Moreover, we have biblical evidence—John 1:42—that also points to Jesus using Aramaic in the naming of Peter: “[Andrew] brought [Peter] to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas,’” (which means Peter). The name Cephas is an anglicized form of the Aramaic Kepha, which means simply “rock.” There would have been no “small rock” to be found in Jesus’ original statement to Peter. Even well respected Protestant scholars will agree on this point. Baptist scholar D.A. Carson, writes, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The underlying Aramaic is in this case unquestionable; and most probably kepha was used in both clauses (“you are kepha” and “on this kepha”), since the word was used both for a name and for a “rock.” The Peshitta (written in Syriac, a language cognate with a dialect of Aramaic) makes no distinction between the words in the two clauses.

you are Kaypha

This is a myth that always comes up but is simple to answer. At the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was ratified by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546). Further, if Catholics added the deuterocanonical books in 1546, then Martin Luther beat us to the punch: He included them in his first German translation, published the Council of Trent. They can also be found in the first King James Version (1611) and in the first Bible ever printed, the Gutenberg Bible (a century before Trent). In fact, these books were included in almost every Bible until the Edinburgh Committee of the British Foreign Bible Society excised them in 1825. Until then, they had been included at least in an appendix of Protestant Bibles. It is historically demonstrable that Catholics did not add the books, Protestants took them out.

it was Luther attacking the church's doctrine of indulgences"which of course was buying or getting your dead relatives, buying your dead relatives, out of purgatory.And as Luther came to realize there was no biblical support for this text. Well, as the Roman Catholic theologians looked to try to have a counter to Luther, they landed on this text in Maccabees, as prayers for the dead for support for this whole doctrine of indulgences and purgatory and getting relatives out of purgatory. Granted, this is a very flimsy evidence for that doctrine, but it was at least something. So, in a vain and futile attempt to refute Luther and to refute where it all began with the Reformation"the attack on the indulgences"the Roman Catholic Church at Trent canonized the Apocrypha. So the Protestant Bible is sixty-six books and the Roman Catholic Bible is eighty books. But here's the simple truth: the Protestant Bible did not remove these fourteen books. It's very much the opposite. The Roman Catholic Church added the Apocrypha to the canon, and it didn't do so until 1546.

Well Jesus had siblings. Elizabeth Fletcher: Yes.

Couples who experience infertility and use NaProTechnology to conceive, experience more than double the live birth rate than couples who use IVF (IVF 23% live births per 100; NaPro is 53% live births per 100)

NaProTECHNOLOGY (Natural Procreative Technology) vs IVF

“We can understand the profound desire that motivates some of these couples to go to great lengths to have children, and we support morally licit means of doing so,” the heads of four U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committees wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

The Right to IVF Act, introduced by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, failed 48-47 on Thursday, needing 60 votes to pass. It would establish a right to receive fertility treatments, including IVF, and also the right to “make decisions and arrangements regarding the donation, testing, use, storage, or disposition of reproductive genetic material, such as oocytes, sperm, fertilized eggs, and embryos.”

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CNA Staff, Jun 20, 2024 / 11:15 am Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention, which represents the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., voted to approve a resolution laying out the ethical implications of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and calling on Baptists to “only utilize infertility treatments and reproductive technologies in ways consistent with the dignity of the human embryo.”

It was this apparent tension between science and the more traditional theological account of the origin of the human race that I attempted to resolve in an article which I published in 2011.16  Building on some work by Josephite priest Andrew Alexander,17 and applying the adage, “When faced with a contradiction, make a distinction,” I suggested this possible account of the origin of the human race: Evolution of a population of primates sufficiently large to carry the genetic diversity in question and with cognitive development sufficient to allow the infusion of a rational soul. Transformation of two of those primates into rational and, therefore, “fully human” beings by infusion of a created rational soul18 without destruction of their reproductive compatibility with the primate population out of which they were selected. At that point, there would have existed both “fully human” (i.e., rational) beings and “merely biologically human” beings.19 Interbreeding between the fully human beings and their merely biologically human neighbors. Creation of rational souls for each of the descendants of every fully human being. (Strictly, “for many of the descendants” is all that is necessary.)

But by anticipating the merits of Christ, God saved Mary before she fell in the mire of sin. As an example, a child can be saved from drowning after he falls into a swimming pool. He also could be saved from drowning by grabbing him before he falls in the pool. Our redemption is "healing medicine," but her redemption was like a "vaccine." She was always immune from sin, even venial sin (CCC 493). This is the most perfect kind of redemption.

The main Bible text that suggests this doctrine is the Angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary:

In the same passage, St. Paul writes that "none is righteous, no, not one" [Romans 3:10]. Yet elsewhere Noah, Daniel, Job (Ezek. 14:14,20), Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:6) are said to be righteous.

Romans 3:23, "all have sinned"

Also the angels in heaven are only creatures yet sinless (2 Peter 2:4). In the same manner, Mary's gift does not make her divine, but allows her always to respond to God's call.

