Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Did Pope Francis Endorse Breast Feeding in the Sistine Chapel? 5 things to know and share

pope-francis-baptizes-a-babyThe Interwebz are ablaze with the story that Pope Francis encouraged breastfeeding—and in the Sistine Chapel of all places!

What did he say? And what did he mean?

Here are 5 things to know and share . . .

 

1) When did Pope Francis make his remarks?

It was Sunday, January 12, the commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord.

He was in the Sistine Chapel, where he baptized 32 babies.

It is customary for Popes to perform baptisms on this day.

We’ve talked about that before.

He took the occasion to give a brief homily.

It’s online in Italian here, but the full English translation is not up yet.

 

2) What did he say?

According to a Vatican Radio story:

The Holy Father concluded his homily with a special word of affection for the newly baptized children.

“Today the choir sings,” he said, “but the most beautiful choir is [the choir] of children” making noise.

He continued, “Some are crying, because they are uncomfortable, or because they are hungry. If they are hungry, mothers, give them something to eat… they are the central figures, the protagonists [of this celebration].”

It was with this “awareness of being the transmitters of faith” that Pope Francis continued on to the ceremony of Baptism.

 

3) Wait. He didn’t mention breastfeeding. Is this story being distorted?

KEEP READING.

What did the Gospel writers know?

four-gospelsSome biblical scholars are too quick to say that, because a particular Gospel doesn’t include a given story or saying of Jesus, the Evangelist who wrote it must not have known about it.

Really?

What would cause a person to think this?

 

The Infodump Hypothesis

One thing that might motivate such a view is the idea that the Gospels represent total infodumps of everything that a particular Evangelist knew about Jesus.

But if that were the case then they wouldn’t ready the way that they do.

They hang together as narratives and display too much literary artistry for that.

If they were frantic attempts to record everything the author knew about Jesus, there would be too many stray, half-formed things that don’t fit into their literary structures.

They also would be much longer than they are.

 

TMI

There would have simply been Too Much Information about Jesus for the Evangelists to put in the Gospels.

They had to make choices.

This would particularly be the case if Matthew and John were, indeed, eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry. They would have known lots about Jesus—far more than could be fit into a small book like a Gospel. Such authors would be forced to omit things they know about Jesus.

Even non-eyewitness authors (like Luke and, at least for the most part, Mark) were in contact with eyewitnesses and had access to lots of information about him.

The oral preaching of Jesus that preceded the writing of the Gospels was extensive, and the original eyewitnesses were still there and able to be implored: “Tell me more about Jesus!”

It is inescapable that the Evangelists would have known things about Jesus, either from their own experience of his ministry, from speaking with eyewitnesses, or from information that was in common circulation about him, that they did not put in the Gospels.

 

The Agrapha of Jesus

We even have examples of what may be authentic sayings of Jesus that weren’t recorded in the Gospels. They are known as “agrapha” (Greek, “unwritten ones”), and they are for the most part found in the writings of the Church Fathers, who attributed them to Jesus despite their not being in the Gospels.

KEEP READING.

The Aramaic Apocalypse and the Anunciation

4q246-manuscriptThere is a document in the Dead Sea Scrolls known as the Aramaic Apocalypse (4Q246).

You can read the full (surviving) text here, along with some commentary.

The parts that I would like to call attention to are these:

He will be called the Son of God, and they will call him the Son of the Most High, like a shooting star [Col. 2, Line 1].

Their kingdom will be an eternal kingdom, and their paths will be righteous [Col. 2, Line 5]

Any of that sound familiar?

How about:

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there will be no end” [Luke 1:31-33]

It’s no surprise, then, that many scholars view the Aramaic Apocalypse as referring to a messianic figure.

An additional piece of evidence is that it compares the Son of God/Son of the Most High to a shooting star. The symbol of a star was also connected with the Messiah.

