Podcasts about catholic christianity

Kelly is joined by Catholic Apologist Trent Horn to discuss many topics related to Catholic Christianity. Episode recorded 2/7/2025.

Dr. D. Todd Harrison's sermon compares the concept of heaven in traditional Protestant and Catholic Christianity with that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the former presents heaven as a place of passive enjoyment, the latter offers a more active and fulfilling experience. The Latter-day Saint perspective, rooted in biblical passages such as Revelation 21:7, suggests that heaven entails inheriting all things and becoming a son or daughter of God. Dr. Harrison emphasizes that the choice between these two paths is ultimately left to the individual, inviting those who desire a more fulfilling heavenly experience to follow Jesus. Dr. D. Todd Harrison is the most followed religious leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the leading social media platform-Facebook. With more than 1.4 million followers, he is one of the top 10 most followed Christian leaders as well. As an Ambassador and Witness of Jesus Christ, it is estimated that he has now testified of Jesus to more than 100,000,000 people around the world. Thousands have become baptized members of the Church, and many have and are currently serving as full-time missionaries.

Historically, nationalism has often turned out to be a bad idea. The most obvious examples of nationalism leading to atrocities include the Nazi regime in Germany and Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship in Italy, but today's geopolitical scene involves a variety of problematic nationalistic movements, including in India, Turkey, Brazil, and Hungary.  Even though nationalism frequently leads to violence or even genocide, people keep trying it. Perhaps the logic is something like “As great as MY nation is, maybe this time it will work!”  Here in the United States, nationalism has usually come with a particularly Christian flavor. Aside from the usual concerns associated with nationalism, this pairing of politics and religion poses unique challenges. Does it even make sense to combine a political ideology like nationalism with a religion like Christianity (especially Catholic Christianity, which is all about universality and solidarity across borders)?  On this episode of Glad You Asked, theologian and activist Jim Wallis discusses the nature of Christian nationalism, whether nationalism can ever be truly Christian, and how people of faith should respond to the resurgence of Christian nationalism in the United States today. Wallis is the founder of Sojourners and the author of 12 books, including America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America (Brazos). He is the inaugural chair and founding director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. You can learn more about this topic in these links. “Any religion allied with nationalism is dangerous,” by Stephen Schneck https://uscatholic.org/articles/202304/any-religion-allied-with-nationalism-is-dangerous/ “Christian nationalism distorts the faith, says Lexington Bishop John Stowe,” by Heidi Schlumpf https://www.ncronline.org/news/christian-nationalism-distorts-faith-says-lexington-bishop-john-stowe “How one evangelical leader uses the Bible to expose the ‘False White Gospel,'” by John Blake https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/us/evangelical-christianity-false-white-gospel-wallis-cec/index.html Glad You Asked is sponsored by the Claretian Missionaries USA, an order of Catholic priests and brothers who live and work with the most vulnerable among us. To learn more, visit claretians.org.

The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom are presented to us in the Catechism. We examine what it means to have respect for other religions and the freedom, within limits, to exercise our convictions. Fr. Mike makes it clear that it is our calling as Christians to evangelize and bring our Catholic Christianity to the public square. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 2104-2109. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

In this week's episode of Catholic ReCon, testimonies from reverts and converts, Dr. Ray Guarendi (Drray.com | @EWTNcatholictv ) joins me to discuss his reversion to the Catholic faith. Through reason and humor, Dr. Ray offers an apologetic and thought-provoking masterpiece that should be shared widely and often. Peace be with you all. #Evangelical #Christian #Catholic #testimony #interview #catholicfaith #conversion #catholicchurch #solascriptura #logic #reformation #apologetics #church #christianity #Christ ▶To support this channel, visit eddietrask.com/sponsorship ▶https://buymeacoffee.com/eddietrask

If you're truly open-minded, you can find some truth in most religions. You can find plenty of goodness and beauty as well. But where is the whole truth of God—the "fullness of truth"? Fr. Mike makes the case for Catholic Christianity, and why you should settle for nothing less.

Professor Kenneth Craycraft discusses how public witness in the U.S has largely been formed by the liberal story of America rather than the biblical story of Catholic Christianity.

Kelly is joined by Greg Smith the host of podcast Considering Catholicism to discuss many topics related to Catholic Christianity. Episode recorded 5/8/2024.

Written in the 15th century around the same time as the invention of the printing press, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis was printed in several languages and became a bestseller. It is widely regarded as the most important devotional work in Catholic Christianity and one of the most-read devotional works next to the Bible. It undoubtedly helped many Christian mystics in that era and beyond to develop a closer relationship to Christ on their quest for mystical experiences. Furthermore, it was also a source of personal inspiration and support for Dr. Carlos Eire during a difficult time in his childhood, which he shares with us in this episode. If you would like to order a copy of Dr. Carlos Eire's new book, "They Flew: A History of the Impossible," you can order a copy HERE (Yale University Press) or HERE (Amazon). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism has been in the news again lately. Cultural Marxism (i.e., "wokeism," DEI, and radical social justice movements) and various globalist ideologies try to challenge, undermine, and overwhelm historic Catholic Christianity despite every pope since the mid-1800s specifically condemning Marxism and communism. Every Marxist or communist government around the globe has persecuted Christians and the Catholic Church. In this episode, Greg explains why Catholicism and Communism (Marxism) are diametrically opposed to each other and can never be reconciled—not as a matter of economics, but as a matter of faith and worldview. Support this ministry so more people can consider Catholicism! Website: https://www.consideringcatholicism.com/ Email: consideringcatholicism@gmail.com  

Books covering the lives of 4 early Church Fathers - Augustine, Irenaeus, John Chrysostom and Athanasius, and the role Africa and the early Church played in Western civilization.

