The Christian Vanguard

It is a common anti Catholic argument to point out that Pope St. Gregory (540-604 AD) denied the title of "Universal Bishop." If the Pope himself denied the title, then how can the Pope claim to have universal jurisdiction over the entire church? This argument has been around since at least the reformation, as we see it in John Calvin's Institutes , and it still made today by people like James White, Geisler and MacKenzie. So what exactly did Pope St. Gregory say? In a few different places, he says things like,  None of my predecessors has consented to bear this profane title, for when a Patriarch adopts for himself the title of 'universal' the title of Patriarch suffers discredit. No Christian, then, has the desire to adopt a title that would cause discredit to his brethren. And  Was it not the case, as your Fraternity knows, that the prelates of this Apostolic See, which by the providence of God I serve, had the honour offered them of being called Univers...

The other day, I shared a quotation from a saint recognized in the East, St. Maximos the Confessor (about 649 AD). It read,  For the extremities of the earth and all in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord, look directly towards the most holy Roman Church and its confession and faith, as it were to a sun of unfailing light, awaiting from it the bright radiance of the sacred dogmas of our fathers, according to what the six inspired and holy councils have purely and piously decreed, declaring most expressly the symbol of faith. For from the coming down of the incarnate Word among us, all the Churches in every part of the world have possessed that greatest Church along as their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ our Savior, the gates of hell do never prevail against it , that it possesses the keys of a right confession and faith in Him, that it opens the true and only religion to such as approach with piety, and shuts up and ...

A protestant friend of mine was expressing his worry of the term "heresy" being thrown around too loosely among his other protestant friends. This is a fair worry. Even within Catholicism, the word gets tossed around too easily among the laity, in my opinion. However, there is a difference between my friend and I: our criteria for what counts as heresy. My protestant friend said, "If I am not contradicting any of the ecumenical councils, I am not a heretic." I pointed out he denies the Council of Trent. His response was that Trent was not ecumenical. "Which Orthodox bishops ratified Trent?" he asked me, which of course isn't really a question, but an argument. He believes that enough Bishops have to be present in order for a council to be ecumenical, and since the Orthodox were obviously not present in Trent, Trent cannot be ecumenical. This makes some sense. The big 7 ecumenical councils that all Christians believe, even the Protestants, were ratifi...

One argument that critics of the King James Only-ist movement give goes something like this: If you believe that the King James Version Bible is the only perfect inspired word of God, then you're going to have difficulty pointing to a particular Bible, because there are different versions of the KJV. The KJVO have a response, which goes something like this: Granting for the sake of argument that this is a difficulty, then you have the same difficulty because you can't point to a particular Bible that you think is a perfect word of God. And that's tantamount to just not believing the Bible is not really from God. You can see examples of that argument here and here . So because a critic can't point to an authorized version like they can, critics have no business raising the problem.  There are two possible responses. The first is that it isn't equivalent. Because the critic isn't making the same claim as the KJVO, they don't suffer the same problem. KJVO c...

Years ago, when I was still a Protestant, I attended a panel discussion at my school on the topic of homosexuality. One woman, a mother of a lesbian, and a professed Catholic, said that a topic that the Catholic Church does not like to bring up concerning homosexuality is that of conscience. Since the Church teaches that we should obey our conscience, and for some, and participating in the homosexual lifestyle is in accord to ones conscience, one should continue being homosexual. This clearly would make some Catholics uncomfortable. So, what's going on here? First, terms. Conscience is our judgment of what is right and wrong, and it is our only contact with the moral realm. This is why we must always obey our conscience, because to disobey our conscience is to disobey what we judge to be right. It is saying that we will to do evil, and we should never will to do evil. If conscience is a judgment of what is right and wrong, it is possible that our judgments can be incorrect. It ...

My Anglican friend believes in open communion, that is that in virtue of him being a Christian, he should be allowed to partake in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass. He has a great appreciation for the Church Fathers, and so I wonder what he will make of some of the following quotations (and I do intend to ask). St. Ignatius of Antioch views the Eucharist as a sacrament of Ecclesial Unity.  St. Ignatius in Letter to the Philadelphians 4  says,  Take care, therefore, to participate in one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup that leads to unity through his blood; there is one altar, just as there is one bishop , together with the council of presbyters and the deacons, my fellow servants), in order that whatever you do, you do in accordance with God.   In his letter  Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8 , he writes, Only the Eucharist which is under the authority of the bishop (or whomever he himself designates) is to be co...