In the third part of the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas asks the question whether it is proper to Christ to be the Head of the Church and answers in the affirmative. Protestants often claim that the Catholic Church has set the pope as the head of the Church instead of Christ. But St. Thomas [...]

One way to help reconcile Protestants and Catholics to full communion is to consider together the writings of the early Church Fathers, because in the Fathers Protestants and Catholics share a common history and a common patrimony. One of the most fundamental points of disagreement between Protestants and the Catholic Church concerns the relationship between [...]

The Second Vatican Council taught that non-Catholic Christians were to be recognized as “brothers” in light of their valid baptisms “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Some traditionalist Catholics look askance at this teaching, but it is worth noting that Saint Augustine also recognized that non-Catholic [...]

The Catholic Church teaches that nature is ordered by God. The heavens are superior to the earth, and angels are superior to men.1 Even within the angelic order, not all are equal; for there are angels and arch-angels, cherubim and seraphim.2 Men naturally arrange (order) themselves into hierarchies as the ancients knew well and accepted [...]

“For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.” – Pope Benedict XVI Reformed Professor R. Scott Clark in response to Pope Benedict: “That conditional, that “if,” makes all the difference in the world. That one little conditional is the difference between Rome and [...]

We make judgments about corporeal objects because they are below us, and we say not only that they are or are not this way, but also that they ought to be this way or ought not to be… We make these judgments according to the inner rules of truth which we perceive in common. But [...]

Here is a simple synopsis of God’s original plan for Adam by Saint Augustine. Notice how Augustine views humanity as “between the angelic and bestial,” since man consists of a immaterial, separable soul and a material body:

I was reading Saint Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana today and bumped into a zinger that caused even my own Catholic soul to squirm. In book one, we come to this chapter: Chapter 39.— He Who is Mature in Faith, Hope and Love, Needs Scripture No Longer.

Saint Augustine famously interpreted the “closed gate” through which passed the “prince” in Ezek 44 as a type of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Mary is the closed city and the prince miraculously passed through the closed gate. Here is the beautiful passage from Augustine describing from Scripture why Saint Joseph and Saint Mary did not consummate [...]

Augustine uses the term “infusion” (like the Council of Trent) and not “imputation” (like Luther and Calvin) when discussing God’s act of justification: “For by this grace He engrafts into His body even baptized infants, who certainly have not yet become able to imitate any one. As therefore He, in whom all are made alive, [...]