NOTE: Though I mentioned timestamping, I've decided to forego that for now to allow me to go ahead and get this episode out without additional delay. I may well add it in retroactively at some point but for now you'll just have to survive with the free full transcript, below. https://columbuscatholic.org/chancery https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253959/cardinal-hollerich-there-s-space-to-expand-church-teaching-on-all-male-priesthood  Hello everyone, welcome back to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights and I'm going to be skipping the brought to you daily part because I've switched, at least for the time being, back to a model that basically can best be described as brought to you as I am able: something every month, probably. Which, I admit, doesn't roll off the tongue quite so well, but it's the right move. Anyways, it's good to be back talking with you again, I've been using the time away wisely, taking care of family and household stuff that needed my attention. Thank you for understanding. This is going to be something of a glossary of various roles within the Catholic Church that are gonna keep popping up, so consider this your cheat sheets to consult as needed. Oh and good news, I learned how to timestamp show notes, at least on some catchers, so see if it works for you. Let me know if it doesn't. See the show notes.  Without further ado, let's get into these church roles, starting with church roles you may recognize from the Bible but which are no longer a thing unless you're like a Mormon or something. First, APOSTLE. The most familiar use of this term is referring to one of the 12 Apostles, Jesus' closest followers: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the other James, Judas (not *that* Judas), Simon, and Judas (yes *that* Judas). At least, that's the listing of the 12 as given in the book of Acts, my favorite reference point as this podcast talks about Church history and Church history actually happens in Acts, unlike the Gospels where it's pre-Pentecost so it's not really Church history yet, per se. And really, *that* Judas, Judas Iscariot, is replaced by Matthias for most purposes when you're talking about the apostles because since Judas betrayed Jesus he's a bit of an embarrassment to the group, which, fair enough. In the end, Apostle is the only one of these titles where I'm going to name the main holders individually in this episode, though of course through future episodes of the podcast I'll name all the Popes and Cardinals I have documentation of any kind for and we should also recognize that the term Apostle is used outside the Twelve as well at various points, including most prominently Saint Paul and even the almost certainly female Junia in his Letter to the Romans. The broader term for one of the earlier followers of Jesus is a DISCIPLE, and while this one does have some use in contemporary Catholicism, for example my parish has a slogan of "making disciples and disciple makers", the title of disciple as a specific identifier is something you're going to encounter in the Bible rather than in the day-to-day, where it's more of a general goal as a follower of Jesus. Meanwhile, an EVANGELIST is one who wrote one of the Gospels. Earlier I committed to the Apostles being the only one of these titles where I'd name all 12 of the main holders and I'm going to stick to that, but yeah, it's that simple. Note that this is actually more restrictive than being one of the writers of Scripture in general, for instance even though he wrote a good chunk of the New Testament, Saint Paul doesn't get described as an Evangelist. That isn't to say there isn't a bit of a tradition of using even this term someone analogously for anyone who spreads the message of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, for example the decidedly non-Catholic phenomenon of Televangelists get their name as a play on this word. Our last Bible-times Church role is that of PROPHET. Simply put, a prophet is someone inspired by the Holy Spirit to deliver a message, John the Baptist being the most famous New Testament example though especially if you look closely at the Book of Acts you can find other examples. There have been a number of folks who have made claims to be prophets in some form or another, generally the Church has frowned on such pronouncements. Officially, all new *public* revelation closed with the death of John the last Apostle around the year 100. However, the door to being a legitimate prophet is not completely closed, since *private* revelation is still possible, for example the various Marian apparitions like Lourdes and Fatima. What makes revelation considered "private" is not so much its actual privacy as its non-binding nature. All Catholics are obliged to accept public revelation, namely the Bible; no one is obliged to accept any private revelation like latter-day Prophets, though such individuals can gain the basic endorsement of the Church, which is what made Fatima, for example, so influential. That bit of a gray area bringing a Biblical role to the present is a good transition to the category of Church roles we'll talk about next, namely the basic roles in and structure of the Catholic Church today. As a periodic reminder, the default perspective and focus of this show is Catholic Christianity. I say that because there are plenty of Christian groups that follow models different than what I'll be describing here, though in broad terms what we'll be talking about is the dominant structure of Christianity and has been for centuries if not millennia. The fundamental concept to understand for this part–and really, to understand much of Catholicism–is APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. Apostolic succession is the notion that the Apostles were the first BISHOPS and picked folks to succeed them in their ministry as bishops. I'm not here to convince you that that's what happened, but since this show runs with Pope-colored glasses, it's what we're rolling with. In this framework, not just anyone can have authority in the Church, only those who have this apostolic succession. You can still get wrinkles, like MYSTICS that influence the bishops, but ultimately, whether a mystic has lasting influence is going to depend on whether any bishops- that is anyone who has apostolic succession- listens to her. And I say her because such mystics are typically female. And actually, I wasn't planning on covering mystics in this overview, but I guess I really should give them their own timestamp in the summary here since I've gone off on a tangent. I talked about them earlier in the context of modern day prophets. Basically, a mystic is someone who has some sort of special connection to revelation, whether God or the Blessed Virgin Mary or whoever. But anyways, back to bishops, because while stuff like mystics are fun, the majority of church admin is done in much more mundane fashion by the regular clergy like the Bishops. Catholic Bishops are always male, because in Catholicism ordination is what makes someone a bishop, and Catholic teaching holds that women cannot be ordained. Another particularity of ordination is that someone who is ordained can't get married, though put a pin in that because it's going to get more complicated when we talk about priests and especially deacons. Only bishops can carry out ordinations, and it involves physical touch so they cannot be done remotely. To minimize concerns about who has apostolic succession and who does not, for many years the standard has been that at least three bishops should participate in the ordination of a bishop, though this is not strictly speaking a requirement. With all of this apostolic succession and ordination business, the Catholic world is divided in two: the CLERGY, that is, those who are ordained, and the LAITY, that is, those who are not ordained. There's also sort of a third category but shush I'm keeping it simple and don't worry we'll get into that before we're done today. LAY, the shortened form of Laity, can also be used as an adjective in Church terminology, for instance in the phrase LAY EUCHARISTIC MINISTERS, or LAY CARDINALS, in both cases emphasizing that the individual being described is not as ordained as one might expect. Meanwhile, CLERG is not a word, pleaae don't try to make it a thing. Anyways, once ordained, bishops are typically assigned a specific geographic area called a DIOCESE. Their main base of operations will tend to be in what's called a CATHEDRAL that's generally in the most prominent city in that diocese, and the Diocese is generally named after the city, for instance my home diocese of Columbus is named after the city of Columbus in Ohio. In some ways bishops are equals, for instance all bishops can ordain successors. But in other ways they aren't, for instance Catholicism is somewhat famously centered around the Bishop of Rome, aka the POPE, who is prominent because the Diocese of Rome was where Saint Peter, the foremost disciple, settled down, never mind that by all accounts he also ran the Church in Antioch for a while. Collectively, all the Catholic Bishops in the world are called the COLLEGE OF BISHOPS, and according to the very handy and highly recommended Gcatholic.org there are well over 5000 such Catholic bishops alive today. Of course, there are also a good number of bishops who aren't Catholic, meaning they aren't in communion with the Pope, especially the Eastern Orthodox. And forgive me if I explain being in communion as like the Church version of being facebook friends. It's obviously more solemn than that, but basically yes, it's a mutual public acknowledgement that you're on good terms with someone else. Bishops who aren't in communion with Rome are still bishops- meaning they still have apostolic succession and can still create their own successors, which has lead to a fair amount of drama, historically. When I mentioned not all bishops are created equally, I wasn't just talking about the Pope. There are several different kinds of bishops to consider, so let's hit the highlights. In addition to a regular bishop who heads a diocese, there's a higher level bishop called an ARCHBISHOP who runs what's called an ARCHDIOCESE or you might see the term PROVINCE. Technically I believe a province is the combination of an Archdiocese and any regular diocese that are under its jurisdiction, which are called SUFFRAGAN diocese in that context while the Archdiocese is called the METROPOLITAN, which is also a shorthand way of referring to the archbishop in that arrangement, or you might more fully call him the METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOP. To return to my home diocese as an example, the Metropolitan for the Diocese of Columbus is the Archbishop of Cincinnati. Not every Archbishop is a Metropolitan Archbishop, because not every Archdiocese has a suffragan diocese. You can also find cases where a person is personally made an Archbishop but is not put in charge of an Archdiocese, those cases are called "PRO HAC VICE", which is basically Latin for "for this occasion”, meaning while the person is being made an archbishop their diocese is not being made an archdiocese. There are weirder scenarios that can pop up as well, but I'm trying to focus on the highlights to keep this manageable and will point out the more unusual stuff when and if it pops up. In terms of territory, the next step above a province would typically be a REGION, which is generally just an administrative subdivision of a national bishops' Conference. Columbus is in a region with all the dioceses–it's hard to pluralize that–in Ohio and Michigan, called Region VI. This particular layer of admin is completely unremarkable and has no special titles or roles associated with it. At the top of the national level there's generally what's called a BISHOP'S CONFERENCE, an organization made up of the bishops and perhaps their equivalents across a given nation. Depending on the scale of things you might also see bishop's conferences that cover multiple countries or I think I've even seen some sub-national bishops' conferences here and there, it just depends on what makes sense given the geopolitics and the nature of the Catholic Community. Though there isn't a special churchy title for the leadership of a Bishops' Conference- they're just called President or whatever- I will tend to note when someone I'm going over holds a leadership post here since it's at the national level. Getting back to church titles rather than standard admin structure, it's worth noting that, in a nutshell, the older a diocese is the more prestige and gravitas it has. Historically, the oldest diocese in a given country had special importance and was something a bit above a regular archdiocese called a PRIMATIAL SEE held by a PRIMATE- not the monkey though sure joke away– oh and see by the way is just another word for a diocese, that's S-E-E. It's specifically referring to the bishop's "seat", which is the same concept that makes the head church of a Diocese called a Cathedral, cathedra being a Latin word for Chair. And yeah, it's a bit weird to have so much focus on what someone is sitting on but keep in mind thrones for kings kind of fill the same concept, it's basically the idea that it's the office that has its own importance that accumulates with each officeholder. Some diocese are dignified at an even higher level and are called Patriarchates, with bishops of those diocese being called Patriarchs. Historically the core group of patriarchates was Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. Others have been added through the years, notably Moscow in the East. Generally Patriarchates are more associated with Eastern Orthodoxy since the highest ranking churchmen there are the Patriarchs, though the Popes would also flaunt their Papal powers over the church generally by setting up some new Western Patriarchates as well, like Lisbon and Venice. I'll definitely be spending a lot of time talking about all the various patriarchates in the main narrative, so stay tuned. Recently a new role has been developed, and of course I mean recently in church terms so, you know, in living memory, and that's the role of what's termed a "MAJOR ARCHBISHOP", just half a hair down from a Patriarch in dignity, and of course overseeing a "MAJOR ARCHBISHOPRIC". Check out my episode on Sviatoslav Shevchuk for more on that, basically the Vatican wanted to grant the Ukranians higher honor but could not fully commit to a new Patriarchate because of pressure from Moscow, so the position was developed as a compromise. There are now a total of four Major Archbishops, all Eastern Catholics. To explain very briefly, now that I'm mentioning Eastern Catholics, the Catholic Church is actually made up of a total of 24 sui iuris- that is, "self governing" Churches, called Particular churches. The one you're probably most familiar with is the biggest, what's called the Latin Church, but the other 23 are equally important at least in theory even though in practice they often get sidelined or overlooked. A single city may have multiple bishops because of these different rites, and also because of non-Catholic bishops, for example there are currently five people claiming the role of Patriarch of Antioch, three Catholic bishops from different sui iuris particular churches in union with Rome, and two Orthodox bishops not in union with Rome. None of these Patriarchs of Antioch are based in Antioch, modern Antakya. It's complicated. Collectively members of these non-Latin Sui Iuris churches are called Eastern Catholics and In most cases these are the results of various splits and reunions throughout Church history, resulting in a variety of local traditions maintained because 1 tradition is beautiful and 2 union with the Pope is more important to the Pope then making everyone do exactly the same thing, though there have certainly been pushes for that, and I hope that somewhat tongue-in-cheek brief overview isn't too insulting but long story short the variety resulting from these different traditions could easily double the length of this episode, but given the main purpose of this was to allow Cardinal-Watchers to follow Cardinal Numbers without getting too lost I'm going to let the Latin rite examples I've given form the core and I'll explain Eastern titles- such as calling most bishops EPARCHS and most Dioceses EPARCHIES- as they appear in individual episodes. Now, believe it or not, there's still a few more bishop-tier titles to go. First, a TITULAR BISHOP is a bishop who has been assigned a non-functional diocese, which sounds like a bit of a raw deal- and to be clear, it is- but it generally allows them to focus on other stuff they need to be doing while officially giving them the status and dignity of being a bishop. There are also titular archbishops and even titular patriarchs, basically the next few terms function as adjectives. Another modifier you might see before someone's bishop title is "Auxiliary". An AUXILIARY BISHOP is a bishop who assists in the administration of a see- typically an archdiocese or a patriarchate- while being titular bishop of another see. This keeps one person as the overall pastor but allows for easing the burden when there's a lot of bishopping to be done. There's another kind of bishop called a COADJUTOR. As the co- part might suggest, a coadjutor bishop acts alongside the regular bishop. Generally speaking a coadjutorship is a short term arrangement, designed to ease the transition when the regular bishop retires, with the coadjutor having automatic succession. Unlike Auxiliary bishops, coadjutor bishops are not typically given a separate titular see reflecting this even closer association with the diocese. Normally the goal is one bishop per diocese and one diocese per bishop, coadjustorships are treated as an exception to that ideal for the sake of smooth transition. Another adjective you'll see applied to someone's title as bishop is emeritus, and this one I think is more familiar to folks. A BISHOP EMERITUS is the former bishop of a diocese. In modern practice most Bishops are required to submit their resignation to the Pope once they turn 75, so that's the typical retirement age, but early retirements due to health reasons or air quotes "health reasons" are not unheard of, and sometimes folks are left in their posts for a bit longer. When a diocese has no serving bishop, that period is called a SEDE VACANTE, or "vacant seat". Most folks hear that in connection with the Pope, though the term can be used for all diocese, not just Rome. If the vacancy is a longer one, you'll often see what's called an APOSTOLIC ADMINISTRATOR appointed for the interim, someone to keep things running who may or may not already be a bishop of another diocese, often the metropolitan. Finally, there's a broader term that includes but is not limited to bishops that I've been studiously avoiding: an ORDINARY. Most often the ordinary is a bishop, but there are some special jurisdictions outside the normal diocesan structure that are served by a non-episcopal-AKA non-bishop- ordinary. Such jurisdictions are called ORDINARIATES. And yeah, don't let the wording fool you, ordinariates headed by an ordinary are not, you know, the ordinary arrangement, those are for special circumstances. The most common type of ordinariate is a MILITARY ORDINARIATE. Given the special needs of armed forces and the families serving in them, many nations have a specific ordinariate dedicated to military families. There is also something called a PERSONAL ORDINARIATE, which in modern times is best understood as a bridge between Anglicanism and Catholicism, something Anglican leaders aren't particularly thrilled about but that didn't stop Pope Benedict XVI from setting up the structure a few years back. This is also as good a time as any to note that a CHAPLIN is like the priest-level edition of an ordinary, in the sense that they're dedicated to a specific group of people that isn't a geographic thing, and also in the sense that it's often something you'll see in a military or other institutional context, and *also* in the sense that a chaplain might not actually be a priest even though they carry out many similar functions, much like an ordinary may not actually be a bishop. Alright, next up, let's start looking at what's going on within a typical diocese, especially at Mass, that most Catholic of ceremonies. As you might have guessed, we're going to be talking a fair bit about PRIESTS today, so let's dive in there. Priests, like bishops, receive Holy Orders through ordination. They effectively function as a stand-in for the bishop, serving as his delegates in the local churches called PARISHES. They have apostolic succession only in a secondary sense- their holy orders are valid because of their bishop's valid apostolic succession, and they cannot ordain successors themselves. Unless of course they also happen to be a bishop, which, yes, Mr Offscreen Pedant, bishops are also priests, but I'm speaking specifically about priests who are not also bishops. All bishops are priests and deacons to boot, holy orders is a three-part deal that stacks up like that. Of course, not all deacons are priests, and not all priests are bishops. It's a squares and rectangles kind of thing. The primary function of a priest is to administer sacraments, especially saying Mass and hearing confessions. I actually have my sacraments series done for the Solemn High Pod, so check out the three part Popeular History episode 0.20 if you want to know more about Mass and the sacraments. If 0.23 and dare I hope 0.31 are done by the time you're listening to this you can check out those as well for more on the Mass. Like Bishops, priests are generally expected to practice clerical celibacy, especially in the Latin church but also in the East in the sense that they cannot get married after ordination. So if they want to join the ranks of the married clergy, they better already have the married part done before they do the clergy part. A priest is the most essential person when it comes to Mass, because priests are the ones who either celebrate or say Mass–either of those verbs will work, by the way, and I'm not actually aware of a difference in meaning. Anyways, this is brought home by the fact that priests can literally say Mass by themselves, with no one else present. And I don't want to go too far into theology in this org chart overview, but I really should note that ultimately, on a theological level, it's not so much the priests themselves saying Mass or hearing confessions, rather it's Christ acting through them. What about deacons? Well, first off, there are two kinds of deacons in current practice: TRANSITIONAL DEACONS and PERMANENT DEACONS. The transitional deaconate is a step towards priesthood, and typically lasts a year. It's the first rung of Holy Orders, the first ordination the future priest will receive. In the case of permanent deacons, rather than a stepping stone the diaconate is its own vocation, with the recruiting focus being on men ages 35-55 or so depending on the diocese. Even in the west married permanent deacons are normal, though still with the same caveat that I mentioned for eastern priests earlier: once you're ordained no more new marriages for you. Deacons have an assisting role at Mass and administering other rites and sacraments but historically their main role has been more in the realm of what's called works of mercy, aka helping the poor, as that was the original idea behind setting up the diaconate as outlined in the biblical Book of Acts. It was only in recent times–recent times in the scale of Catholicism of course meaning in you know, living memory, it's a big timeline–anyways it was only in recent times that the permanent diaconate was revived after a millenium of suppression. Technically, to be sure, there were some deacons in the middle ages–Pope Gregory VII gained his reputation as Deacon Hildebrand- but outside of the Papal court, where titles tend to carry on regardless, DROPDROP they were scarcely more than a step to the priesthood, DROPDROP that transitional model I mentioned earlier. Before that decline, deacons were actually generally more impactful than priests, often serving as the bishop's right hand, especially in the form of ARCHDEACONS. This model is still largely present in the Eastern Churches, especially if you recall that Arkdiyakon role I mentioned in the context of the Thomas Christians I mentioned last month. Finally, I should note that there is strong historical evidence for a female diaconate in the early Church, for example in Romans 16 Saint Paul refers to a certain Phoebe as a deaconess, and unlike in the historical argument over female priests and bishops, the Church accepts a form of female diaconate as a historical reality. However, it is argued that women deacons were not ordained, that their role was fundamentally different from that of male deacons. Whether to revive an unordained form of female diaconate is an active topic of discussion in Rome. Of course, we're well into the weeds now. Things have changed. But before we make our way back to the modern Church, let's take a quick look at how Holy Orders worked prior to the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. Before Vatican II, Holy Orders didn't start with the diaconate, the priesthood was actually the culmination of a seven-step process that began with what's called the minor orders. The lowest rung of this ladder was the PORTER, being basically the church doorman. After that, the LECTOR, in charge of some of the Bible reading at Mass, and a role which largely survived the council but was taken out of the context of a step on the path to priesthood, to the extent that even shock of shocks women can be Lectors. Next up was the ever crowd-pleasing role of EXORCIST, one trained to cast out demons, and perhaps surprisingly that's another role that's still with us, now taking the form of a special category of priests. As I understand it, to this day each Diocese has at least one exorcist, though their identities are typically kept secret because, ya know, kooks who won't stop bugging him because, I mean, real-life-exorcist. Cool. Finally, up at the top of the minor orders there was the role of ACOLYTE. Think alter server but one of the more active ones, not just a candle-holder. And yes, a role that was once higher than an exorcist is now generally occupied by a middle schooler. Right above the minor orders was the first rank that required ordination- no, not the deacon, the SUB-DEACON. Like all the other minor orders suppressed in the West, this role has been preserved in the East. Take this how you will, but the East has tended to more scrupulously preserve tradition than the Latin Church. It probably helps that they have no one with sufficient authority to come close to mucking around with tradition. I honestly don't think we'll be talking about sub-deacons much, but just know they're, well, right below a standard-issue deacon in the medieval pecking order, as you might have guessed, assisting at mass in similar but different roles. This office went away in the West with the abolition of the minor orders in Vatican II. After the sub-deacon the medieval and early modern seven stages of Holy Orders culminated with the familiar roles of Deacon- full on deacon this time- and then priest. Note that Bishop was not really considered a part of this progression in this model. Now, let's take a moment to chat through a couple other church roles largely or totally left to history while we're in the neighborhood. First, who can forget the fact that there's a whole Canterbury tale dedicated to the PARDONER. This wasn't someone who specialized in hearing confessions and absolving sins as you might expect after that episode we did on the newly elevated Cardinal Dri, the elderly Argintinian Capuchin with that focus. Instead, the focus of the Pardoner was on selling indulgences, those get-out-of-Purgatory-free cards that brought enough scandal to destroy the unity of western Christendom. And yes, I'm kind of acting like you already know about the Protestant Reformation in the same episode where I explain at a basic level what a priest is. Anyways, speaking of Protestants–or quasi-Protestants, or whatever you want to call them, perhaps just Anglicans– speaking of Anglicans, in many ways they're an even better time capsule for preserving some things lost to modern Catholicism than the East. Obviously not in all stripes of Anglicanism, as that wide tent contains a lot of innovations, but, well, on the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum you can still find things like CANONS and PREBENDS. Canons with one N of course, the church kind, though of course the martial Pope Julius II was fond of two-N cannons as well. Anyways, even ruling out the military cannons I need to specify, as there are not one not two but three distinct meanings of a one-N canon in medieval Catholicism and actually in contemporary Catholicism as well, though the role of canon- by definition our focus on this episode on roles in the Catholic Church- the role is much less common than it once was. But first, the most common meaning of the term Canon in contemporary Catholicism is in the context of Canon law, because that's the term for way the Church governs itself and specific sections of the overall governing document are called canons. Similarly, church councils, that is, gatherings of church leaders, also tend to produce canons, especially the great ecumenical–that is, universal–councils of old that we'll start discussing when we get to the fourth century. So for example someone might cite the first canon of the Council of Nicea, where the Church of old ruled on the pressing question of how being castrated would or would not impact one's ability to serve as a priest. There's also something called the Canon of the Mass, and really the root word helps to understand the meaning of both this and the law slash council thing, because a canon in Latin is something like a fixed measuring stick. The fixed part of Mass is the section of prayers that are always the same, or at least that were always the same until our old friend Vatican II made other options available (again, as I understand it). Nowadays the Canon of the Mass, also called the Roman Canon, is additionally referred to as Eucharistic Prayer 1, implying the existence of Eucharistic Prayer 2, which isn't just a theoretical thing but a real life shorter form that liturgical traditionalists like myself tend to hate. There's also Eucharistic Prayers 3 and 4, which are less egregious, but still, stick with Eucharistic Prayer 1, aka the Roman Canon, if you would be so kind. The third kind of Canon is, at last, the role, and interestingly the etymology here is the same root as the others, giving the sense of something standardized or fixed in place. In this case, the standardization is because the "Canons" of a cathedral or other significant church were a group of priests who had decided to live communally and establish their spiritual and physical lives around a set of rules, you know, standardizing them. Canonizing their lives, if you will. They were basically members of a religious order, though not one centrally governed. Oh, and I suppose I should also note that the term canonization fits into this overall picture in a similar way: it's called canonization because what canonization does is standardize the cult of a particular saint across the universal church. Oh and stop saying cult like it's a bad thing, in this case that's just the word used. It's not a wink and a nod to kool-aid. Also, a canon in the sense of a cathedral canon or other role in a religious order is different from a canon*ist* or a canon lawyer, which is one who studies and explains or practices Church law, respectively. Clear as mud? Fair. Oh, and the PREBEND I mentioned, well, that's basically just a fancier kind of Cathedral canon. Let's move on though. The last historical Church role I want to talk about today is the KING. Or the EMPEROR. Or, you know, whoever the relevant feudal LORD would be. Because such secular leaders were nevertheless seen as having a critical role within the Church, with the civil government and the Church not then tending to have the separation we're used to these days. Really, nobility in general was a big deal for the church until the last century or so. Ok, so we've talked about the various forms of bishops and their territories, and about who you might see at Mass. What about those between? Well, one of the most important functions in Church organization is training up the next generation of leadership, and that training of new priests tends to take place at special institutes called SEMINARIES. You can basically think of seminaries as universities for future priests, and there's also a junior league of sorts for younger students that's basically a kind of boarding school called a MINOR SEMINARY. Those who study at seminaries are called SEMINARIANS, and those who teach there are nowadays generally titled PROFESSORS having the same basic sense as in the secular world but with Catholicism baked in. Kind of like this show verses a generic non-Popeular podcast. The head of a seminary is generally called a RECTOR, though I'm sure there's some variety in that. As you may know depending on what's common in your neck of the woods, rector can also have the same basic sense in secular institutes of higher learning as well, which makes sense when you take a look at the root word there: basically, "ruler". Etymology is our friend here, there, and everywhere. Outside of seminary education, there's also the topic of the general administrative structure of a given diocese. Obviously the bishop is on top, and as you probably already guessed the priests of the diocese typically have admin roles in addition to saying Mass. As an American Catholic, I'm mostly used to hearing the term PASTOR for a priest who's tasked with running a local church community called a PARISH, though I gather canonically the Anglican sounding term VICAR is more precise. You'll also hear the term PARISH PRIEST used in the same sense. A single parish may have more than one priest assigned to it by the diocesan powers that be. A secondary priest is called a PAROCHIAL VICAR in more  official stuff but ASSOCIATE PASTOR is the term you'll hear in common parlance, at least in American use. You might also see someone described as a CURATE, which in modern use designates a priest who assists the principal Vicar or Pastor or Rector of whatever, but historically would refer to the pastor themselves, and yes, it's complicated. There are higher levels to consider as well, both administratively and in terms of honorary titles. For example, MONSIGNOR is a special honorary title given to seasoned priests at the discretion of the Pope. It's not really a role, since it's purely a title and has no special function, but I figured I'd include it here. There are three levels within being titled a Monsignor, first a "CHAPLAIN OF HIS HOLINESS", second an "HONORARY PRELATE", and finally a "PROTONOTARY APOSTOLIC". These sorts of honorifics are currently out of favor in Rome given Pope Francis' strong preference for simple aesthetics and not seeking honor and titles, but he's pushing against a very long tradition of honors and titles in Roman culture, long enough that it goes back to the Cursus Honorum of ancient Pagan Rome, and I expect with the back-and-forth way the Papacy and the Curia operate, we haven't seen the last of ecclesiastical honorifics. After a fat Pope, the saying goes, a skinny Pope. Oh, there's even a kind of honorific for church buildings that functions in kind of the same way as making a priest a Monsignor, namely the status of BASILICA, which is basically just a way for the powers that be to say "hey check out this church it's extra nifty". Of course, not all higher titles within a Diocese are honorifics, there are functional roles as well. The overall day-to-day admin of the diocese is typically not run by the Bishop personally but by an office called the CHANCERY run by a CHANCELLOR, another term you may have heard in higher education because there's historical overlap between higher education and the admin of the Catholic Church or, you know, medieval courts in general. VICE-CHANCELLORS are also a thing, being second in command, behind the Chancellor. If you want a little more insight into what a Diocesan Chancery does, my home Diocese of Columbus has a write-up on their website that explains it better than I would so allow me to just quote them: "The Chancery includes those offices and persons who directly assist the Bishop in the pastoral and administrative governance of the Diocese of Columbus. The Chancery, on behalf of the Bishop, expedites canonical matters; collects and preserves diocesan and parish records; assists parishes and priests with civil matters; maintains files on priests and parishes; collects statistical information for the Diocese; facilitates communications with other dioceses and the Vatican; provides information on the Church or directs inquirers to appropriate sources; facilitates pre-Marriage dispensations and permissions and transmits to other dioceses pre-marriage files; and oversees diocesan offices." The rough Papal equivalent to the diocesan Chancery is the Roman CURIA. In Rome, the Church bureaucracy is sprawling. It's no secret that bureaucracies tend to grow over time when left unchecked, and historically Rome was just about the last place to look for a check on a bureaucracy. Even the ancient pre-Christian Romans exalted bureaucracy, with their skills as administrators being credited as a major unifying force for the Empire. Of course, administrative skills and bureaucracy can almost be contradictory concepts– after all, getting things done requires moving beyond committee after committee. But ultimately the purpose of the Curia is to spread the faith handed down from the Apostles throughout the world, and with that emphasis on handing down, tradition is a huge part of things. When you combine an emphasis on tradition with a massive scale- there are well over a billion Catholics in the world today- and a global scope–well, the Curia is absolutely massive and, despite repeated efforts at overhauling things, it's complicated as well. It would be deeply ironic but not inaccurate to call it Byzantine, a term for “really really complicated” drawn from another institution derived from ancient Rome, though the Byzantine empire is no more and the papacy is more globalized than ever. Pope Francis has been toying with the formula more than any other Pope in recent history, time will tell if the changes stick. One of the most apparent changes Pope Francis has made to the Curia, certainly in the context of our rundown of specific terms, is rebranding the various PONTIFICAL COUNCILS and CONGREGATIONS to DICASTERIES. The practical effect of this is minor but it's helpful to recognize these terms as referring to high level Curial departments–often but not always headed by Cardinals, indeed Pope Francis has structured things so there is no longer any official bar to Dicasteries headed by, say, a woman, though that hasn't actually happened yet. In any event, the heads of Dicasteries or Congregations or Pontifical Councils or whatever you want to call them are called PREFECTS, with the second in command being listed as SECRETARIES, and then things like UNDERSECRETARIES appearing further down the chain of command but still fairly high on the overall curial org chart. The CARDINALS I mentioned there are a special role connected to the Diocese of Rome. As a group they are called the COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, in much the same way that the bishops throughout the world collectively make up the COLLEGE OF BISHOPS. Most famously, it is the eligible Cardinals under the age of 80 who pick the next pope in a closed voting contest called a CONCLAVE during a Papal Sede Vacante, in a period of “vacant see”, you know, “empty chair”. Meetings of Cardinals more broadly speaking are called CONSISTORIES, because yeah, pretty much everything has a special term here, that's why you're listening to this episode. The office of Cardinal has historical connections to the clergy of Rome but it is not by definition an ordained role, meaning there could conceivably be women as Cardinals in the future as I discussed in my September 28th episode this year. There are three fundamental orders of Cardinals, the names of which are rooted in the origins of the college but which are no longer tied to their respective levels of Holy Orders in any particular way as all modern Cardinals are at least priests and most are bishops. Nevertheless, Cardinals are Categorized as either CARDINAL-BISHOPS, the highest level, or CARDINAL-PRIESTS, in the middle, or CARDINAL DEACONS, the lowest category, though really if you're a Cardinal even at the lowest level you're still pretty high up in the Church's pecking order. Special roles within the College of Cardinals include the PROTOPRIEST and the PROTODEACON, the longest serving of those respective orders. Historically, it was the Protodeacon's job to crown the Pope, though Popes haven't opted for crowns in decades. It's also the job of the most senior cardinal deacon participating in the Conclave to announce the new Pope through what's called the HABEMUS PAPAM, Latin for "we have a Pope". A specific name for a specific speech. Speaking of Conclaves and Papal Sede Vacantes and such, the CAMERLENGO OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH is the one who runs the show when there's no Pope around, assisted, of course, by a VICE CAMERLENGO. And to give you an idea of *just* *how* *wonky* the Curia can be, though the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church is generally a Cardinal, he should not be confused with the CAMERLENGO OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, a role dedicated to administering the financial affairs of the Cardinals which has, mercifully, recently been allowed to lapse. So, yeah. There are a huge number of special roles and titles connected to the Curia. We'll be seeing them in action repeatedly as we go, but I don't want to get too hung up on them in this overview. Needless to say, Rome is a special case, full of special cases. Before we go, I do want to point out the NUNCIOS are effectively Papal Ambassadors, and the offices they head are called NUNCIATURES. A small step down the latter of diplomatic precedence there are PRO-NUNCIOS who have PRO-NUNCIATURES and who perhaps aspire to be full-on Nuncios one day–yes, oddly, in this case the "pro" prefix actually signifies as a *lower* rank. Finally, it would be just plain wrong of me to skip the fact that there is an important role called the LIBRARIAN OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and which was historically also known as the BIBLIOTHECARIUS. Don't worry, we'll be following them especially closely. Anyways, any more standard diocese, including Columbus, may not have something as deep and extensive as the Curia, but they still have their own complexities not only within but also beyond the walls of the Chancery, often being subdivided into units called DEANERIES, which are groups of parishes. These multi-parish groups are headed, as you might have guessed, by someone called a DEAN, though you might have also guessed that a more official and less intuitive name exists in canon law: a deanery can also be listed as a FORANE VICARIATE, headed by a VICAR FORANE. There are other roles that aren't geographically based but are still critical to the functioning of the diocese, such as NOTARIES, who are permitted to draw up official documents on behalf of the local Church, and CONSULTORS, who, well, are there for the bishop to consult with on specific topics where he may need their advice. Ok, we're getting there. Now, you might think you know what RELIGIOUS means, but in a Catholic context it has a narrower definition. Being *a* religious means you have taken RELIGIOUS VOWS, specifically THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Obedience, in this case, meaning obedience to a religious superior. Welcome to the world of RELIGIOUS ORDERS, which you might also know variously as RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES, INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE, SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, or even CONGREGATIONS, depending on a variety of factors and generally distinguished at a deeper level than I want to get into today. A fair amount of the variety comes from the various religious orders having their own distinct rules, called, well, RULES, and particular focuses, called CHARISMS. They also traditionally have distinct uniforms, called HABITS. You can typically recognize members of different religious orders by their habits, for example white and black robes will most often be a Dominican, brown or sometimes gray will trend to signify a Franciscan of some sort, though there are a lot more religious orders than there are basic colors so brown is also the dominant color in the unrelated Carmelite order. Anyways, the most classic form of a religious order is a MONASTERY with the members of the order being known as MONKS in the case of males or NUNS in the case of females– and monasteries have always been segregated by gender though there were historically sometimes what was called DOUBLE MONASTERIES with male and female wings. Given everyone involved had taken a vow of chastity, such a separation was seen as a practical step. Now, you might be surprised to hear me mentioning nuns in the context of a monastery, rather a CONVENT, a similar institution, which in contemporary English is where you'd expect to find nuns, with monasteries being reserved for monks. But I want to give you some historical understanding as well, and historically the distinction between a convent and a monastery was not one of gender but of specific type. Monasteries tended to be more rural and therefore removed from worldly concerns but could be communities of either gender, while convents tended to be more urban and therefore a bit more integrated into secular society. But that historical sense has faded sufficiently in English that you'll get weird looks if you say there are nuns in a monastery or monks in a convent. You may be technically correct, which is indeed the best kind of correct, but just be aware that the non-gendered sense of the terms is now not as common as it once was. Either way, members of religious communities are generally called BROTHER or SISTER as the default form of address unless another title supersedes. The head of a monastery is typically called an ABBOT in the case of a male CONGREGATION or an ABBESS in the case of a female congregation- the congregation being the community itself. Second in command in the case of a larger community or perhaps in overall command of a smaller community that is itself subordinated to a mother house is a PRIOR or PRIORESS, the former for a male community and the latter for a female community. In terms of the overall building, if the person in charge is an Abbott or Abbess then it's an ABBEY, if it's run by a Prior or a Prioress it's called a PRIORY, though it's not unusual for folks to simply fall back on the simplified and gendered newer meanings of monastery and convent I described earlier. A generic term for those in charge of a religious community is a SUPERIOR, or perhaps MOTHER SUPERIOR, with the leadership of the overall global order being typically called a SUPERIOR GENERAL. There's also a middle range of governance called a PROVINCE, giving that word a similar meaning to what we saw on the Diocesan side of things. All of these communities vary in a number of ways. Some are more removed from worldly affairs, with few to no outside visiters, those communities are called CLOISTERED. These communities go back to the origins of Christian monasticism, where an individual would often feel inspired to withdraw from the world and live a life of severe ASCETICISM, that is, renouncing pleasure and embracing prayer and PENANCE-reparations for sins-  in the hope of spiritual rewards. In the common narrative, folks would come out to such HERMITS, who might be called DESERT FATHERS or DESERT MOTHERS, and seek to follow their example, forming a community. The term for the individual ascetic who vows to follow the evangelical counsels is a hermit like I mentioned or you might also call them an ANCHORITE, and that form of monasticism is EREMITIC, from same root word as "hermit". Once you're talking about living in community, that particular form of monasticism is called CENOBITIC monasticism, combining the greek words for "common" and "life". Not all monasticism is that degree of renunciation of the world, though certainly that form was most established in the early Church. But over time other orders with various special charisms- special focuses- emerged, with the rise of the MENDICANT orders- those that essentially live by begging- occurring in the 13th century, with the Franciscans and the Dominicans being classic examples. Male mendicants are called FRIARS. In time there would also be MISSIONARY orders such as the Jesuits or the Salesians, as you might guess those being dedicated to spreading Christianity to areas where Christianity was a minority. Members of missionary orders are simply called brothers or sisters, leaving the monk and nun labels to those living in more traditional communities. In a number of cases the communally living religious orders have established affiliated entities designed to allow those who live outside their actual communal life to nevertheless observe some form of their rule and wear some form of their habit. These are called THIRD ORDERS, the first and second orders being by implication the monks and the nuns in their communities. Members of third orders are also called TERTIARIES. Historically similar to third orders were things like BEGUINES and their male equivalents, BEGHARDS, though those were as much defined by their lack of official status in the Church as anything else, which makes them an awkward addition to this episode. So I'll leave it at that. Anyways, with the permission of their superior- keep in mind obedience is one of the monastic vows–the others being poverty and chastity if you need a refresher–anyway with the permission of their superior male religious are able to receive ordination and become clergy. Religious who become priests are called RELIGIOUS PRIESTS, which is fair enough as a title but does have an amusing effect in that priests who are not members of a religious order are called SECULAR PRIESTS, a term that made me laugh when I first saw it and which still makes me chuckle from time to time. They can also be called DIOCESAN PRIESTS, but what's the fun in that? Believe it or not, this overview has left a lot out. Like, I never told you about how CATHOLICOS was originally a title for a bishop whose territory was more devoted to a region than a specific city, but that it evolved to be the highest title in the Church of the East. But that's in part because while I intend to cover all 23 SUI IURIS–that is, self governing– churches that make up the overall Catholic church, nevertheless the ROMAN or LATIN CHURCH is the dominant stream of Catholic history, making up over 98% of Catholics today. In case I haven't made it clear enough yet, let me emphasize again that this stuff does get complicated and you don't need to feel bad about not knowing it all offhand. I've thought about this stuff for hours daily and I don't meet that bar, this episode required research like every other. But I hope this guide helps bring some clarity and can serve as a useful reference as you go. If I didn't explain it here, and possibly even if I did, I promise I'll explain it when it comes up as we go. Thank you for listening, God bless you all!