The interesting thing to me is that it’s another illustration about how ideas found in Christianity (such as the identification of the Messiah with the Son of God) were already found elsewhere in first century Palestinian Judaism.

They may not have understood that the Messiah would be the Son of God in the same sense that Christians came to, but the linkage was already there.

Did Pope Francis baptize a baby whose parents aren’t married? 12 things to know and share

francis_baptismPress reports are claiming that Pope Francis recently baptized the child whose parents were not married in the eyes of the Church.

Since many priests in America have refused to baptize such children, it raised some eyebrows.

What are the real facts in this case?

Here are 12 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What was the occasion of the baptism?

Every year the pope baptizes people on the commemoration of Christ’s baptism.

This takes place in the Sistine Chapel at St. Peter’s basilica.

This is an entirely normal practice.

For example, here’s a piece about Pope Benedict baptizing twenty babies on the Baptism of Our Lord in 2013.

 

2) What happened in this case?

According to Fr. Z’s translation of an Italian news story in La Stampa:

Among the baptized – according to the report in the daily “Il Tirreno” – there is also Giulia [i.e., Julia], caught of a couple married civilly but not in church.

And this is certainly a novelty.  Not for Bergoglio, who as a priest, bishop and cardinal baptized babies of teen mothers or unmarried couples many times.

Giulia’s parents, last 25 September, had made their request to the Pope directly at the end of the Wednesday general audience.

“We were on the ‘sagrato’ (the ‘porch’ in front of the Basilica)”, Ivan Scardia recounted, the father of the baby, “when he passed by and we asked him if he could baptize our second child.  He told us to get in touch with his collaborators and then they contacted us.”

When the time came to send in the documents there was a glitch: “We were married at city hall.  But this problem was also overcome,” Giulia’s father said.

 

3) Why would this mean that the parents weren’t married in the Church’s eyes?

If someone is a Catholic then, apart from certain unusual circumstances, they are obliged to observe the Church’s form of marriage or get a dispensation from this form.

Otherwise, their marriages will not be valid.

Dispensations are sometimes granted, such as when a Catholic marries a non-Catholic and they wish to have a non-Catholic ceremony.

When two Catholics are marrying each other, however, such dispensations are not granted.

City halls, even in Italy, do not observe the Catholic form of marriage, and so for two Catholics to just head to city hall and attempt marriage would result in an invalid marriage from the Church’s perspective.

 

4) How reliable is this report?

KEEP READING.

Internal Struggles Common to All

There is a famous (among philosphers) passage in Plato where there is a particularly good illustration of the kind of struggles we often fight with ourselves–the same kind we read about in the New Testament in passages like “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” and St. Paul’s description of his internal struggles in Romans 7:13-25.

I wanted to keep track of the passage in Plato for use in the future, because it shows that these struggles are common to all humans, even the pagan Greeks.

I hadn’t read it since grad school, so I looked it up where it is.

It’s found in Book 4 of The Republic, where Socrates is talking with Glaucon, where we read:

SOCRATES: Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying [to his eyes], “Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.”

GLAUCON: I have heard the story myself, he said.

SOCRATES: The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things [SOURCE].

You can see why this is such a vivid illustration–both wanting and not wanting to look at dead bodies.

Creepy!

But exactly the kind of thing that we all find ourselves faced with on occasion.

Pope Francis on Evangelization

microphonePope Francis recently released a major new document on evangelization—how to share the gospel of Jesus with others.

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Jimmy discusses the document and the implications it has.

