Author: Manuel Xavier

I recently met a man, about sixty-five years old, who, after I told him what I do, related this story: “When I was in Catholic high school, I asked one of the brothers, ‘How do we know that of all the religions in the world Catholicism is the right one?’ This question had been bugging me, and I was anxious to hear his answer. He replied, ‘We don’t know. We have to take it on faith.’ His response completely deflated me.” After we parted, I wondered how I would have answered that question. Of course, there is no external, rational …

St. Georg Ochsenhausen (By Thomas Mirtsch, via Wikimedia Commons) Some religions are superior to others, and Christianity is the best. And of the Christians, Catholicism is the best. Fr. Dwight Longenecker I know. I know. This is not really politically correct. You’re supposed to pretend that all religions are equal. The comparative religions professor (who often has comparatively no religion) teaches that all religions are human inventions based on interesting and unique historical circumstances and cultures. The theory is that religions developed from animism when cavemen grunted at the sun, moon and stars and made up stories about the people …

This sermon is logically divided into two parts. The first, demonstrates that most Catholics are damned, and is based on revelation, tradition, the opinion of learned theologians, as well as “reason, experience and the common sense of the faithful”. The second is more speculative, in which St. Leonard advances the proposition, which I have not infrequently heard, (and which I have, indeed, stated myself,) that people are only damned if they want to be. I consider that to be possibly erroneous. The second also contains an evidently false proposition, at least in an obvious reading. Therefore, although it contains much …