Our contemporary use of the word “symbol” in theology is rather weak. My guess is that this goes back to the 11th century Eucharistic controversy between the erroneous “symbolic Eucharist” belief of Berengarius and the orthodox “substantial presence” articulation of Lanfranc of Canterbury. For the heretic Berengarius, the term “symbol” entailed “not real”. Berengarius’ usage […]

If we are to have a right ecclesiology it must be boldly grounded in the Incarnation.  2nd Clement’s letter can help us to do just that. To begin with, the letter is not of Clementine authorship; moreover, it is not a letter but a homily and likely of second century origin; perhaps written in Corinth […]

In the earliest Christian communities, creeds were widely used among catechumens received into the Church to affirm that the initiate understood and affirmed the fundamentals of the Christian faith.     The early creeds offer us some insight into the ecclesiology of the early Church.  The earliest form of what we now call “The Apostles Creed” was […]

In May of 2007, Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, at that time the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, announced that he was returning to the Catholic Church in which he had been raised.

St. Augustine, God rest his soul, can’t be happy about how Western Christians have been fighting over the rights to his theological legacy for the last five hundred years. This in-fighting notwithstanding, a few issues make Augustine stand out as decidedly Catholic. Recently we discussed the issue of the canon, and Augustine clearly supports the […]

Last week Neal, Taylor and I attended the Letter & Spirit Summer Institute in Steubenville, Ohio, hosted by Scott Hahn and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. While we were there, we met John Kincaid.

If the Bible alone is our authority, shouldn’t we be able to prove this from the Bible?  If we can’t, and if we accept it nevertheless, doesn’t that mean that we’re de facto accepting an authority over and above the Bible?  And don’t we have to do this just to delineate which books are Scriptural?  […]

I find reading the Apostle John’s letters especially beneficial for the simple reason that they are non-Pauline; they allow for a contrast, a reading of a different tenor or tone. John opens his first epistle by explaining that he preaches the word which he had seen and which was “made manifest” to him (1 John […]

This past Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, the day Jesus ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives. I was sitting in St. Clement of Rome parish church, attending the first mass offered by Fr. Eric Olson, who had been ordained a priest the previous day, listening to the […]

Q. What evidence do we have that the [Ecumenical Councils’] exercise of apostolic authority was legitimate, and has remained infallible? A. In order to answer this question, it is helpful to consider the implications of the visibility of the Church in relation to Christ’s promises. I have addressed that indirectly here (in January of 2008) […]