In this episode, Jimmy discusses the issues:

  • Is Pope Francis the most misunderstood pope in recent history?
  • Is the press malicious or just incompetent?
  • Does the Pope hate capitalism?
  • How should we understand Pope Francis’s treatment of Islam?
  • What level of authority does an apostolic exhortation have?
  • How did Pope Francis write this document?
  • Are there translation problems in this document?
  • What is the major thrust of the document? Should we evangelize “without words”?
  • Does Pope Francis understand his pontificate as being “to the world” in addition to “to Catholics”?
  • What are the priorities of Pope Francis’s pontificate?
  • What to make of the interview with an atheist journalist that was taken down from the Vatican web site?
  • What level of authority do press interviews with the pope have?
  • Should the Vatican web site publish papal press interviews?
  • What is the Acta Apostolicae Sedis?
  • Will Pope Francis do major specific things in his pontificate? Is he an innovator or an implementer?
  • What to make of Pope Francis washing the feet of a Muslim girl on Holy Thursday?
  • Does Pope Francis hate the Traditional Latin Mass?
  • Why shouldn’t we read our own preferences into what the pope says and does?
  • Will the rule on women’s foot washing be changed? Should we be upset about this?
  • What gravity should we attribute to rubrics in the liturgy, and how does it relate to the doctrines in the hierarchy of truths?
  • How to understand John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis in relation to each other?

(Original Airdate: December 9, 2013)

YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE.

Or use the player below at JimmyAkin.com . . .

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Why was Jesus baptized?

BaptismOfJesusThis Sunday, the Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus Christ.

It’s an event that is recorded in all four gospels, so we know it’s important.

But there’s a question that has puzzled Christians all down through the ages.

It even puzzled John the Baptist, who performed the baptism.

Why was Jesus baptized?

 

The Problem

We all know what baptism does.

According to the Catechism:

The fruit of Baptism, or baptismal grace, is a rich reality that includes:

  • forgiveness of original sin and all personal sins,
  • birth into the new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

 

By this very fact the person baptized is

  • incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, and
  • made a sharer in the priesthood of Christ [CCC 1279].

 

So, as you can see, it’s quite clear why Jesus would need to be baptized. He . . . hey, wait!

Jesus didn’t need to achieve any of those things!

Why, then, was he baptized?

Why did he insist on it, even when John the Baptist resisted?

 

The Answer

Here’s a short video to explain . . .

(Click here to watch the video on YouTube.)

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Pope Francis on the “parable” of the loaves and fishes: 11 things to know and share

francis-windowRecently Pope Francis has said a few things about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes that have concerned a few people.

They’ve thought he might be denying that it was an actual, physical miracle.

What’s more, the press can’t be blamed, because these statements weren’t the subject of media-distorting headlines or news stories.

They’re right there in the pope’s own words—in context!

So what should we make of these?

Here are 11 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What, precisely, did Pope Francis say?

He has said two things. One was in a Sunday Angelus he gave on June 2, where he stated:

This is the miracle: rather than a multiplication it is a sharing, inspired by faith and prayer. Everyone eats and some is left over: it is the sign of Jesus, the Bread of God for humanity.

This makes it sound like he’s advocating the lame “miracle of sharing” theory, according to which people in the crowd had food hidden on their persons and then shared it with others after Jesus’ disciples began distributing the five loaves and two fish.

This theory downgrades the miracle to a purely natural event.

I’ve written about that before. And not just once.

 

2) What was the other thing he said?

More recently, in a video appeal released in December to help a hunger relief project, he stated:

The parable of the multiplication of the loaves and fish teaches us exactly this: that if there is the will, what we have never ends. On the contrary, it abounds and does not get wasted.

This makes it sound as if he’s saying that the multiplication of loaves and fishes wasn’t even a natural event. Instead, it sounds like he’s saying it’s a mere parable—a fiction designed to teach a lesson.

 

3) What should we make of these?

KEEP READING.

The Five(ish) Doctors

The_Five(ish)_Doctors_RebootJust a note about the recent, 50th anniversary Doctor Who special, The Day of the Doctor.

I’m glad they didn’t try to put all of the living Doctors in it.

Even with ensemble casts, there is a maximum number of main characters that a story can sustain and still be emotionally moving.