The heart of Catholic Christianity, the papal office, has been taken over by anti-Christian forces. This is the firm conviction of Dr Ashenden, former chaplain to her Majesty the Queen: "A parasite has taken over the control room of the Church." How can Catholics survive spiritually in this postmodern age now even the Church seems to abandon them? Dr Gavin Ashenden and Benno Zuiddam discuss the current crisis in the Roman Catholic Church and what you can do to keep the faith.

This week on The Open Door (November 1st), panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Valerie Niemeyer discuss India, religious freedom, and Thomism. Our distinguished and welcome guest is Prof. Timothy Samuel Shah of the University of Dallas. By training and personal passion, he is a scholar of politics and political philosophy, specializing in religion and global politics, religious freedom, and the history of moral and political theory. With his wife, Rebecca Shah, he is based in Bangalore, India. With Rebecca, he has established several initiatives in partnership with the University of Dallas, including a Jacques and Raïssa Maritain Program on Catholicism, Public Life and World Affairs. Under the auspices of the Maritain Program, Prof. Shah coordinates a monthly online Thomistic Study Circle, which involves numerous expert and amateur Thomists from around the world, and which seeks to re-enliven an appreciation of the Angelic Doctor's timeless teaching and relevance, especially for public affairs. Most recently, he and Rebecca established a Program for Indo-American Understanding and Friendship at the Gupta College of Business at the University of Dallas. The program, among other things, seeks to promote deep dialogue and genuine understanding between Hinduism and Catholic Christianity. In addition to serving as a Distinguished Research Scholar in the Politics Department at the University of Dallas, Shah also serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, an organization he founded with senior leaders of the world's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia, in order to strengthen and preserve a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.1. Prof. Shah, Tim if we may, how can Americans better understand India, now the most populous nation in the world?2. What might Mahatma Gandhi think of India today?3. Commentators are calling attention to the political and military implications of the developing relations between India and the United States. Can you explain for us something of what's at stake?4. India's Supreme Court recently declined to recognize same sex marriage, insisting that it was a matter for the legislature. What factors went into this decision?5. How did you come to have a special interest in religious freedom? What are some of the key challenges to religious freedom today?6. Could you tell us about how you came to the University of Dallas? How is it a distinctive institution?7. At the yearly conference of the American Maritain Association you presented a paper warning of the “siren song” of Catholic integralism. Why are you critical of this phenomenon?8. It has been said that everyone is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. But you are a keen Thomist. How did this happen? Were you, perhaps, trying to combine the best of Plato and of Aristotle?9. Is there a Catholic-Hindu dialogue in India? Is there a Catholic-Muslim dialogue in India?10. Pope Francis has said that we are already in the midst of World War III. What do you think he meant? Do you agree with him?

