Was Peter the First Pope? A Comprehensive Response

Friends, here’s a very detailed post I’ve been working on, answering as comprehensively as I could, from Scripture and history, a question often asked by Protestants: Was Peter really the first pope? I’ve been working hard on this for a couple of weeks, so I hope you enjoy it. If anyone has any further questions …

Farewell to a Brother Pilgrim

This past Thursday morning, one of my dearest friends and brother pilgrims, Sam Campbell III, passed away. I met Sam some ten years ago during my travels on LiveJournal, as a fellow Christian journeying on this road. Over the years we grew close, sharing in some of the same struggles, grappling with temptations, and grasping …

A patron I never knew I had

I’m frankly ashamed of myself for how little I knew about St. John-Baptiste de la Salle, whose feast day is today, a patron saint of teachers and founder of the Christian Brothers — especially given that his is one of the relics in the altar of St. John the Evangelist in Oxford, Mississippi, where I …

“Jesus” is not “Yay-Zeus”

I recently had a run-in with a man who was apparently a Oneness Pentecostal or some variant, a non-Trinitarian espousing the idea that God is not a Trinity, but that rather there is only one God, and His name is the LORD*. This was a new one to me: before I had heard that the …

The Faith of Abraham

The post I meant to make before I was distracted by Luther. This Lent I’ve been re-reading the Pentateuch, since the last time I read it was before I was Catholic and before I had the benefit of Catholic Bible commentaries or an elementary knowledge of the Hebrew language. In reading the story of Abraham …

Luther, Imputation, and Sin: Surprisingly Irrational

This was supposed to be a post about Abraham’s faith and righteousness, but instead I started reading Luther, and was unexpectedly carried away with other observations. Now, I freely acknowledge that I may be missing something. Am I somehow misunderstanding Protestant theology? Please, someone correct me if I am. Because today, in seeking to understand, …

Reading Church History as a Protestant: The Catholic Church, Dead in “Religion”

Cardinal Newman famously stated, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” If any single sentence could sum up the reasons for my conversion, that would be it. Yet there are many, many well-educated and thoughtful Protestants, who seem thoroughly versed in the facts of the history of the Church, for whom …

John’s Baptism as Prophecy

Part of a series on Baptism in Depth. In my study of Baptism so far, I’ve taken for granted that the baptism of John the Baptist was somehow irrelevant to Christian Baptism, since all Christians agree that it was merely a foreshadowing of Christ’s. I now think my omission was a mistake. All combined, the …

Veritas

My blog motor has been sputtering. I’ve been doing other things: reading, learning, changing. I’ve been receding deeper and deeper into my hobbit-hole. My prayer every day is that God pour me out and fill me up with His love. I have several posts that are simmering half-stirred, but none of them have really motivated …

Baptism in the Early Church: Proof of Extrascriptural Tradition

[Part of a series on Baptism in Depth] One of the clearest evidences to me of the existence of Sacred Tradition — of the idea that the Divine Revelation of Christ is not contained wholly and exclusively in Sacred Scripture, and that essential elements of Jesus’s teachings were not written down explicitly by the Apostles …