One that number, which varies from story to story, is exceeded, the addition of new main characters begins to detract, as the sheer task of finding things for all of them to do takes over and the core of the story is muddied–or lost.

The program–er, programme?–Doctor Who has passed the maximum number of main characters more than once.

For example, in the two-part David Tenant spectacular The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End (y’know, the one where the earth gets stolen and the journey ends–also the one where the metacrisis regeneration happens), they tried to do a story which had the Tenth Doctor and all of his previous companions and their families.

Some where reduced to contributing basically nothing to the story. Martha Jones, for example, ends up running around talking dramatically about something called “the Osterhagen Key”–an ominous device that they never actually use (thus violating Chekhov’s rule that if you show a gun on the mantlepiece in Acts I of a play, it must be used by Act III).

Martha is plot superfluous. If you delete Martha from the story entirely, it would have wound up exactly the same way. (Though the same thing has been said of Indiana Jones.)

Even worse was the show’s 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors, which tried to give major parts to all five incarnations of the Doctor to have appeared by then–as well as some of their companions.

It didn’t work.

The plot was a mess, and in large part because of the excessive number of main characters.

Steven Moffat wisely shunned this approach in The Day of the Doctor. Instead of trying to give major screen time to all eleven of the Doctors, he wanted to focus just on those since the new series began–plus one more. That would have made for main characters, plus several supporting ones.

Eminently doable.

Then, to pay homage to all the Doctor’s incarnations, he gave a brief moment of screen time to each of them via previously-recorded footage and images.

Unfortunately, spoilsport Christopher Eccleston (the 9th Doctor) wasn’t game to play one of the core Doctors of the story, but the show went on without him.

Not having pre-2005 Doctors as principal actors apparently didn’t sit well with some of them. Colin Baker (the 6th Doctor), in particular, has made some peevish remarks on not being included.

But I didn’t mind that.

Apart from the maximum-number-of-principal-characters problem, some of the previous Doctors are dead. That can be solved by recasting their parts, though (as happened in The Five Doctors, since William Hartnell was already dead).

Then there is the fact that some of the actors who played previous Doctors have aged so much that they could not play their younger selves. This being a mushy-science science fiction show, you could get around that by explaining that they all passed through some kind of field as they were pulled together, causing them to age, and that will reverse itself when they go back to their own spots in the Doctor’s timeline. (It is an unsatisfying explanation, but it could be done.)

But the fundamental problem remains: Too many principal characters will ruin the story, and there is no way to have eleven main characters would be a nightmare.

So that’s my thought about that. Now: Here’s an awesome 30-minute video by Peter Davison (the 5th Doctor), about the actors’ attempt to get into the 50th anniversary special.

Hilarious. Drags a bit in parts, but has some jaw-dropping moments.

If you need a key to decode everything going on in the video, THIS GUIDE SHOULD BE HELPFUL.

The Yearly Benedict/Francis: The Audiences

benedict-francisThe pope’s weekly audiences offer a fascinating look at topics that often aren’t covered in the major papal documents.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the folks at the Vatican web site have not been giving titles to the audiences that indicate their content. All you get (normally) is a list of dates.

To help me navigate these in the future, here is an annotated version of Pope Francis’s 2013 audiences that indicates their content, as well as Pope Benedict’s final audiences.

Although these are found in reverse-chronological order on the Vatican web site (like a blog!), I’ve put them in chronological order here, since most of them form a walk though the Apostles’ Creed for the Year of Faith.

Incidentally, papal audiences like these seem to be pre-written, way in advance.

This means that Pope Francis was almost certainly delivering texts at his Wednesday audiences that were prepared for Pope Benedict.

He clearly took liberties with them. Many passages in Pope Francis’s audiences were expressed in his own voice, rather than Pope Benedict’s.

Now that the Year of Faith is concluded, we’re likely to get our first pure taste of Pope Francis’s style of audiences in 2014.

For now, here’s a review of 2013 . . .

 

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Francis