In From Here to History's first ever Halloween episode, spirits, demons, and the bodies they try to possess are the topic. Join Chris and Jason as they discuss an  anthology of stories and beliefs about possession and exorcism from across time and cultures. Follow us on Facebook and XThere are a lot of sources on the subject out there, here were some of ours:The Penguin Book of Exorcisms  A great anthology of exorcism stories from across time and from different culturesA History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity by Francis YoungThe Devil is Afraid of Me by Fr. Gabrielle AmorthAn Exorcist Tells his Story by Fr. Gabrielle AmorthEntertaining Satan by John Demos. This one centers on witchcraft in 17th Century New England but the material on possession, the worldview of the Puritans, and how these cases were often handled is worth a plungeSpirit Possession Around the World by Joseph LaycockThe Devil Came to St. Louis by Troy Taylor. Excellent summary of the Ronnie Hunkeler caseDemonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France by Sarah FerberThere are also great books on the Anneliese Michel case, we recommend the one by Felicitas Goodman, and The Devils of Loudun is a classic on the Loudun possessions 

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Have you ever read miracle stories in the bible and asked yourself, "I wonder if this happens today?" My guests today are Josh and Daisy Jones of the UK who share their testimonies of God intervening in and through their lives. Hear about Josh's miraculous healing from asthma, Daisy's baptism when a Muslim spoke in tongues, and various adventures walking with God both at home and abroad, especially in Israel. They also talk about their interesting journey to unitarianism as well as their plans to organize the first UCA (Unitarian Christian Alliance) conference in the London area in the summer of 2024.   —— Links —— For more about the Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) see unitarianchristianalliance.org. Check out episode 500 The Gifts of the Spirit in Early Christianity See also our 7-part series on the Holy Spirit, covering various major views of the manifestations of the spirit, especially speaking in tongues. Take a listen to episode 310 Are Gifts of the Spirit Available Today? with Sam Storms Lastly, check out these previous episodes on healing Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Transcript —— This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan: So Josh and Daisy Jones, so great to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining me. Josh Jones: It's our pleasure. Wonderful to be here. Daisy Jones: Yeah. Thanks for asking us. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. To begin with, I thought you could just introduce yourselves a little bit and tell a little bit about who you are and then we could get into your story a little bit and your background. So who who are you? Who are the Joneses? Josh Jones: An unconventional couple presently living in in north London. I'm a serving officer in the Parish regiment being served for 20 years in one capacity or. And we have got two wonderful children, joy and Isaac, five and three respectively. Days. Do you wanna talk about yourself? Daisy Jones: OK. Well, I guess my my first role is is mummy at the moment cause I've got a 5. And a three-year old and they are an absolute joy. In fact, they're both called joy because one is called joy. And the other one is called. Isaac, which means join laughter. So we're in the stage of still sleepless nights a little bit. I'm still nursing my youngest. So if you hear a cry in the background, I might have to disappear. But such is life. But we didn't want to miss this opportunity to speak with you because we listen to you a lot and you know we wanted to share our story. Sean Finnegan: Let's hear about how you came to faith. I don't know who would like to go first, but I've heard that in the UK in general and London in particular, there are a lot of secular minded people. So how is it that you two are Christians? Really, I guess. Would be my first question. Who would? Josh Jones: So yeah, so I was actually born in Australia. I grew up there in New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Portugal, before moving to England at the age of 12. And as a young kid, I was, you know, forced to go to church. My, my parents did have a faith. It is like live and vibrant today, very much so. But thinking in the younger days was very much just trying to instill in me some good behaviour and some. Good Bible stories. At the age of 12, moved to a place called Orpington in Kent. Again, just outside London up to the South East this time as opposed to the NW where we are presently and went to a really good Baptist Church, I very quickly fell in love with the word of God. There were some really godly men there who used to run the Bible study week by week, would go and just really enjoy studying the Bible as I got into my. Kind of later teens 1 by 1. My friends would leave as the lure of of teenage life just became too strong for. And but I just kind of fell more and. More in love. With the word. So I remember coming home from school and just like going. Into my other. Garage that we had converted and just like reading, reading the Bible and kind of got to age like 1617 or it's like, you know, this is real. Then if I pray something should happen because you know, this book is a story of men and women. And having supernatural encounters with a divine God, you know, every character is almost like a Marvel superhero in the sense that something extraordinary is happening in their lives. It's not just a blind faith, it's it's a living faith. And so I just started kind of praying where I was asking questions to understand what this particular passage. And or personal events in my life answers just started to arrive through all interesting and peculiar. News. There's a big move of God. Some Americans were probably aware of it in 1994. It was kind of aptly named the Toronto blessing. You know, I I. Did sense a change in the atmosphere in the churches? I saw people kind of leading what I'd more say, more spirit filled lives, passionate prayer activity, sharing their faith. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. And and in that period of time, you know, I saw miracles personally in my own life. I was healed, miraculously, of asthma that I had been suffering from from about 7:00. And right to the extent where I got prayed for in church and then completely forgot about it because there was a word that, you know, God wanted to hear someone ask for. And I had that since I was 7 and like my dad, he was like a fantastic rugby player. You know, I once made the B team at the age of seven. And on my glorious attendance on the pitch. I promptly had a a desperate attack within 10 minutes and got rushed to hospital, so my dad's hopes for a rugby player. You know, wearing the Kiwi jersey, we were cool, he. Crushed. Ohh man and. Sean Finnegan: Those those guys are epic. Those Kiwi rugby guys? Incredible. Josh Jones: And my dad was he was a fantastic rugby player and so there I was with my little inhalers, you know, and I was 19 at the time, 18 or 19. 18 I would. Have been a few. Weeks later, I went for my check up and my local doctor's surgery and I completely forgotten about the prayer and there was a new Doctor and I went through the test, et cetera. Then I went into her kind of office and sat down. And and she just started telling me off. I was like, what are you doing in here like. When the really aggressive. Voice, why are you wasting my time? And I'm just. Like what are you talking? About I'm here for my annual asthma check. Up and she said to. Me, there is nothing on these records to indicate. You've ever had asthma? In terms of the tests that I did in terms of all the scans and whatever they what they did for that for that check. Up so that. Was an astonishing thing for me. And you know, never, ever looked back. So I went the, the inhalers and all that stuff. Sean Finnegan: And how? How old are you now? You don't look 19 to me. Josh Jones: No, no, I'm 47 now. Sean Finnegan: 47 OK, so that's that's a long track record of not having asthma. Wow. That's incredible. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I got baptized. I led my best friend to to faith, baptized him in the local swimming pool, cause his family were Buddhists. And if they if they knew that. He had come. To faith they would have kicked him out of the house. And and you know, I was kind of that term on fire. Now the interesting thing is is. That I was clearly part of the Trinitarian Church and through all my study of Scripture, I never believed Jesus was God and I always knew that my understanding of who God was and. Who Jesus was was. Different from my Bible teachers from the. Pastors and this type of thing. But I never knew there was a name for it. I was completely oblivious to what is. Unitarianism and the history of the church, that council creeds. And stuff like this I. Was just like for me, Scripture is clear, but the outworking of my faith was sharing the gospel and I felt I could do that without having to confront this issue. Because it was just. I was young, I was energetic, and this type of. Thing. So I took a year out in. In that time I felt that the reason why God was was going to do this and my father, in good kind of Kiwi fashion because at the age of 15 he was given 500 bucks and told to go make his way in. The world you know. I I was 18 is like right. If if you don't. Get a job within within one week. You're out of the house. And that was me. You know, on my knees, praying and like, literally that day get a random phone call from a friend of mine who. Just thought he would call me to offer me a job in the local Silver Spoon Cafe and I was like, thank you Lord. So I was living in this kind of vibrant spirit filled love of being in relation with God went to university. I then set up running something called the alpha course. Do you know what the. Alpha course is. Uh, nothing. Do you know its? Sean Finnegan: No, I'm not familiar. Josh Jones: Yeah, it's basically an Anglican introductory course to God. The meaning of life. It's meant to be for beginner Christians and also people inquiring. So it's a very popular course here. Run by the kind of. I say conservative, evangelical Anglican wing, but it's hugely popular. Josh Jones: Yeah. So the catch phrase is who is Jesus essentially and it's. Basically questions. Daisy Jones: That was the original catch phrase slogan. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. And it's a 12 week course and the unique thing about it is introduced this bit. Who is the? Holy Spirit so. It kind of jumped on the back of. Kind of. The outpouring or whatever term people would like to use in 1994, and it gave people to kind of transition from a a reading about stuff to kind of stepping forward in terms of an in filling. Of the spirit. Now the the intriguing thing is that clearly it's a Trinitarian course and. And the and one of the key catchphrases of it was based on. CS Lewis's most famous phrases. Which was either Jesus. Was either Mad Bad or God. Now, clearly, I never believed that and, but I couldn't tell anyone that because here I was running this and. I always said you. Know Jesus is mad, bad God or. Who? He said he was. And because he was running, because I was able to just slightly amend certain parts. Sean Finnegan: You got away with that, huh? Daisy Jones: I got away with it. Josh Jones: I mean, I knew the book. I knew the book back. I literally memorized the entire book. But what I was able to do was present Jesus as he declared he was. Now, I didn't have the same knowledge as I do now in terms of Messianic prophecy is. But what I just didn't do was just present Jesus as God Almighty. And the the amazing thing is, as I recall, genuinely everyone who completed that course came to an independent, genuine faith. And from this little church grew this really vibrant community, you know, from there, I was involved in setting up a youth group, taking a whole bunch of young kids to church. I mean things. You could never do today. You know, with another kind of friend. We took a. 3 year old A5 year old A7 year old a nine year old and 12 year. Old to church. Really met their parents once you know. You could never do. Things like that in this morning. Yeah. Yeah, end up. Joining a a pretty vibrant rock band. Sean Finnegan: And what? What did you play? Josh Jones: So I played bass. Yeah. So I I recall one day it was my coming to the end because I studied law at university. Yeah, I'd always in the careers office had always been Paris marines or submarines. But with this explosion of faith, I always kind of joked that. I'm in God's army now, so. You know, this is this is where. I'm going to serve. And so I decided to do law. I remember praying in my room that I really wanted to have the opportunity to share my faith with kids in school and. Stuff like this. The next day, my Rd. from Hertfordshire. I was up to Saint Albans and on route. Halfway through I met this bloke called Mark James, who is now quite a famous worship leader in the Vineyard Worship movement and wasn't well. He wasn't then I had seen his band play. A month or so before, we'd only kind of shook hands. I said hi. But anyway, we got chatting on the zebra crossing and he goes. What you doing on Friday? It's like nothing. And he goes well, we're going into. The local school. With the band. We would like you to to play bass. To come and. Share your faith. And I wasn't really a musician by any stretch of imagination I can. I can. I'm maturing. I can play a rhythm and I can move. These guys were proper musicians. You know I'm the fool who can who can move around the stage. But that was me, you know, on the Friday there. I am in a school sharing. My faith, not four days after, you know, getting my knees and prayers saying, Lord, I'd really love to, to share my faith in schools with. Young people and then from. There joined something called our nation and spent the rest of the year basically touring around different schools doing that exact same thing, whilst somehow managing to do my law degree at the same time. I never let on. That my understanding of. Who God was was was different. To Michael, there are there are a few things that I used to kind of. Day, but again, it was before the age of the Internet. From what I recall, I hadn't met anyone with any of the knowledge that you or who's the who's the chat that we met? The yeah. Fancy Buzzard. You know, I just wasn't exposed to to any of this stuff. And and to me it's not wasn't important. Because I was seeing God move, you know, people's lives were being. Daisy Jones: Changed. Can I add an interesting detail? A little factoid. OK. Josh was in two bands that were unrelated. The secular one was called dusk and the. The Christian one was called dust. So yeah, that's a fact. So yeah, the one with Mark James's dust, isn't it? Yeah. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah, does. Now I'll kind of just bring. This particular part to a close and then we can go over to Daisy and then and then. Maybe back to me. In this period of time where I was, I felt very close to God. You know, I spent lots of time just out on the streets. Share my faith and many, many dark hours and that an incident occurred in the spirit that shook my faith in a way that I just. Was not expecting. It created like a kind of a a darkness, and it wasn't that my faith in God was shook, but it was my. Love for God? In, in the sense that I couldn't understand what had happened and you know, I struggled with this thing for almost five years. And I went to kind of senior leaders, people who I trusted. But because I was always kind of on the fringe of the church as I. Was a part of. Not so much because of my understanding who God was, but because I. Was out there living, sharing, preaching. I never really had that deep mentorship, and when I finally got to speak to the past, who I really respected, the advice he gave me was terrible, he said. Basically, if you can't understand why this happened, you will never trust God. It culminated with me at the age of 2526, walking away from everything that I was doing. I remained faithful in season and out of season as best as I. Good. And reconciling what had happened, what had got to a stage where I just was broken inside. And so I decided to step back and. Walk my own. Path, which I regret doing, and in that time I did get married. Not please Daisy and during up the Army, the parish regiment. There's a amazing verse that you. Know if we are faithless. God is still faithful and you know, slowly and surely he called me. Back and I've got many miraculous testimonies of extraordinary protection and provision and guidance, particularly whilst on operations and stuff like this, and and my son. Has really made a tremendous difference, but the kind of summary statement so I can break clean and that my beautiful wife speak is looking back. Whilst I was aware of what success looked like potentially in the spirit using kind of military terminology, what I wasn't aware of was my enemy and I didn't have the maturity and understanding of of. That's quite what it meant. When you know when Jesus said, you know, Satan is the father of lies, and that when he speaks deception, it comes out. As truth you. Know we live and fight this battle daily. We see how effective Satan's lives have been in terms of the corruption. Some of the. Most simple statements in the history of mankind, you. Know you're over God is. One and how they can turn 1 into a a purity you know. It's just but. How Satan can make but not just truth in the in terms of words and. Corrupt stuff, but actually in the spirit. As well, and I lacked the maturity of understanding just how deceptive. He can be and the absolute requirement to go back to the scriptures and test everything against the scriptures. Fast forward a number of years till about seven years ago, six years. Yeah, you always. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, 6 1/2 years. Josh Jones: Well, that's marriages. And we met before then. Daisy Jones: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yes. Josh Jones: In the February, yeah. Yeah. So do you. So do you spend some time on on young Daisy? Daisy Jones: Completely different background, so I'm a born and bred Londoner. My father is British, fiercely Welsh, and my mother's Argentinian, and so she's very Catholic. And my mother's side of the family are. Very Catholic. And so I grew up Catholic. I was baptized Catholic. I then flew over to Argentina for my Holy Communion. And. Yeah. Yeah. And it was actually quite embarrassing because they they handed me the cup of wine and basically I drank all of it because. Daisy Jones: I thought. That's what I was meant to do. You're supposed to. Sean Finnegan: Take a sip and. You can't. Daisy Jones: I was supposed to take a sip and I took the whole thing and I could hear all my family. The background. Goats up her like this, but anyway so but. It was still a good experience. And but sadly, that's where my official faith journey ended. Formally so my mom, I kind of see her as a Catholic marvel superhero. So she's she's worked for the Catholic Church for many years now. Well, now she works for a Christian charity that work with persecuted Christians in. The Middle East. But she's worked for the Catholic Church for many years, and so. Catholic highlights include going to Rome for the Catholic Great Jubilee in 2000 and sharing bread broken by John Paul the 2nd and sharing that with my. Mum, that was pretty cool. Even though I didn't identify as a Catholic at the time, but I still believed very strongly in God. Sean Finnegan: And and were you in Saint Peters Square, Vatican for that? What? What an amazing. Daisy Jones: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: Spot that is. Daisy Jones: It's just amazing it it it really is amazing. It's really amazing. Thing. And then my mom also organized Pope Benedict the 16th, who to my Protestant friends is Pope Ratzinger. I guess to come over. And that was around 2010. So she organised a big event in Hyde Park. And so I went to see him there, which was an amazing experience. Again, and because she'd organised it, obviously we were kind of in the front and I had all these bishops and Cardinals behind me. And I remember turning round and apologising to them, saying, oh, I'm you're far more pious than me and. I shouldn't really. Be here and I'm not. I'm not even Catholic. And I remember a nun who was next to this quite important cardinal. She said to me. Oh, you're right where God wants you to be. And I thought, OK. I'll roll with that. Another notable moment in my Catholic history with a bit of a Latin American flavour. Is a few years ago I went to the hills in northern Argentina in a place called Salba La Linda, which means Salta the beautiful. And there's a lady there who claims she says she sees apparitions of. The Virgin Mary. Thousands of people come from all over the world. Every Saturday they come to see her. So even though I was very non Catholic at the time and but still a very strong believer at that time and wanting to honour my mum who'd invited me, I went there and that was a pretty mad experience if you've experienced. The South American Catholicism, I don't remember seeing a branch on the way up to the hill Slash Mountain that didn't have hundreds of plastic rosaries on, you know, and and then when you got there, she prayed over you with a rosary in one hand and then she put her hand on your your head. And there were loads of people falling over and stuff, but very silently in a very Catholic way, not a Pentecost. The way. Sean Finnegan: I do want to hear, I guess I'm curious about the Unitarianism a little bit more because what, Daisy, what you said is that you, you never believed in the. Trinity at all. Daisy Jones: No, I know, I know. I mean don't. Sean Finnegan: You have like the Catholic. Daisy Jones: No. Yeah, I mean, I definitely did the sign, but I didn't know. What I was doing but. My heads, God and Jesus, were always distinguishable, distinct. Sean Finnegan: So then you're an example of a Catholic Unitarian. Right. Daisy Jones: No, no, I I don't. I I I cause I didn't even know the word Unitarian. It was just my it was just my understanding of it. I I never shared it. There was no real forum to share it. Sean Finnegan: Right, but here. Here's. Here's what I'm thinking. About is my own mother. She was a Baptist, I think a Southern Baptist. And she said she never believed in the Trinity and she was always, you know, she would never use EU word Unitarian. But she would she, but that that did describe what she believed. She believed that there was a father. Daisy Jones: 100%. Sean Finnegan: And then there's Jesus, OK. So I wonder how many people are in that category even now in Orthodox Christianity and Catholic Christianity and Anglican Christianity among evangelicals of all different stripes, you know? I I bet. There are lots of Unitarians that you know that it's not. Organized in their mind behind a word or a theology, it's just sort of like it's just sort of fuzzy. Daisy Jones: Yeah. So yeah, so those are my kind of highlights of my Catherine Catherine. Oh, gosh, sorry. Catholic, Unitarian. And then on my dad's side. So I'll go into a bit of my dad's family history, cause it's quite interesting from a non conformist Unitarian. Angle I come from about 5 generations of very non conformist Christian thinkers who wanted the disestablishment. Of the church. So they were a mixture of Welsh and from the Isle of Man. I don't know if you've heard of the Isle of Man. It's a kind of small island. Just off the coast of Britain, obviously, and so my ancestors were big on. Trying to well, they wanted freedom from worship. They didn't want to send taxes to the Church of England. They wanted the freedom to worship and for everything to be decentralised from Westminster, which is still why the Welsh and the Scottish hate the English because they think that it's still very centralised around Westminster. So my ancestors are kind of. Famous for rejecting the Affination Creed for not noticing Lent and not observing Ash Wednesday and things like this. So I like to think well, we I've just had an update from ancestry.com. I've still got 60% of Welsh blood flowing through my veins. So I like to think I've got a drop of that non conformist blood in my veins, definitely. Sean Finnegan: Well, at least you don't have the accent. To us, we need a translator. Daisy Jones: Ohh yeah, no. Well, she's well, she's very strong. Sean Finnegan: We Americans have no idea what they're saying. I yeah, I really. Daisy Jones: That's my dad's side, but unfortunately my dad is agnostic. I I checked in with him last week. He's 85 and I said daddy. You know, you still don't believe in God, and he said no, but I respect your, you know, beliefs and I love you and blah blah as you've mentioned before the UK. Is quite a. Secular landscape Brits tend to be just quite cynical about everything and just miserable sometimes. Maybe it's the weather. I don't. I went to university, I went to Durham University where Harry Potter was filmed. There I met my best friend, who is a evangelical Protestant, and I think she was the first person I'd ever met who was like an evangelical who actually believed in God and was Protestant, I guess. Thinking back through my faith journey, one of the things that really impacted me was. Meeting her parents and her parents, inviting me to pray with them all out loud around the table. It really had an effect on me about how powerful prayer was because prayer for me was always at night and to myself, and obviously always praying for other people, but very silent and very solemn. In the Catholic way, whereas this was very dynamic and I felt really moved by it, it moved me to tears actually. And I thought this is what I really like. This kind of charismatic expression of faith after university. I also took a year out in Spain and then I moved to Argentina. I went to Argentina for a bit. And then when I came back, I did a series of jobs, completely wild, different jobs. I've always talked for the last 20 years, but I also did a bit of modelling very badly. And then I also did just other things. Other work. I had a shop I was designing things. It was quite a hectic life. But because I didn't have that kind of firm biblical church foundation thing, I think I kind of drifted off and got very attracted by the esoteric things new agey kind of things. I kind of got lured into reading esoteric books. Reading about the new age and stuff like this. And also made friends with people who were kind of in that environment. I guess I was craving the spiritual. But again, I didn't really have that firm Biblical Foundation to realize that it's not what God wanted and it's not what I should have been doing. God really convicted me. That I should leave the new Agey world slowly, slowly, I started to kind of remove certain items like the Buddha on my on my wall and stuff like this, and to get rid of my esoteric books and stuff. I started listening to Derek Prince, who's a very famous Pentecostal preacher. He's died now. He's he was at Cambridge and he was a philosopher, originally had no interest in religion, and God hit him one night and suddenly he had this. Big healing and deliverance ministry. And so I started listening to. It's really powerful sermons, and they really. Really impacted me and I remember him saying about his healing and deliverance ministry that he felt. Really ill equipped to do it but he just did it anyway because he thought that. God would equip him. At the time, so that really stuck in my mind. Sure enough, in a very cliched way, I kind of everything was going wrong in my life and I guess I hit rock bottom. Them and it's a very cliched story and sometimes I think, God, you know, despairing at some of us going ohh, you know, another one who had, who was so stubborn and had to like, you know, get to a certain place in order to accept. So, yeah. So. So that's basically what happened is that I text a friend of mine who I I could see. Salt and lighten him and I asked him, could you take me to your church? And so, yeah, so I drove for four hours on Sunday and arrived at his church. And I arrived just in time for the pastor to. You say that there was someone there and then he went on to describe everything I'd done in my life and everything. I wanted to kind of clear out of my life. And so my legs just took me to the altar. It's never happened since it had never happened before. And there then I gave my life to Jesus in a full and whole way there and then. And. Yeah. And then my life changed quite dramatically after that in a very good way. After that, I decided to do an alpha course. And the alpha course. Is a very Anglican introductory course to God or to Jesus, as they'd say, and the meaning of life, basically. But it's a very, very popular course here. Millions of people do it. It's for those. It's inquiring, people who want to do it basically. And there's a focus on the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit Weekend at the end of it. So I decided I wanted. To do that. And at the same time, I continued going to this very charismatic Pentecostal church where I had been born again, and I had. A love for. Jews, Muslims and the gay community, and I felt like. Like I was going to do something, helping them, serving them, loving them in some way. That's what God had impacted on me at this conservative, very white middle class church. I met a friend who is the interfaith minister, was the interfaith minister at Lambda. Alice's Lambeth Palace is kind of our this is a really weak comparison, but it's like our Rome. It's the head of the Anglican. Church in the world? Yeah, but it's like a pauper's palace compared to Saint Peters Square. But anyway, so he worked there, but he was working with Muslims, and he invited me to this party with. Lots of. I guess the Christian Anglican movers and shakers I went there, I was just kind of chatting at this party and he pulled me aside and he said Ohh, would you pray with me and my friend for my friend and I said, yeah, OK. So I went with him and it was him. Who I obviously he's an established Christian. It was his friend who was a leader at Holy Trinity, Brompton. HB is the biggest church in the UK and the biggest Anglican and the biggest church. I think in of any denomination. It's it's a very big. Like big branch of. And they asked me to pray for their friend. