother of God" that's not a prayer to her, we mention her in the third person. "We honor St. Joseph her most chaste spouse." we honor them. I honor soldiers. I see an old solder, I'm glad a live in a free country and I'm grateful that brave men and women who fought for our freedoms. If I honor the mother of a fallen soldier, that doesn't take away from the Glory of Christ and if I honor Christ's mother that doesn't take away from His glory either.

And in fact, bear in mind too, one of the reason we believe in intercession is from John's Gospel the wedding at Cana. That's the last time Mary speaks in the bible. How many of you saw the passion of Christ? If that didn't show you the intercessory role of Mary I don't know what does. The bible only shows her showing up at Calvary. Do people think she was at home doing dishes saying, "I have to get to calvary, my Son's being crucified today." She certainly would have walked the whole way. I had someone look at the stations of the Cross and see "Jesus meets his inflicted mother." saying 'that Never happened!' Really? I can't imagine that Mary was anywhere but walking along the journey, what mother would not. What one of you, if one of us was dragged out to be martyred, wouldn't the rest of us go along to pray and encourage? "Well they never do executions on the hill before 2 so we'll get some shopping done." I have seen mothers, when seeing their children die they suffer along with them. If you become a mother and you lose a child, you will find your heart has depths in it that couldn't be reached.

But at the wedding feast, "Son, they have no wine." "Woman, my hour has not yet come." Some think He was speaking demeaning to His mother. Can you imagine that? Is it a sin to speak that way to your mother? If I ever said to my mother, "Woman, I will be back later." The answer would have been "Either you're not leaving or you're never coming back. That's not a title, it's a rebuke. But in the language of Christ that was not in fact, he honored her. She looks at the servant and says, "Do whatever he tells you." It was at Our Lady's request that He did that miracle. That's what intercession is about.

If your friend's mother was in the hospital and they asked you to pray for them would you say, "No, pray for them yourself." No, you'd pray for them. The fact that you died in this world doesn't mean you died in the next. Is Mary alive or dead? She's alive. Are the Saints alive or dead? They're not in some soul sleep, they're alive. We're surrounded, as the bible says, by a Faithful company of witnesses, in the letter of the Hebrews. Who are they? They're angels and Saints. Our fathers in the faith. They're the martyrs, the confessors, the virgins. They all reign with Christ. What are they doing? They are cheering on us in the race. Wouldn't the saints do this when our lives hang in the balance.

There are very good things written on Mary. Mary is not our savior. She says herself that God alone is my savior. There are two ways God can be your savior. Suppose a maniac came running into the room. He shoots you. It's not a mortal wound but it will be if someone doesn't do something quick. That person can save you. And just as he's about to shoot you too, I step in front of the bullet and save you too. You two thugs subdue the guy, I rip off my shirt and hold it over his wound so that it stops the bleeding. In comes the 911, the rest of you are standing against the wall cowering, you big babies, thanks a lot. Then we get to the emergency room and you look at me and you say, "Father, you saved my life, you are my savior tonight." I am, I held the rag over the wound and stopped the flow. There's not a scratch on you, but I have a wound. Am I your savior? One is a restorative way, the other in a preemptive way. When Mary said God is indeed my savior, that was not a confession of sin. That was a sign that she was singularly blessed by God. "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers." Mary was protected from the very beginning as Genesis 3:15 says.

Now when God puts up a barrier does anything get through? I had some welders come and take down a fence. They were using this thing to cut through the poles and they were just zipping through it. This thing has quite a flame on it. And this one pole which looked smaller and it wouldn't give. He said, "What is this Titanium?" He keeps working on it, thinks it's solid. He said he couldn't believe this. I was still laughing from the titanium line finally, as he holds the torch there for a while water starts to come out. The cap was off and the pole was filled with water and it couldn't reach the melting point of the metal because the water was inside. But finally it did because the water boiled and steamed away. Now, you know, when God puts up a barrier. That was a strong barrier, it wasn't impenetrable it just took longer. When God puts up a barrier nothing gets through.

If He says he'll put a barrier between you and any fist for the rest of your life, then you can walk around saying to people, "You're a goofball!" "Don't say that again or I'll punch you." "You're a goofball!" and he'll swing and it'll stop right here. I will not be able to hit you. If God puts up such a barrier you can insult people to your heart's content and nobody can hit you. But perhaps I'll shoot you.

But the thing is, when God put up that barrier, he put it between Our Lady, that is the woman in genesis 3:15. Something also was said to Mary that hasn't been said to anyone. "You have found favor with God." How can that be if no one is Just, no not one. You are full of Grace. This glass is not full, but if it were full to the rim, nothing else could fit in. So no more grace can be in Mary. And Grace and Sin cannot inhabit the same spot in Mary just as liquid and a vacuum can inhabit the same spot in this glass.

