I hope that all of my readers had a Merry Christmas. It’s not a normal Christmas but I think that we can agree that the last thing we can call 2020 is normal. Who knows what 2021 will bring. There is a Church Father that is extremely neglected in Church History. Most people don’t know his name and even fewer people have read his writings. In the Christian East he’s essentially unknown and in the West the situation is slightly better and do I mean slightly. His name is Optatus of Milevis and he lived in the 4th century.
Allan Ruhl
The Plague of Justinian vs. The Coronavirus
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I’ve tried to avoid talking about the Coronavirus and the pandemic but I’m just getting really tired of it. At the end of the day people will have lost jobs, livelihoods, savings, all because a of a bad flu season. There is no reason for this lockdown. As someone who reads a lot of Church history, I want to share some history.
Peter’s Three Cities and Islam
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When you study the early Church, you find that Peter is affiliated with three cities. Ironically these three cities became the three early Patriarchates of the Church. These are Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. Peter had a hand in the early stages of each Church.
John Fisher 2.0 on Apostolicae Curae and Anglican Orders
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The Catholic Church has many formidable enemies. Obviously in a place like Brazil, Evangelical born-agree Christianity is making headway. In other parts of South America we see similar trends. Then of course there is secularism which is very successfully at attacking both movements and having much success. In places like the Middle East, Islam continues to chip away at dwindling populations in places like Syria and Iraq. So we’re not short of enemies. However, I wouldn’t consider Anglicanism to be an opponent in the slightest. Even in the second half of the 16th century it wasn’t the Anglican Church persecuting the Catholics, it was the monarch.
Refuting Michael J Kruger’s Misuse of St. Jerome
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In late September I joined William Albrecht and Erick Ybarra on Reason and Theology to talk about the monarchial episcopate in the early Church. Together we looked at the early documents to show that in fact, the Church of Rome had a monarchial bishop from the very beginning. The idea was to disprove the revisionist theory that the early Roman Church was governed by a college of presbyters as opposed to having one monarchial bishop above the presbyters.
Pope Francis Contradicts himself on the Death Penalty
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I wish he was still Pope
We all know that Pope Francis has taken it in himself to declare war on the Catholic teaching on the death penalty. He has changed the catechism and has further expanded on this in his recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Sadly though, in his efforts to promote heresy, he contradicted himself. Let’s be honest, Francis isn’t known for his orthodoxy in terms of Church teaching. It’s no surprising that in opposing the teachings of the Church(found in scripture, tradition, and magisterial documents), he contradicts himself.
One of the most important doctrines of the early Church
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Above is a great lecture by Sam Shamoun on baptism. Sam Shamoun is one of my favourite Youtubers and he’s a great. I also admire the fact that he doesn’t tolerate people going off-topic or being sectarian in the chat. I’d recommending watching at least two of his videos every week.
All Muslims Should be Pro-Life
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One of the earliest arguments of modern Islamic apologetics that I encountered is that the Quran talks about the development of the human embryo. It talks about the development of the embryo in detail and therefore only God could have authored the Quran. That’s the argument.
St. Cyprian and two kinds of Schism
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In my attempts to read the Church fathers and hunt for the mysterious Islamic Christians who don’t seem to exist, I’ve been reading the works of St. Cyprian of Carthage; a third century Church father who was martyred in 258 AD. He had to deal with the issue of the Novatian Schism.
The Mission of Pope Francis
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Pope Francis is an interesting character. He’s not a normal Pope. The Pope is the spiritual head of the Catholic Church but Pope Francis seems to assume another role. It took me a while to figure this out but I think I’ve finally found out where he’s coming from.