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm a baby Christian. What am I doing here? I'm totally not qualified to be praying for these people. But anyway, I prayed for their friend and normally in that situation, I would definitely let the men lead the prayer. And especially because they were more. Qualified than I was in many ways. But I started just leading the prayer and the Holy Spirit just gave me words of knowledge about their friend, about his upbringing. It obviously chimed A chord with their friend. Anyway, the prayer went well and afterwards I pulled my friend to one side and I said, why did you ask like little old me? To pray and he said. Well, he said. I could tell you were good in dark places, he said, and he left it at that. And I thought. OK. So that was a kind. Of signpost for me, one of the first signposts. That I maybe was going to go into some kind of healing and deliverance ministry. Then when I got baptized. I actually ended up doing healing and deliverance on a lady who was there. So when I got baptised, I decided I didn't want to go the church route because all the baptisms I'd seen in church were very fast and furious, and it was like dunk towel, dunk towel, dunk towel. And I thought, look, if I'm gonna be completely born again. I need serious prayer and I. Want it to be intimate? That and so I reached out to a pastor and I said, look, would you baptize me not in a church? And he said, yeah, sure. I can baptize you anywhere. He's like, I can baptize you in the 10s, which is like, I don't know, the Hudson River, which is pretty gross or the sea, which I thought was cold. And and it. Or or your. Bath and I felt great. It can be nice and warm and I'm really happy with that. So we planned a date when obviously Josh could attend and his sister, who's a big worship leader in in a in a big church in South London. Unbeknownst to everyone he brought along last minute, two people and one of those people was an enquiring Muslim, but she didn't announce herself to be a Muslim. She didn't say anything and she was totally dressed as a Westerner. There was no indication she wasn't hijabi, she she was completely westernized. So when I got dunked in the privacy of my bathroom, she broke out into tongues and she didn't know what was happening. She didn't understand it at all. But when that happened. And as soon as I got out. And got dressed. There was a lot of commotion going on and then she asked. Me to baptise her. So at my baptism I ended up baptising a Muslim into the Christian faith, and that was pretty wild too, because, well, I've never baptized. Anyone. And secondly, just before I was about to put her in the water, I had a word of knowledge basically. That she was. Here for something really bad that had happened to her, and God was showing me what had happened and the people involved, and that she was gonna completely. Be set free from that, so I whispered to her what I could see. She was very shocked and she said that's exactly why I came today. Because I want to be. Free from this and then Josh's sister who's amazing. She said to her. I see you in white robes before the throne of God, and you are so precious to him and she her eyes just totally. She just just totally popped out of her head and she. Said I've had that recurring dream for a very long time. And you've just confirmed again why I'm here. So that was pretty crazy. And again, it was confirmation I had like. Confirmation that one I maybe had. A ministry with Muslims and two, that healing and deliverance is obviously for today. So then then out of the blue, I got asked to teach English to Arab Orthodox coptics and apostates out of the blue, my friends asked me, she said, would you teach English to all these people? And I said yes, I would, and turns out. The location was the church that I had become born again in. Yeah, that was actually a real privilege. That was about a year and a half and I heard some amazing stories about when Jesus visits Muslims. He really visits them in a really powerful way. So, like, at the end of their beds, speaking to them on the motorway, in dreams, in visions, I I heard the most amazing things. And they really left everything. They left their families, their countries and. Thing. Now I'm gonna say something super controversial. Obviously I'm already heretic in the Trinitarian world, but I'm likely to be a heretic in every world now, but I don't actually like the word apostate and the only reason I'm using. It is because. In the Koran, Jesus is the Messiah. He is. Marcia he is Al Masir, which is the Messiah. He is Marcia. He said. Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He's the word, you know. He's the healer. He's the mender of bones. And so for me. Dems love Jesus Christ. They just don't understand him in his fullness, and obviously they've got the one God part right. I'm gonna get a lot of haters. What I'm saying here, but I've just gotta. Say it, but obviously. We think Trinitarianism is the stumbling block for Jews and Muslims. That's just a fact they can't understand that God. Die. And so for me, I was just talking to them about the Jesus I love and also teaching them. English, which was which was really. Then I did a term in in prison. Not because I was arrested and went to prison, but I did prison Alpha, which is the alpha course in prison. So it's introducing the prisoners to faith. And that was pretty amazing because obviously I broke all the rules. We weren't meant to hog the prisoners. I hug the prisoners. What was weird was I I ended up getting Facebook requests from them in prison I was like. Hang on, he's. That has he got a mobile phone, but that was really amazing and that definitely impacted me massively on my face journey. I was always naturally Unitarian, but I'd never really thought that clearly. Obviously, I never thought that Jesus and God were one person. I always saw them separately. Ironically, yeah, all the Catholic iconography does portray them as completely different anyway, so for me there was always a distinction between. God the father and Jesus. And so when Josh and I started dating, I just came out with it and just said you don't believe Jesus is God, do you? And and yeah, he paused. And I thought, ohh, that's the end of our relationship. Short lived relationship and and no. And then he confirmed that he never. Taught Jesus as. God, when he was running out. The courses at university. And then I was like and then and and then after that I was driving with Josh and we were off to see his atheist, Pagan druid friends who live with loads of lizards. It's, and that's another story. But anyway. And we were off to see them. And I feel the Holy Spirit prompted me. To speak to a friend of mine who is the most knowledgeable person with the biggest encyclopedic brain I know on the scriptures and everything else he was learning Latin and Greek from too. He speaks multiple multiple languages, and he's very, very. Right. And I met him doing some. I was hosting some politics events. I thought, OK, I'll text him to see what he thinks about the Trinity. So I I sent him a message and I said, hey, I know you're on the board of a very ancient Trinitarian society, but you don't really believe in the Trinity. He and he responded almost instantly and said thank you so much for contacting me, Daisy, he said. Actually, no, I don't. And my parents run a Unitarian Bible study group, so. We went to this Bible study group and we met loads of cool people which introduced us to the very exclusive Unitarian community. Then we got invited to David Seaborn Jones, who's lovely and absolutely lovely. And we got invited to his house. Umm. And for a fellowship with Santoni Bozard because he was in the. And when we prayed, I I confess that our dream is to maybe open a. Hmm. Yeah, well, no. Open the church here. And it was Anthony Buzzard who said I see you may be opening a church, a Unitarian church in Israel. Josh Jones: I'm sorry. That's that's the point in. Sean Finnegan: Israel. Yeah, yeah. Josh Jones: That's before we realize that we celebrate Sabbath and stuff like that. So. I'm often like. Arguing with little Carlos on the thing going. Carlos like... Josh Jones: Although I've a I love the respect. For a lot of the stuff that Carlos. So yeah, so Daisy introduced us. Sean Finnegan: So when when did? You meet Anthony. Josh Jones: Maybe 3-4 years ago. 4 favored and. Daisy Jones: Before it was 20, joy Joy was one, so it must. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. Four years ago, OK. Daisy Jones: Have been four years. Josh Jones: Ago, yeah. So from so I took up this really unique job here in Northwood bays and I, you know, we got married, we moved in together, we started to develop this kind of little community of Unitarian Christians. I started to understand more about the history and this type of thing. And my my vision still was to look. It was almost like to infiltrate. Into the Church of England, a bit like a Nicodemus type of character in a way to try and bring about positive change because you know, I'd been part of Trinitarian churches or no Unitarian churches at all. Wear off and so I kind of again still discretely I was because still developing my understanding and started going for the the Bishop's advisory process, whatever that, that that was it because our, our, our real aim actually my real aim in the first instance was trying to build unity through community and not doctrine and 1st instance. So it was trying to bring about the love and. Daisy Jones: Now versus. Josh Jones: What about working of our faith? To then demonstrate and bring influence in communities, really to show the love and and the positive effects that people who follow you sure can bring to a community. And because that's what I've always seen in my younger days and it's like my sister, you know, you can break into the hard landscape here in the UK if you go out and preach the. Word and spirit and faith. Because God will be there and people's hearts will be changed, people's lives will be moved. Well, we had this vision to try and unite churches, to get churches to look outside their purview. Of their four walls, to get people to pull resources. To pull ideas. You know, a church full of old people helping. Maybe the church with like the young kids, you know, get a few churches together so that young people can form a good youth group thing. But basically all my ideas and work were just poo pooed, you know, the passing it back to me and don't look, having grown up in churches, I've got thick skinned Germaine. I'm not. I'm not taking it super personally, but when the guy in charge of the bat, I transpired, was the guy who was promoting the transgender liturgy in the Church of England. I was just like. There is no way in our good Lord sweet Earth I'm letting latch app determine whether I suitable. So we withdrew ourselves from that one of the offshoots of the church we were attending was gonna be shut down. And The thing is, it was full of very beautiful old faithful Christians. A lot of them quite set in their ways, but. They did outreach in the school, so sharing the gospel, you know, they did work with old people and stuff. Like this so we. Just thought it's wrong just to shut this down so days and another couple stepped up to and we ended up Co leading this church about a year and. 1/2 and you know. I was able to do that. You know, we were preaching. Regularly so just preaching. Daisy Jones: You're preaching Unitarianism in a Trinitarian church. Josh Jones: Yeah, basically. Daisy Jones: Totally undetected because we were just preaching the word. Josh Jones: And most people don't. They're blinking bibles. Do you know what I mean? So. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does help when you're preaching from the. Old Testament and the. Arms you you can go under the radar, but it wasn't in an underhand way or anything. It's just we we just preached what was spilled and. What was written? And and that was it. And it wasn't anything under housing. Josh Jones: Yeah, we, you. Know with the hope of changing hearts and minds and developing people and introducing people to God's name. You know what it meant to be the Messiah. You know what? Were the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible that were then actually fulfilled in Yeshua? Well, I didn't, you know, these are terms probably still using the word Christ and stuff like this. But then it just got to a point where you know every now and again there'll be a. Like a a focus on the. Trinity and it. Will just infuriate me massively and we just got the points like where we actually wanna step outside of this. Now we want to have the freedom to really share what's on our hearts. So in the early stages about community, it was about just showing the word the. Passport that we we used to do lots of stuff on the on the military base where we are here. So running kind of messy church for kids and this time. The thing but the the kind of division changed to like I really now want to counter the Trinitarian narrative and. Take that head on. Daisy Jones: And also our love for juice and Muslims. You know, when we were in Israel, we're gonna have to do another show on on the miracles that happen in Israel, not least an Orthodox rabbi running after me and grabbing my arm and asking me what my secret was because I had joy. So I got to tell him about Yeshua and say, you know, I love Yeshua and I love Israel and had a good joke with him because then he prophecy. Died and I said wait, you're not meant to do that. You just think that old prophets did that. Anyway, he has been wishing me a happy Shabbat every Friday for the last five years. And we had other amazing encounters where we just had Jews on their way to synagogue and just come up to us out of the blue. Stop us in. The street and say. And in Galilee and and the sky just stopped us. And he was all in black with his little briefcase on his way to synagogue. And he stopped, and he wouldn't stop staring. And he was about to walk into a lamp post. So I was like, hey. Josh Jones: In in. Daisy Jones: Hey, so anyway he he. Just can't he? He didn't even say hello. He said I want you to know, I believe that Jesus walked on water here. And and then he. Josh Jones: Asked us to share. Jesus with him. Tell him about Jesus. This is a random bloke. Who literally just walked up to us as. We were walking from our. Hotel down to this. To the wherever the town centre is in in the the base. Of Galilee. Literally. Daisy Jones: I would really say it was hotel. It was a. Shed, but anyway. Josh Jones: Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean. It was astonishing, I mean, absolutely astonishing. Daisy Jones: Yeah, it was amazing. Josh Jones: Yeah. So we, we we met this a Muslim kind of evangelist who'd met a a French guy, was it who was gonna basically convert to Islam. He was all happy. And he showed this little photo of him. Anyway, the next day we'd arranged to go and meet this guy, but we were running late. Not that this was the imam guy, just to again speak about. Stuff and we're in the proper. You know what The streets are like in Jerusalem, completely crowded and. And then David just says. Stop that, man. I look around and I and she's pointing towards like a backpack and. Like a bloke with. A massive brown. Hair like uh. And so I just went out. To this guy and I just. Stopped him and I said I do. Do you mind? Stopping my wife would just. Want to speak to you? I have no idea. Why? Anyway, Daisy comes up. Daisy says you're the guy who's gonna convert to us, aren't you? And he goes, yeah. Why? And it's like I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is like one random bloke in thousands. How did Daisy know? Anyway, I said, look, I think we can give him a word and we'd like to just share our faith with you and speak to you. Give your story this type of thing. And so we end up going to the where's the beautiful, the beautiful cafe at Christchurch in near Saint? There David's gate and. Daisy Jones: Yeah, the concern. They're the only Protestant church within the walls. Josh Jones: Yes, that's the one. Have you been there? Sean Finnegan: Are you talking about the old city? Yeah. Nails. Yeah. Which gate is it? Josh Jones: So David's gate it's. The oldest Methodist Church in. Sean Finnegan: Yes, I I had. Yes, I do remember. Seeing that, yeah. Josh Jones: Best place to stay, I'd say. And best food anyway. So it was getting late and we sat down. We got coffee. I remember going into the toilet and just praying that God would give me the words to say, you know, help me witness. But. But I just pray for God to. To help us. You know, witness to this guy. Here we go outside. There's no one. Around except this old woman kind of sitting maybe 10 meters away from us. You know when you know that, someone can hear what you're talking about and they're. But they're trying not to be too obvious that they know that they. Kind of almost want to get. Involved in the conversation. And so she's rattling a little chair. And so I just went over this and just kind of introduce. Myself, but I can't remember quite how it happened. Daisy Jones: I told you invite. Josh Jones: Her over? Yeah. And basically walks as kind of 80 year old Palestinian Catholic woman who takes over the conversation with this young French guy. And gives him the most amazing testimonies of God's healing of God's speaking to her. Of this vibrant. Faith of this. Old Palestinian Catholic woman and we were just blown away. It was just like, wow. Sean Finnegan: And she spoke English. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. She spoke English. Yeah, yeah. Daisy Jones: And the reason why she was there was. Because she was. Waiting for a friend. She never turned up. I saw her on her own. I felt. Sorry for her. I was like come. On come over and then she did. She did all the evangelizing for us. And then that was it that. With him back to being a Christian again. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, well, that's great. It's great to hear that God is at work today and that that's really the message that's shining through from the two of you. Your testimony, your, your experiences, that's so great. So tell us about this conference that's coming up. You guys have a a plan and you have Co conspirators. And your hope. Daisy Jones: We've hooked up with. The Christadelphians it's a miracle I'm checking. No, we love. Sean Finnegan: Charismatics and Christadelphians working. Together it is a miracle, absolutely. Josh Jones: The UCA. I think it's a wonderful resource. I I use a lot of it and I do hope to become a more active participant in. In videos and and debates as we go. Forward, but I. There is this real. Sense of, you know, opportunity to try and build a community of Unitarian believe it's here in the UK. And actually I think and aim for a conference is a fantastic idea. The vision very much aligns with what the UA wants to do. You know, Daisy and I represent a I think was our background. We we are quite comfortable speaking with Unitarians and Christians from all different flavours. And so therefore perhaps. On call us. Honest brokers in every respect because we do have our own particular kind of where we learn issues. But. The unifying call really was saying it's Romans 15 five to seven, you know. May the God of patient endurance and encouragement grant you all to be in agreement with one another. So that was one mouth and one mind. You might glorify the father of our Lord Jesus, the anointed one, therefore accept one another just as the anointed one has accepted you. Daisy Jones: Although that's not the official strap line of. Josh Jones: The IT is. Not but. That that's the vision, really, one mind, one mouth, you know, come together to and unify in, in to kind of learn about and share our faith in God. The father, the ones we. God and but also to reach out across Europe because you know Europe, there are a number of, you know, little strongholds of Unitarian Christians across Europe. And so it's an opportunity to, to pull people together. The great challenge, how we're is finding a location and the Trinitarian churches basically were turning around saying, no, no, no. So my plan was and hopefully no one from it was to find a a church that has perhaps become more liberal in their meanings. And there's a particular denomination where, sadly they've sold off more than 5060% of their churches in the last four or five years they've made amalgamate. They're very much fall under the liberal banner, but actually the nice thing is that presents a freedom and an opportunity. So we found a a wonderful location now where they've agreed that we can host it. I'm not gonna say where it is at the moment, so I need. To go down and. Do the the wrecking, but everything seems seems fine. Sean Finnegan: Is it near? Josh Jones: London. Yep. Yep, it's near London. OK. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Sean Finnegan: Well, that, that. Gives people a a rough idea of where, where. Josh Jones: Ohh yeah, and it's a beautiful. Daisy Jones: Historic location. Josh Jones: Sorry, historic location. So everyone would love. To go there. Daisy Jones: And I think that's the angle we want. We want to entice the Americans here with the historic. Your perspective, I know you know well we we want the whole board to come. I think that that I think the whole board have said they'd like to come, but no, we we want to focus it on the kind of restorative aspect, restoring the faith back to what we believe is the original 1st century Christianity. And this is our little. Sean Finnegan: You are Americans. Daisy Jones: Historical bit, but it you know, I mean it is pretty historical to have a UCA conference in Great Britain and the United Kingdom, you know, and and and that's why we want to incorporate. Great. The other activities like a day at Speakers Corner where we've met lots of Unitarians and you know and we we'd love to also organise a debate with Dell as we're discussing and planning. So it has been tricky, as Josh said, because we always get initial. Yes. Yes, of course. And then I'll and then I've always had. To ask them. Can you just check with your board that this is OK? They check with the board. It's like, sorry your theology. Sucks. You're not welcome. And and so this has happened like I don't know 20 plus Times Now we've just been asking, asking. Anyway I think we do have a location and to be disclosed soon, very picturesque, very beautiful and I think. Sean Finnegan: Do you? Have a time when it will happen. Josh Jones: Yes, Sir. Was it the last? Daisy Jones: We're thinking July next year, aren't we? Josh Jones: Weekend in July. Daisy Jones: It's July next year. Let's not pinpoint it. Josh Jones: What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just so we would like to maximise it, cause July, August, September. Is holidays for Europe as well. Is if we can link it in also with maximize your opportunity for the. Americans to come and. Daisy Jones: And good weather because we've. Sean Finnegan: Well, yeah. I was gonna ask about that. Is it the case that in July there might be like a day or two without? Daisy Jones: Had three. Sean Finnegan: Without rain? Yeah. Daisy Jones: No, I I think. I think London gets a bad. I think in the 80s and 90s it rained more than it did now. But I mean we, we've had I say I'd say three weeks of of a. Josh Jones: Yeah, definitely. Daisy Jones: Summer of of. Great. And now it's back to like blankets. Sadly, but no, we would like we would like to do it. Josh Jones: In the summer and yeah, we've reached out to different, you know, through this process, you know, developing relationships with Unitarians in more European countries that I was unaware of. So, you know, one individual in Copenhagen knows some people in Norway, people in Norway. For people in Denmark so that that that is developing and and also here in the UK, we're really developing our our understanding of you know there are different large Unitarian communities. Daisy Jones: Big messianic one. Yeah. And we're kind of quasi messianic. Josh Jones: Aspiring messianic. Yeah. And so, you know, winning. It'll be an opportunity for for people to come and meet and also new, you know, those newly out of the Trinitarian. Faith because. And by next year, there's gonna be a lot more of them, you know? And so it's that chance, that sense of belonging and some. Some good teaching. Sean Finnegan: When you are persecuted or an isolated minority, you know you can put aside a lot of these other issues to to meet together and you know, I think if if the conference can be a place where people. Don't feel pressured to conform to 1 doctrinal package other than Unitarianism can really spur on a camaraderie rather than a competition between groups. Yeah, that's what it's done in the US, and so many of the groups in the US, especially people from my background. Daisy Jones: Yeah, definitely. Sean Finnegan: Not I was never really. In the way but my. Parents were but. They all built these kingdoms. And they built these. Walls as high as high as they. Could and they and it. Was all loyalty based on Ohh are you with this person or? Are you with that? Person and that was my parents generation in my generation. What I've seen overwhelmingly is the tearing down of these walls and overwhelmingly people saying well. Maybe we have some disagreements, but that's OK. I'm not intimidated by you. You're not. Intimidated by me so. Let's work together as much as we can. This is really a period of of building in the unitary movement because we're not persecuted, we're excluded. I can't attend certain conferences. I can't attend certain universities. I can't get published by certain publishers, right, so I'm excluded. But I'm not actively persecuted. OK. And so we have. An opportunity to build, to build coalitions and you know, the UCA is an alliance. Doesn't mean you're free. Churchill and Stalin were an alliance, right? They weren't friends. They didn't even like each other, but they they they were. They were allies in World War 2. So that's really a starting point. Hopefully it goes beyond just sort of like putting up with the other person. So I'd love to see that soft thing happen. Where there's banding together and pooling of resources and and and you know marketing and getting the. Message out because. I think there are, I think you're. Right. There are all these sleep. Others in the churches that are just like, yeah, that never really made sense to me. They just didn't have a word for it. And I think we can agitate for a truth revolution within Christianity. Josh Jones: That's it. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think another interesting thing is that the Christadelphian church here have incorporated 1000 Iranians. So not for this conference, because they're English. They've just come and their English isn't. Josh Jones: That you 100. Daisy Jones: Great. We we're not going to spend the whole conference, you know, finding translators, falsely translators. But maybe in the subsequent conferences, you know, we could have a whole bunch of Iranians and Iraqis and people who who found us. Josh Jones: It is wonderful that we have this opportunity to branch out and and and share ideas and stuff like this. Sean Finnegan: Well, let me come back on the the Iranian comment. It's interesting because I did an interview with Sam Tiedeman on africat the Persian. And Afriat is a little known Christian from the 4th century who was a Unitarian. Living in the land of Persia, which is the land of the Iranians who speak Farsi, sounds like the word Persia, right? So you can say to the Iranians when they're at this conference that they can have ethnic pride in Unitarian Christianity going all the way back to the three. Three 20s and three 30s and three 40s, right about the time that Constantine died and Athanasius was agitating in the West. In the East offer how? It was writing his demonstration, so you have to check out that interview there. But there there might be some coming full circle with these Iranians, you. Know they took. A little detour to Islam for, you know, 13 centuries, 15th century. But now they're back, you know. And so I'm so excited about this. Conference. How can people hear more about it? I suppose we'll post it on Unitarian Christian alliance.org. Or or do you have other ways people can find out? Daisy Jones: Yeah, we need to square away the venue officially. So we're in the final stages of that, and then we need a bit more back and forth with the board. Just confirming everything's cool and then we're going to push, push, push. Josh Jones: Yeah, as I. Said so, we're lining up some, some hopefully. Some really some high profile debate. Some practical activities and some activities left and right at the conference that people want to attend that are not bespoke as part of the conference. So you know visits to the British Museum where they've got. This great book Biblical history for. Sean Finnegan: Ohh yeah, I've always. Wanted to go to the British. Daisy Jones: Museum amazing. It's amazing. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah, you know, and you need. Sean Finnegan: You need about a week, right is. Isn't it just so big? Josh Jones: So yeah, and then we'll do, we'll do you know, we'll get stuff out on Facebook on YouTube, we'll pass you around. All the Unitarian commentators so they can put it on their different podcasts and stuff like this. Sean Finnegan: Facebook groups and. Twitter or ex whatever we call this. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: This social media now. That sounds really great and is it? Is it? Mainly targeted at. Academics. Or is it more practical or inspirational? Or how would you characterize? Josh Jones: It's gonna be all. Yeah. Yeah. So we would like it to. We're gonna, we're going to model it on the US model. So combination of academic, theological, practical, personal, the whole smorgasbord of of Unitarian. Daisy Jones: And we're and. We're trying to make it as affordable as possible. So initially I think we did want the big grand venue until we got the invoice. And then we were like, oh, actually you. Know what we do? Want students coming and also we want everyone to be able to afford to get both a plane ticket from Europe and to be able to afford to to come. So I think we're we're also looking at catering and house cater all that kind of stuff. So I think we're moving for the first conference, it won't be residential. Which is what we were hoping for at the beginning, but it will be more affordable overall. We hope. Yeah, exactly. Sean Finnegan: It is near London, so we can't. You can't think it's going. Oh yeah. To be too inexpensive, right? It's a big city. Josh Jones: Yeah. Well, you'll be surprised. I said I've I've hopefully applied a bit of my my military planning to this to this little conundrum and a bit of spiritual cunning and wisdom in terms of. And because, you know, we're not blessed with America, we're all your joint. Super churches everywhere. We just we just. Which is which is. Sean Finnegan: Well, anything else you guys wanna share real briefly or say before we close. Josh Jones: Now I just say thank you once again, Sean, you're an inspiration. You know you've made a real difference in people's lives, you know, fulfilling your mission in, in, in, you know, in love and kindness and and with a good dash of humour. So yeah. Which is brilliant. Daisy Jones: Yeah, nothing apart from gifts for today. And we love Christadelphians and we're really excited to be all working together. That's. Josh Jones: It, yeah. Sean Finnegan: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much.

