Category Archives: Catholicism

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Full of Grace?

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The Holy Theotokos

The Holy Theotokos

Was Mary full of grace? Luke 1:28 is the key to solving that mystery. In fact, this verse gives us some evidence for the Immaculate Conception for the Blessed Virgin Mary. I should point out that more evidence than this would be needed to prove the doctrine in its entirety but this portion of scripture certainly helps. The verse reads:

“And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

The verse is very clear. The Blessed Virgin is full of grace. Regardless of this evidence, innovators deny that this verse says precisely what is does. They point out that the Douay Rheims translation is heavily based off of St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, which erred in translating this passage from the original Greek.

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Refuting Ahmed Deedat

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St. John of Damascus - The saint who wrote the first Christian treatise against Islam.

St. John of Damascus – The saint who wrote the first Christian treatise against Islam.

Ahmed Deedat is certainly the most influential muslim apologist in the last century. That doesn’t mean he’s the best as he certainly was not, but he’s the most influential and most popular. He talks in sound bites and relies on presentation as opposed to substance.

Deedat was born in 1918 in India, which was under British control at that time. He was an apologist for most of his life until he suffered a stroke in the 1990’s and was unable to continue in this profession. He died in 2005.

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St. Francis de Sales – Bishop of Geneva and Apologist Extraordinaire!

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Among the thousands of saints in the Catholic Church, only a select few have gone beyond that and have become Doctors of the Church. This list includes about three dozen people, both men and women.  One of these men is Saint Francis de Sales. He is one of my favorite saints and after reading his biography several years ago, I only wanted to read more and more of him.

St. Francis is one of the rare theologians who excels in all areas. Whether you’re looking for good theological treatises, homilies, spiritual insights or apologetics, his writing is top grade. This allowed him to do well in his two debates with Theodore de Beze in Geneva. Theodore de Beze was the top Protestant theologian in the world at the time and he was trounced twice by this brilliant Catholic Bishop.

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A Brief History of Catholic Apologetics

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Apologetics has always been part of the Catholic Church. It has spanned the 2,000 year history and has played a very important role in keeping the Church alive for that long. Century after century, heresy after heresy, the Church survives in large part due to the courage of many men and women who have defended Her. Many think this is a new phenomenon. It is not. Apologetics has always been employed by the faithful to combat heresies and false religions.