In this verse Gabriel does not address her as "Hail, Mary" but as "Hail, full of grace." Gabriel uses this participle as a name or title for Mary. In Acts 6:8, St. Stephen is said to be "full of grace" according to the RSV, but this phrase is used as a description and not as a title. Mary is named "Full-of-Grace", which includes sanctifying grace. Grace is opposed to sin (Rom. 5:21). This verse may not prove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but it would be an odd greeting otherwise.

they were answered by Duns Scotus (1264–1308), who "developed the idea of preservative redemption as being a more perfect one: to have been preserved free from original sin was a greater grace than to be set free from sin".[30]

Furthermore, as Tim Staples argues in his book Behold Your Mother, the Greek word kecharitomene seems to be a title (or a new name) rather than a mere description. As such, it reveals something permanent about Mary’s character.

The word is the past perfect tense, meaning that the action of giving grace has already occurred. It was not something that was about to happen to her but something that has already been accomplished. The word was also used as a title. The angel did not say, “Hail Mary, you are kecharitomene” but rather, “Hail kecharitomene.” Therefore the word is not simply an action but an identity.

A sacramental marriage is the only kind of marriage that can exist between two baptized people. Thus, the Code of Canon Law states that “a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament” (can. 1055 §2).

The Catholic Church does not annul marriages. Its declarations of nullity, however, say that a sacramental marriage never existed between these spouses.

Many of us, looking back, realize that God was simply not a part of our decision to marry. In my case, I never asked God, never gave God the chance to stop my headlong (and headstrong) determination to get married. And God was trying to get my attention.

“There is an obligation of consistency with respect to different moral issues, like racism and antisemitism,” Summers said. “If not consistency, explanation.”

Harvard psychology professor Steven A. Pinker, a co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, wrote in the Boston Globe that when a university releases a political statement, “inevitably there will be constituencies who feel a statement is too strong, too weak, too late, or wrongheaded.”A university, Pinker wrote, should be “a forum for debate, not a protagonist in debates.”

This suggests that Africa has been dispensed from applying the DDF declaration, although the formal contours of this special dispensation remain very unclear.

Pope John Paul II writes: “Awareness that man's work is a participation in God’s activity, that awareness ought to permeate even the most ordinary everyday activities.” And isn't that a beautiful summation of the spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva, written in 1981 by John Paul II: the awareness that human work is a participation in God’s activity. That awareness ought to permeate the most everyday and ordinary activities.

"It's very well known that after the age of 40 things might go much better for people with Borderline Personality Disorder - their symptoms might become much milder."

To treat the clot postpartum, the doctors wanted to prescribe an FDA Category X drug to treat the clot -- it's so dangerous for pregnancy that women often choose to be sterilized before they take it. They told me that my clotting disorder means I should not have any more children, because of the risk that pregnancy poses to my health. I didn't want them to think I was religious for fear of what they'd think of me, but when I hinted at the question of using Natural Family Planning (a method for spacing children that the Church deems morally acceptable), they laughed. Someone with my condition had to use contraception, they said. There was no choice. Fatigued by the constant pain, overwhelmed by medical bills that were piling up by the thousands, I began to slide back away from this religion, tumbling down a slope that ended back in atheism. I hadn't minded changing in the sense of not using the f-word so much, but this was a whole different ballgame. To stick with the Church now would be to lose my life as I knew it, and to set out down an unfamiliar, frightening path. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the basics of the way I'd been taught to work through problems since childhood. My dad, my parent from whom I got my religious views (or lack thereof), had not raised me to be an atheist as much as he'd raised me to seek truth fearlessly. "Never believe something because it's convenient or it makes you feel good," he'd always say. "Ask yourself: 'Is this true?'" And so I set everything else aside, and clung to the simple question: What is true? I quickly realized then that that was not in question, and hadn't been for a while. For weeks now, I had known on an intellectual level that I believed what the Church taught. What stalled me had not been a hesitation of whether or not it was true; it had been a hesitation of not wanting to sacrifice too much. I had no idea how things would work out. I thought there was a fair chance that this step would lead us to financial ruin, and may even take a serious toll on my health. But I decided, for the first time in a long time, to choose what was true instead of what was comfortable. Joe and I signed up to begin the formation process at our parish church. And, in the first statement of faith I'd ever made, I told my doctors that I would not use contraception, because I was Catholic. ### After that moment, a bunch of fortuitous events occurred that smoothed the way for us to become Catholic. A series of windfalls gave us the money we needed to manage our medical bills. After they got over their initial shock at encountering someone who wouldn't contracept, my doctors came up with creative solutions to keep me healthy.

and, to his own amazement, he also found the Church's arguments to be airtight.

Monique Arend, like Aurelia Brouwers, was diagnosed with psychiatric illness including Borderline Personality Disorder. People with this condition may self-harm, have intense feelings of anger, find it hard to sustain relationships, and experience emotional instability. Monique made many attempts to kill herself."It happened everywhere - at home, in the forest... But I'm very grateful I'm still alive today," she says.