Western Christianity—Latin Christianity—began in Africa and made its way across the sea to Italy. All the great orthodox Latin writers of the first through third centuries were African. The distinctive western liturgy was likely a product of Roman Africa. Christianity came to Africa at a time of literary renaissance, and the Church is still the beneficiary of that particular Christian culture. Links Mike Aquilina, Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity https://catholicbooksdirect.com/products/africa-and-the-early-church-the-almost-forgotten-roots-of-catholic-christianity J. Patout Burns Jr., Robin M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Roman-Africa-Development-Practices/dp/0802869319 Thomas Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity https://www.amazon.com/Africa-Shaped-Christian-Mind-Rediscovering/dp/0830837051/ Mike Aquilina's website https://fathersofthechurch.com/ Mike Aquilina's books https://catholicbooksdirect.com/writer/mike-aquilina/ Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed http://www.ccwatershed.org/ Please donate to this podcast: http://www.CatholicCulture.org/donate/audio/

The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom are presented to us in the Catechism. We examine what it means to have respect for other religions and the freedom, within limits, to exercise our convictions. Fr. Mike makes it clear that it is our calling as Christians to evangelize and bring our Catholic Christianity to the public square. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 2104-2109. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

In this episode, Fr. Stephen and John continue to unpack tradition in the framework of the Second Vatican Council's affirmation of Papal Infallibility and Tradition - key doctrines that tie Catholic Church together. They touch on Johann Adam Möhlar's assertion that Church gospel and tradition stand or fall together, and probe the challenges caused by Latin being used as the primary language during the First Vatican Council. With Father Sanchez's enlightening insights, they trace the continuous thread of faith passed down the generations and explore the timeless truths that shape Catholic Christianity. Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!