So that is why we honor Mary, she is the model of the Church. Human Nature's Solitary Boast.

Question: My father is a retired Baptist minister and I talk to him about the Eucharist and say that it's the Body and Blood of Christ and he says, "Well, you're taking that literally. You know would you take Jesus saying 'I am the light of the world' as if he were a light bulb?" I just don't know what to say.

I'm glad that was the example he used because yes I would. First of all light doesn't come only from light bulb. In the book of Revelation it says "They had no sun or moon because the Lamb was the light of heaven." He gave the light. And a Christian soul glorified is radiant. When Christ was transformed on Mount Tabor, there were not artificial lights it was Christ showing Himself in His natural glory when Peter James and John couldn't look upon him. Now I have had this challenge. I had someone say to me "Christ said He is the Gate, that didn't mean he was made of wood and had hinges on the side." But a gate is a very clear metaphor commonly and often used. But here is the best example I can offer.

Did Christ give better gifts in the Old or New testament. The new, but which is more dramatic, a baptism or the parting of the red sea? Parting of the Red Sea. That would have been impressive to see. All that did, however, was save them from the egyptians. Baptism, in which the water is poured. Have you ever seen water flow up out of the font and baptize itself? If I saw it do that I'd still do the Baptism. I'd say that is not a sacrament. It may be miracle, but it's not a sacrament. Baptism doesn't look at dramatic but it's far more so.

In the old Testament, he gave them bread from Heaven. Manna, on the ground. In the new testament if we just go get it a Kroger and pass it out four times a year that means the Old Testament people got a better deal on at least one thing than we did. Plus it makes no sense to do a Gigantic presentation for something so insignificant. Let me make this example:

How many of you are gardeners. Here's an analogy. You all get to be rose bushes. You're the knockout rose, you get to run over by a tractor and you still come back. You're the wild rose, you can also be driven over. Now we get into the American Beauty, you're a little delicate and we have to graft a root onto you to keep you alive. And over here and so on a so forth. And I'm taking you through this garden. And you think this is so amazing, what a progression. And we get over here and I said, "This Rose is so rare, it only blooms once every 20 years, when the rainfall has been less than 20 inches and the mean temperature has been less than 79 degrees for a consecutive three weeks." and you go "oh my gosh" and this is the time, and you see it's so beautiful in fact, don't even talk loud near it.

Then you see a stone wall, and you say "and now behind the wall" leading up to this grand thing but behind the wall is a piece of paper with the word "Rose" on it. You go "What?! Those were real roses all along the way and you were leading me through a progression that was fantastic and now you show me a piece of paper?!" Wait a minute, the first apology ever Made to God was Abel, the perfect sacrifice. You had the bread and wine from Malchezedek, You have Isaac, Abraham's son, a real son being offered but at the last minute God stayed his execution. But a real son with a real father with a real knife in his hand. You go through the progression, manna coming down from heaven. And you have Jesus saying, I am the bread of life and my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. And then you have Him at the Last supper saying, "This is a piece of bread to remind you of me when you eat this piece of bread." This goes against the whole nature of everything the way it has been done. It's like the end of a song and the grand note is played by a knock on a piece of wood. It misses the whole point of building something up. When you listen to a symphony you know it's going to build up to a great ending he doesn't trail off with a flute playing "Shave and a haircut."

The whole bible builds up. If you want put one word over the whole bible, the whole thing is about the Eucharist. It really is a Eucharistic Book if it's anything at all. What's the point of this symbol?

Another thing is St. Paul says He who eats and drinks unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. If I shoot you I'm guilty of your body and blood. If I shoot your driver's license I'm guilty of destroying private property. There's a big difference, you cannot make a penalty that doesn't connect logically with what you're saying. So if you say, "He who eats and drinks unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord although this is only a symbol of his Body and Blood." That doesn't make any sense. St. Paul's words are ridiculous. It couldn't be anything other than the Body and Blood of the Lord if you're going to be guilty of it. Everything in the bible points against symbolism especially for... The one thing I don't understand about Fundamentalism. I admire it in many ways, I do. But they become very symbolic when it comes to "All Generations will call me Blessed" which becomes all CATHOLICS will call me blessed. This is my body, this is my blood, thou art Peter and on this Rock I will build my Church, whose sins are forgiven they are forgiven them, those passages are into a very loose interpretation of what they mean which is anything but what the Catholic Church believes. That's not exactly honest either.

Follow-up: That's the only teaching in the bible that the disciples left him and He didn't go back and say, oh no, that's not what I meant.

That's true, and that's one of the very few usages of the words "Doctrine" "And he taught this Doctrine at Capernaum" John 6 around verse 52.

God bless you all, you're a nice group. I had a lot of fun and I hope you did too.