The title says it all. We are not to have a Catholic Christianity perspective as we read the scriptures but we are to have A YHWH Yahshua Hebrew Bride perspective. Especially since we are his bride and he is our bridegroom. We must understand what is expected of us as his bride. I pray this helps.

Contrary to common belief, the problem of pain doesn't refute Catholic Christianity; in fact, Catholic Christianity has the only adequate answer to this problem. That's what Dr. Chris and Robyn Bruggeman discuss in this episode.

On this episode of The Shaun Tabatt Show, we're diving deep into the history of early Christianity in Africa with author Mike Aquilina. His new book, Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity, uncovers a lost history that played a profound role in shaping the development of the faith. From Ethiopia and Sudan to Egypt, Libya, and beyond, African Christians made decisive contributions in theology, liturgy, biblical studies, and culture. And yet, much of this history was lost to Europe in the wake of Arab invasions in the seventh and eighth centuries. That's where Aquilina's book comes in, telling the story of these forgotten roots through the words of the great figures of antiquity. Join us as we explore the richness and depth of early Christian thought and practice in Africa, and discover why it's so important to acknowledge and remember these almost-forgotten roots of Catholic Christianity. Whether you're a scholar, a history buff, or simply interested in learning more about the foundations of our faith, this is an episode you won't want to miss. So press play and join us for a fascinating conversation with author Mike Aquilina. Resources mentioned in this episode: Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity Connect with Mike Aquilina at FathersOfTheChurch.com. The Shaun Tabatt Show is part of the Destiny Image Podcast Network.

Mike Aquilina, Executive Vice President of The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, is a widely recognized Catholic author and lecturer, and popular Church Historian. He hosts The Way of the Fathers Podcast.  Our conversation today was prompted by his book Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity, released by Emmaus Road Publishing. We spoke about how understanding the diversity in our history can give us a broader understanding of our place in the Kingdom of God, and our deep connection, appreciation, and need for those who don't look like us.

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, in one of the most enjoyable episodes to date, I'm joined by Daniel and Steven from The Catholic Brothers to talk about their journey out of and back into the Catholic faith. Raised in a devout Catholic home, Daniel and Steven unpack exactly what drew them out of the Catholic faith and into Evangelical Christianity, then Anglicanism, and finally back into full communion with the Catholic Church. It's an amazing story that touches on some of the beautiful experiences of Evangelical Christianity, the need for an authority structure in Anglicanism, and, eventually, the authentic witness of the Early Church Fathers for the truth of Catholic Christianity. This episode is just jam-packed and Daniel and Steven are fantastic storytellers with an excellent story to tell.For more from The Catholic Brothers check out their podcast (available everywhere) and their YouTube channel. The work is top-notch.Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests.To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!This podcast is brought to you in a special way by our Patreon Co-Producers Gina, Eyram, Elli and Tom, Kelvin and Susan, Stephen, James, Jon, Jordan, Michelle, Nicole, Phil, and Susanne.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

Papal biographer and scholar George Weigel is fond of saying that for Catholics, “stuff matters.” Stuff like our physical bodies, bread, wine, water, incense, candles, bells, linen, altars, and ashes. Catholic Christianity is deeply incarnational, rooted firmly in God's good Creation. And that rooting shows itself most clearly when we worship, that is, in the liturgy of the Mass. Fr. Romano Guardini was one of the towering Catholic intellectuals of the twentieth century who for all his erudition, wrote a simple little book entitled Sacred Signs in which he gently and simply explained this connection between  material and the inner world of the spirit. The book is a favorite of theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski and a wonderful book to read during these last weeks of Lent.

A RERUN FROM JUNE 16, 2022. Imagine Christianity minus the entertainment shows, the hypocrisy, and the jockeying for positions of power within the complex network of denominational organizations. What would Christianity look like minus every man-made rule and human tradition imposed these last 2000 years of church history? What would be left is the original, simple, pre-denominational, pre-Catholic Christianity that our panel, Lauren Bassford, Colleen O'Steen, Ila King, and Cindy Dunagan, will be discussing in this program.

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined once again by the incredible Mike Aquilina, church historian extraordinaire, to talk about the African roots of the Catholic Church. Mike unpacks some of the interesting – and surprising – roots of things we take for granted in Catholic Christianity: the liturgy, the Latin language, some of our most important developments of doctrine and dogma and, of course, some of the most important thinkers in Early Christianity. Mike has a great take on Church history, great insights, and great stories to well. I hope you enjoy it!For more from Mike check out his latest book Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests.To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!Crown & CrozierLeading thinkers explore the church/state relationship and living as faithful citizensListen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySubscribe to the Bible Car Quiz wherever you find this podcast!Visit Bible Car Quiz for more information. This podcast is brought to you in a special way by our Patreon Co-Producers Gina, Eyram, Susanne, Elli and Tom, Kelvin and Susan, and Stephen.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

Friends, there are thousands of religions out there. So, why think Christianity is the right one? And why Catholic Christianity in particular? On today's episode of “The Word on Fire Show,” Brandon Vogt and I discuss these challenges which have been raised during Bishop Barron's Reddit #AMAs. A listener asks, do you have any advice for a Muslim considering conversion to Catholicism? Links The Word on Fire Vatican II Collection: Decrees and Declarations

BORN IN THE SECOND CENTURY brings the Montanism Trilogy to its bloody, triumphant ending. Host Chris Palmero shifts the focus to the spectacular changes that the war against the New Prophecy caused within the structure of Catholic Christianity itself, causing it to transform from just another "free radical" Jewish sect, to a truly organized religion, for better or worse. Anyone who listens to this episode can learn about the bogus list of early Roman Bishops; the dawn and progression of the Catholic Sect; why "Proto-Orthodoxy" is a vague and silly concept; how Asia Minor is so central to the story of Christianity; about the changes caused by Montanism in terms of organization, the Eschaton, prophecy, and the invention of the past; why the ancient Christians wanted their Church leaders to be rich; how the ancient Roman Church became so prominent; who its first real Bishop was; what finally happened to the New Prophecy; and about a curious little tome entitled..."Churchfails."Opening reading: The Jesus of the Book of Revelation, impressed with the city's cheesesteaks, grants the ancient city of Philadelphia an "Open Door," through which the first Montanist missionaries will step on their way to converting one man in a lost little valley, in one of the most momentous decisions in history.Patreon: www.patreon.com/borninthesecondcenturyWebsite: facebook.com/BornInTheSecondCenturyE-mail: secondcenturypodcast@gmail.comMusic: Pompeii Gray on Apple Music, Spotify, SoundCloud0:47 - Reading: BOOK OF REVELATION. Philadelphia and the Open Door.18:27 - OPENING Remarks.25:21 - Top News Story: CHURCHFAILS.30:34 - OPENING Remarks, Cont'd.35:47 - Reading: IRENAEUS, Against Heresies. The List of Roman Bishops.47:36 - On the So-Called PROTO-ORTHODOXY.55:11 - The Dawn of the CATHOLIC SECT.59:25 - Reading: IGNATIUS, Philadelphians. He Prophesies in the Voice of God.1:05:31 - ASIA MINOR as the True Home of Christianity.1:20:35 - Changes Caused by Montanism, PRELUDE.1:23:52 - Changes Caused by Montanism: ORGANIZATION.1:27:38 - EXCURSUS: On Money.1:32:45 - Changes Caused by Montanism: THE ESCHATON.1:35:40 - Changes Caused by Montanism: THE SEALING OF PROPHECY.1:39:37 - Changes Caused by Montanism: THE INVENTION OF THE PAST.1:55:30 - EXCURSUS: Why the Church Would Canonize FORGED BOOKS.2:04:52 - Reading: TERTULLIAN, Prescription Against Heretics. On the Roman Church.2:07:56 - How the Catholic Church Colonized ROME.2:22:28 - The Rise of THE HOLY PSYCHIC CHURCH.2:26:51 - CLOSING Remarks of the Montanism Trilogy.2:28:39 - Epilogue: The New Prophecy's FATE.Support the show

Western Christianity is fundamentally African in the way that Eastern Christianity is fundamentally Greek. It was in Africa that a vigorous Christian Latin culture first developed. Carthage had a Latin liturgy for a full century before Rome switched over from Greek. Africa gave the Church great saints and Fathers such as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius—and the greatest of all: Augustine. For a Western Christian, to know early African Christianity is to know one's own roots. LINKS Mike Aquilina, Africa and the Early Church: The Almost-Forgotten Roots of Catholic Christianity https://www.amazon.com/Africa-Early-Church-Almost-Forgotten-Christianity/dp/1645852598/ Mike Aquilina's website https://fathersofthechurch.com Mike Aquilina's books https://catholicbooksdirect.com/writer/mike-aquilina/ Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed http://www.ccwatershed.org

Today's Topics: 1) Knight Moves begins 2023 anew on the road.  Hosts Greg Keller and Mark Edward Padilla traveled to Visalia which is in California's Central Valley and is the gateway city to the Sequoia and King Canyons National Forests.  Visalia was the host to the Knights of Columbus California State Council's Midterm District Deputy Meeting from January 6-8, 2023.  District Deputies are Brother Knights who minister to an average of four Councils (four Churches or group of Churches), 2) Jose "Pona" A. Magana is from Council 13403, Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Pona is the Supreme Representative for Hispanic and Ethnic Growth in California.  He challenges men to take the lead in our Catholic faith in their own homes and communities.  The Knights of Columbus can assist a man in this effort as it has done in his own life, 3) District Deputy Juan Torres is from Council 16732, San Juan Diego de San Bernardino.  Juan is the California State Council's Hispanic Membership Director.  Born a Catholic he left the Church as a younger man and explored non-Catholic Christianity.  Upon coming home to our Faith and reinvigorated with the Holy Spirit, Juan joined the Knights to put his faith into action, District Deputy Raul Martinez is from Council 4000, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Calexico.  Raul assists Pona and Juan with the Hispanic and Ethnic Growth in California.  Raul recounted a speech a Priest had presented at a Knights of Columbus San Diego Chapter Meeting.  The Priest stated that when a man leads his family in going to Sunday Mass the children are more likely to remain Catholic. 4) Pona stated that men should not be "macho" in their role as the leader of the family.  We are to sacrificially serve our family as Jesus sacrificed His life for us https://www.facebook.com/desarrollo.hispano.5 https://www.kofc.org/secure/en/join/join-kofc.html https://www.kofc.org/en/index.html Theme: "Salve Regina" performed by Floriani. All rights reserved. Used with permission. For more information please visit Floriani.org

January 4: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious (U.S.A.)1774–1821Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of Catholic schools, widows, loss of parentsShe had it all, lost it all, and then found it all againIn late 1803, Elizabeth Ann Seton, with her husband, left the United States for Italy, as a confident, high-born, wealthy, educated Yankee Protestant. She returned in June 1804, bankrupt, a widow, burning with love for the Holy Eucharist, tenderly devoted to Mary, and with the heart of a Roman Catholic. She was received into the Church the next year. Her upper-class friends and family abandoned her out of anti-Catholic spite.Our saint was an unexpected convert. She was, well into adulthood, a serious U.S. Episcopalian. She loved the Lord. She loved the Bible. She loved to serve the poor and the sick. Her excellent Episcopalian upbringing provided sufficient preparation for not being Episcopalian any longer. She took that faith as far as it could go. She probably never suspected her faith was lacking until she experienced the abundance of Catholicism. After her husband died of tuberculosis in Pisa Italy, Elizabeth and her daughter were taken in by family friends from nearby Livorno. In God's providence, this Italian family lived their faith with relish. Elizabeth was not only consoled and cared for by them in her grief but also saw how engrossing their faith was. The longer she stayed in Italy, the more its Catholic atmosphere enveloped her. She wept at Italians' natural devotion to Mary. She wondered at the beauty of a Corpus Christi procession through the narrow streets of her town. She understood the Holy Father's link to the early Apostles with clarity. And so she came to see the gaps in her native religion. She hadn't noticed them before. Having seen the real thing with her own eyes, she knew that she held a replica in her hands. The real presence of Christ in Catholicism is often understood only after a real absence is felt in non-Catholic Christianity.After her conversion, Elizabeth spent the rest of her short life dedicated to Catholic education. She started a Congregation of sisters in Maryland that taught girls, especially poor girls who could not afford an education. She was the first of tens of thousands of teaching sisters to operate Catholic schools in the United States. She is rightly considered in the United States as the foundress of Catholic parochial education. Besides her husband, she also lost two of her five children during her lifetime. She struggled, like all founders, to build up her Congregation. But her intelligence, charm, and drive paid off. Her Order thrived and thrives still. The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul gather each year on this feast near her tomb inside an immense Basilica in Northern Maryland to thank God for their foundress, for a life so well lived.Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, help us overcome the alienation of family due to our religious convictions. Aid us in persevering through the hardships of illness and death, and give us the same zeal for souls that you showed toward your students, seeing in each one the image of God.

Dennis teaches RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults).  We talk about why he's a Roman Catholic and what it means to him. Dennis

"You shall not steal."What actually constitutes stealing? Is anything absolutely my own? How much should I give to others?In this episode, we begin our discussion of the seventh Commandment.This episode covers Part Three, Section Two, Chapter Two, Article Seven of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (pts 2401-2418).Contact the podcast: crashcoursecatholicism@gmail.com.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crashcoursecatholicism/.....References and further reading/listening/viewing:Matthew 5:40Luke 19:1-10Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity. Pope Leo XIII, Rerum NovarumChris Lilley, "Jaime King, We Can Be Heroes", YouTube.Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.  Les, Miserables, Tenth Anniversary Concert. YouTube.  dir. Tom Hooper, Les Miserables. Ascension Press, "The Virtue of Justice Explained", YouTube.The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Justice"The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Theft"Miranda Hart, Peggy and Me.Thomas Aquinas, "Justice",   Summa Theologiae, II.ii, Question 58Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3.Gerard Manly Hopkins "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame"https://goodonyou.eco/

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."What is the point of marriage? Is divorce a sin? What about contraception, or IVF? In this episode, we wrap up our discussion of the sixth Commandment.This episode covers Part Three, Section Two, Chapter Two, Article Six of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (pts 2337-2359).Contact the podcast: crashcoursecatholicism@gmail.com.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crashcoursecatholicism/.....References and further reading/listening/viewing:Matthew 5:27Christopher West, "Contraception vs. Natural Family Planning: What's the difference?"Christopher West, Good New About Sex and MarriageFr Mike Schmitz "Catholic Teaching on IVF and Contraception Explained"The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Adultery"The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Divorce"The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Incest"Catholic Answers, "The Hardest Teaching of Them All"  Catholic Answers, "What does adultery encompass?"Catholic Answers, "Birth Control"Catholic Answers, "What are the grounds for annulment?"Jason Evert, "Contraceptive Mentality vs NFP"Jason Evert, "Debunking Myths about NFP"EWTN, "Church Teaching on Birth Control"Pope Francis, "Amoris Laetitia"Life Teen, "You Don't Need to Test Drive Sex to Know if it's True Love"Emily Wilson, "50 MUST-ASK Questions Before Marriage"Peter Kreeft, "Catholic Christianity"Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio.Pope John Paul II,  homily at Mass on the Washington Mall October 7, 1979.J.R.R. Tolkien, "On marriage and relations between the sexes"

Pope Paul VI was in charge of the Catholic Church in a tumultuous time. Communists are locking up Catholic priests, the Vietnam War is raging on, and free love is in full swing. Does he modernise and change with the time? Or does he batten the hatches and stick to the status quo? How does he react to birth control? And how does Billy Joel come to have a Beatlemania-esque experience with this pope? Professor of History and Catholic Christianity, James Felak is here to walk us through the life of the paper-pushing pope!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Giorgia Meloni has stunned the liberal West by her election as Prime Minister of Italy after openly espousing the values of traditional marriage and the family, of Catholic Christianity and of womanhood and patriotism. Should her election be seen as a sign of hope? Dr Gavin Ashenden thinks so. But in this 20th episode of Merely Catholic , the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, the veteran journalist Peter Hitchens explains the reasons why he is altogether more pessimistic about the prospects of any political movement successfully overcoming decades of corruption and the rise of the new ideologies. Now is a time for conscience, he says.

Saint Padre Pio was gifted by God with a multitude of supernatural charisms, yet he was canonized a saint for none of those. His secret to sanctity, like the message of Our Lady at Fatima, is no secret at all - he lived basic Catholic Christianity - prayers, works of mercy, and the sacraments of Christ's Church. The same means to holiness are available to all of us. Listen to learn more! Podcast by Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR.

Imagine Christianity minus the entertainment shows, the hypocrisy and the jockeying for positions of power within the complex network of denominational organizations. What would Christianity look like minus every man-made rule and human tradition imposed these last 2000 years of church history? What would be left is the original, simple, pre-denominational (even pre-Catholic) Christianity that Mark and Cindy will discuss in this podcast.

Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of Catholic Christianity and head of Vatican City, made the last stage of his South Caucasus visits to Azerbaijan. His 10-hour visit to Azerbaijan was the shortest of the three visits to the South Caucasus countries. In the previous commentary the expectations of the people of Azerbaijan from Pope Francis were analyzed. Below we can look how these expectations were met. Firstly, Azerbaijanis monitored Pope Francis's visit to see if he continued to overlook the historical suffering of Muslim people at the hands Christian people. They specifically wanted to see if the Pope would mention the Khojaly Massacre committed by Armenian groups during the Karabakh War. Unfortunately, he did not. He did not call for the Armenians in Armenia to come to terms with the crimes committed against Azerbaijanis. What is even more perplexing is that Pope Francis did not even bother to allude to the Khojaly Massacre ... Link : https://avim.org.tr/en/Yorum/POPE-FRANCIS-IN-AZERBAIJAN Web page: https://avim.org.tr/en Telegram Channel: https://t.me/s/avimorgtr Twitter: https://avim.org.tr/en Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avimorgtr/ VKontakte: https://vk.com/public202374482 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIfEGNM3308QoLbCDJIFuw Dailmotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/dm_0ea263f63bb5aee7d8770d1ec13cfe8b Instgram: https://www.instagram.com/avimorgtr/IntroductionIntroduction

Imagine Christianity minus the entertainment shows, the hypocrisy, and the jockeying for positions of power within the complex network of denominational organizations. What would Christianity look like minus every man-made rule and human tradition imposed these last 2000 years of church history? What would be left is the original, simple, pre-denominational, pre-Catholic Christianity that our panel, Lauren Bassford, Colleen O'Steen, Ila King, and Cindy Dunagan, will be discussing in this program.

Why does the Church's definition of marriage seem so restrictive and archaic? What makes marriage different from other kinds of unions? What's the point of marriage?In this episode, we discuss the last of the seven sacraments.This episode covers Part Two, Section Two, Chapter Three, Article Seven of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (pts 1601-1666).Contact the podcast: crashcoursecatholicism@gmail.com.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crashcoursecatholicism/.....References and further reading/listening/viewing:Pope St John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio. Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae. Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitiae. Pope St John Paul II, Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage. Christopher West, Good News About Sex and Marriage. Code of Canon Law, Pts 1095 - 1103. Fulton Sheen, Three To Get Married. Scott Hahn, The First Society.  Catholic Encyclopedia, Sacrament of Marriage. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre.Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity. Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church, The Family, the Vital Cell of Society. Fr Mike Schmitz, Beyond No: What the Catholic Church Has to Say About Same-Sex Attraction Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop Barron on the Sacrament of Marriage. Theology of the Body Institute, YouTube. 

January 4: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious (U.S.A.)1774–1821Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of Catholic schools, widows, loss of parentsShe had it all, lost it all, and then found it all againIn late 1803, Elizabeth Ann Seton, with her husband, left the United States for Italy, as a confident, high-born, wealthy, educated Yankee Protestant. She returned in June 1804, bankrupt, a widow, burning with love for the Holy Eucharist, tenderly devoted to Mary, and with the heart of a Roman Catholic. She was received into the Church the next year. Her upper-class friends and family abandoned her out of anti-Catholic spite.Our saint was an unexpected convert. She was, well into adulthood, a serious U.S. Episcopalian. She loved the Lord. She loved the Bible. She loved to serve the poor and the sick. Her excellent Episcopalian upbringing provided sufficient preparation for not being Episcopalian any longer. She took that faith as far as it could go. She probably never suspected her faith was lacking until she experienced the abundance of Catholicism. After her husband died of tuberculosis in Pisa Italy, Elizabeth and her daughter were taken in by family friends from nearby Livorno. In God's providence, this Italian family lived their faith with relish. Elizabeth was not only consoled and cared for by them in her grief but also saw how engrossing their faith was. The longer she stayed in Italy, the more its Catholic atmosphere enveloped her. She wept at Italians' natural devotion to Mary. She wondered at the beauty of a Corpus Christi procession through the narrow streets of her town. She understood the Holy Father's link to the early Apostles with clarity. And so she came to see the gaps in her native religion. She hadn't noticed them before. Having seen the real thing with her own eyes, she knew that she held a replica in her hands. The real presence of Christ in Catholicism is often understood only after a real absence is felt in non-Catholic Christianity.After her conversion, Elizabeth spent the rest of her short life dedicated to Catholic education. She started a Congregation of sisters in Maryland that taught girls, especially poor girls who could not afford an education. She was the first of tens of thousands of teaching sisters to operate Catholic schools in the United States. She is rightly considered in the United States as the foundress of Catholic parochial education. Besides her husband, she also lost two of her five children during her lifetime. She struggled, like all founders, to build up her Congregation. But her intelligence, charm, and drive paid off. Her Order thrived and thrives still. The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul gather each year on this feast near her tomb inside an immense Basilica in Northern Maryland to thank God for their foundress, for a life so well lived.Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, help us overcome the alienation of family due to our religious convictions. Aid us in persevering through the hardships of illness and death, and give us the same zeal for souls that you showed toward your students, seeing in each one the image of God.

If 6M Muslims a year convert to [mostly] non-Catholic Christianity, who is behind this?  God or the devil? Listen to this "Theology and Current Events" (TCE) to get my best-guess. Yes, best-guess only here!

Confession...another hot button issue that a lot of people simply don't understand. "Why can't I just confess my sins to God?" Or "why do I have to tell my sins to an old priest?" Confession is a gift God has graciously given us yet most of us, even amongst Catholics, don't fully understand or embrace. Confession is for healing. Confession restores our place with God. Confession saves our souls.Growing up Protestant, I (James), frequently asked what the point of confessing to a priest when God was simply always right there, ready to hear how sorry I was. It wasn't until I became Catholic that many sins I struggled with throughout my life were healed from this precious gift. Continue to listen to part one to hear why confession was instituted by Jesus Christ, why he gave the power to forgive sins to the Apostles, and why we should make this a frequent part of our lives. Thank you to our partners at Hallow! Hallow is the #1 Catholic app that helps deepen your prayer life, meditate on Holy Scripture, fall asleep to Bible stories, and so much more! Make sure you click on this link to receive an extended 30-day free trial of their premium content exclusively for our listeners. As always, please pray for us! We are men who are striving every day to be holy, to become saints and we cannot do that without the help of the Holy Ghost!  Get social with us:Follow us on the ‘gram.'Join our private FB group exclusively for our listeners. Contact Father Dom and James directly:james.cr.caldwell@gmail.comdcouturier@olcparish.net Resources to explore:1.  The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin --> great book to hear what the early Church Fathers said about confession2. Catholic Christianity by Peter Kreeft --> think Catechism of the Catholic Church in a more condense format3. Catechism of the Catholic Church --> might as well go straight to the source of Catholic belief and read about Confession!Support the show

Inter-religious dialogue means being honest and open about our own convictions whilst understanding the convictions of others. This week on Catholic Christianity we explore where Christianity sits among other world religions.Website: catholicchristianity.orgInstagram: @catholicchristianityorgTwitter: @CatholicXtianFB: @catholicchristianityorgYoutube: @catholicchristianity8776

If God exists, is powerful and loving, why doesn't God remove pain and suffering? This week we explore the question of human suffering. In Christianity we discover that God can redeem suffering.Find out more in episode seven of the Catholic Christianity podcast, Season One: Reasons to Believe.Website: catholicchristianity.orgInstagram: @catholicchristianityorgTwitter: @CatholicXtianFB: @catholicchristianityorgYoutube: @catholicchristianity8776

If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the whole Christian tradition is undermined… so why do we believe in the resurrection of Jesus?Find out in episode six of the Catholic Christianity podcast, Season One: Reasons to Believe.Website: catholicchristianity.orgInstagram: @catholicchristianityorgTwitter: @CatholicXtianFB: @catholicchristianityorgYoutube: @catholicchristianity8776

And another one bites the dust!  That is, another so called Christian, Evangelical organization caves in, gives up and surrenders to LGBTQ. And that would be:          BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES (BCS).  This once strong, proud fully Christian organization was one of the nation's largest Evangelical agencies involved in adoption and foster care. It held strong to Christian principles, including especially the biblical admonition that marriage as sanctioned by God and the real Christian Church was a union between ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN. That definition further extended to the definition of family where there were biblical guidelines for husband and wife, father and mother, family structure, children discipline and behavior from that one man and that one woman. In an incredible act of spiritual compromise, BCS announced they would no longer strictly abide by that biblical admonition. In fact, BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES recently announced that it would now place children in same sex households and with other families identified as LGBTQ, contrary to the direct admonitions of scripture. BCS capitulated, COMPROMISED, and caved in to the angry demands of the NEW NORMAL, the new sexual revolution and its new morality. What a tragedy and what a shame.  It should be clear to every real Christian and conservative that this new sexual orthodoxy, which champions gender identity and sexual orientation in all new ways will never be content until every facet of orthodox Christianity is excised, eradicated, ELIMINATED from the public square. These champions of radical, anti–Christian change will use every means possible to make that happen. The affect on those children, once in the tender loving Christian care of Bethany Christian Services will be life long, dramatic and entirely anti–Christian and anti–biblical requirements for child – parent.  WHY, the real question is, why did BCS compromise and capitulate. WHY! I can only wonder who on the Board of Directors of BCS were responsible and how before God and man that decision could be justified and explained. If in fact BCS continues to represent themselves as a strong Christian, evangelical organization, that decision is:          DEAD WRONG. This new sexual revolution, this new sexual orthodoxy is the heart and soul of the now and once great Democratic Party. Democrats for years have never referred to God whether in party platforms, dialogue, expressed views or political philosophy. In fact, they have not only ignored Christianity but the spiritual in general. Witness the example of House of Representatives Greg Steube, Republican from Florida who stood on the floor of the House of Representatives in late February and read from the bible book of Deuteronomy concerning the difference between male and female. This good man, brave and courageous, withstood a horrendous attack by his Democratic colleagues and in response to the alleged attack on LGBTQ, representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, a radical, progressive, anti–Christian man in my view, said the following: “What any religious tradition describes as God's will is no concern of this Congress.” Or, especially the Democrats. It is just simply amazing to me how many Christians vote Democrat when this party and its representatives are as anti–Christian as any in the entire world. Unbelievable. Shame on Bethany Christian Services. But now stands up:          CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES (CSS). In 2018, the city of Philadelphia (where I was raised and born) issued an urgent call for help. The city announced and pleaded for 300 additional foster families to adopt what Philadelphia regarded as the “rising crisis of orphaned children.” Up stepped Catholic Social Services to meet the need. Good for them. And of course, one would think that the city would wish to partner with CSS in the hunt to find loving homes for these needy and homeless orphaned children. But, not so said Philadelphia. Only days after pleading for help in the adoption process, the city of Philadelphia and its Mayor James Kenney (a radical, progressive Democrat) froze all referrals of such orphaned children and refused to extend any especially to CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES. This good organization was stunned, as were tens of thousands of Catholics, and Protestants, and people of goodwill regardless of religious belief. STUNNED! Why, Philadelphia, why. The answer was easy. CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES is, said Philadelphia, a bible – bigoted organization. CSS dares to believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Such a belief flies in the face of the new sexual revolution and morality, and of course raises the anger and hostility of LGBTQ.  And more. Catholic Social Services dares to believe that children are best served in homes with a:          MARRIED FATHER AND MOTHER, ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN. United in holy biblical matrimony. More of a response from LGBTQ and the radical – progressive haters of Christianity and in this case especially Catholic Christianity and like Bethany Christian Services, Philadelphia caved, capitulated and banned the referral of orphaned children to Catholic institutions and especially CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES. Absolutely unbelievable especially when there are so many Catholic believers and worshippers in the city of Philadelphia itself. Some even thought the Mayor himself was Catholic, even if in name only, much like Joe Biden, partaking of the blessings and the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and then living the life of a politician where almost every move, decision and executive order defies, contradicts and compromises not only Catholic but all real Christian doctrine and belief. Would that men like these would be excommunicated and that real Christian and real Christian organizations would: COME YE APART AND BE SEPARATE FROM THEM FOR THEY ARE WOLVES IN SHEEPS CLOTHING.  Bethany Christian Services went the way of all compromisers. But not CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES. This good organization stood up. It refused to capitulate or compromise. But it did not stop there. This ministry challenged the city's action, and challenged Philadelphia big time. Litigation was immediately instituted and there arose the legal case of FULTON V. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.  The actions of this once great city were discriminatory, prejudiced and anti–Constitutional, flying in the face of the First Amendment to the Constitution and more. The case was so fundamental that it made its way all the way to the United States Supreme Court (Scotus). May I urge all Christians and conservatives to watch for the result, the Supreme Court decision in the FULTON case. For the outcome of this case would affect not only CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES, but more as well. The ruling in Fulton will affect the case of Barronelle Stutzman, the florist who would not participate in homosexual weddings, and others like that courageous Colorado baker who refuses to decorate cakes for homosexual weddings and others as well who stand for their individual, First Amendment and religious rights no matter the persecution or attack.  And angry attack it is everywhere. In Finland, four thousand miles away, the former Interior Minister and leader of the Christian Democrats Paivi Rasanen dared to post a picture of the bible on the internet, opened to Romans 1: 24-27, a scriptural passage hated by LGBTQ as a warning to the EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH in Finland for both supporting and joining a gay pride event, reminding this once great Evangelical church (no more) through the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans that to do so was anti–biblical. This good lady was subjected to three police interrogations which resulted in her being charged with the criminal charge of:          HATE SPEECH.  Finland's prosecutor called her actions, free speech only, derogatory and discriminatory. They issued criminal charges against her and she now faces a court hearing and if convicted, a prison sentence. The situation aroused incredible reaction from all of Finland's citizens and it will be interesting to see how free speech is in Finland as a result of this trial. But congratulations to Ms. Rasanen for her stand not only for biblical truth on the one hand, but for free speech on the other.  It is everywhere, is it not my fellow Americans, this new sexual morality and LGBTQ persecution, and attack, and anger and hatred? Have you experienced it anywhere in your life with family, friends, social organizations, church, politically, or perhaps on your local school board. Have you experienced this kind of unbelievable, hateful attack by these new sexual revolutionaries on you and traditional Christian beliefs, have you? But I do hope and pray that you recognize what is happening to all of America, and in fact much of the world. There is open hostility, and a civil warfare like WE THE PEOPLE and much of the world at large have never seen before. May you have the courage, the conviction to stand for your beliefs, to stand for Christian values, and morals, and biblical principles no matter the cost. For the fight of faith is on, and it is time to find out who is a real Christian and ready as scripture demands to lay:          ALL ON THE ALTER. Are you? Pray for Bethany Christian Services and perhaps they will see the light, the Christian light and reverse their horrendous open adoption decision. And pray for Catholic social services, that they may prevail in the Fultoncase for they, like the Little Sisters of the Poor in Pittsburgh, are one strong example of an uncompromising Christian organization. What a world. Thank you, THANK YOU for standing up. Please do it now more than ever.