Why are priests called...

Moreover, do not call anyone your Father on earth, for One is your Father, the heavenly one, Yahweh.
(Matthew 23:9)

Context and common sense gives us many clues that Jesus did not want us to remove the word "father" from the language unless applied to Yahweh. Our first clue is that the term "father" is a metaphor for God, and the metaphor would lose all meaning if it couldn't apply to anyone on earth. Moreover, whatever word you used to rename biological... [Read More]

Do Catholics accept...

Yes. Catholics accept Jesus Christ as their Lord, as the Son of God, and as the Savior. The Lord God is the head of the Catholic Church, which we believe was established by Christ Himself. The Church does not replace Christ as the means of salvation for Catholics. Instead, it is a means through which He guides and aids the faithful by teaching and sacrament.

Why do Catholics believe...

The Bible teaches that not only do we look to the Bible for our faith, but to a Sacred Tradition passed down from the Apostles. Jesus condemned false traditions — "traditions of men" — but He upheld Sacred Tradition (for a full essay on Jesus' teaching on Tradition, click here).

The Catholic idea works like this: when your mother pulls out the family photo album, she can just hand it to you, and you may indeed get a lot out of it. There are plenty of faces you will recognize, such as... [Read More]

Do Catholics worship...

No. In fact, the Church has come out repeatedly against the worship of statues, in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the new Catechism, and so on. As far as bowing to God while in the presence of statues of the saints, that's no more worship than it is to kneel near another praying Christian, or a priest facing you. Nor are you worshipping the pages of your Bible if you kneel with it in your hand. I have knelt with statues of saints as I have asked the saints in heaven to pray for me,... [Read More]

Why can't priests marry,...

It's true that Paul here talks about a day when people will forbid to marry, but if we compare this with the rest of the New Testament, we see that he surely imagined a situation where ALL would be forbidden to marry, as in certain denominations and sects that have appeared in history. In fact, Jesus commends celibacy (Matthew 19:12), as does Paul himself (1 Corinthians 7:32- 33). It's true that mandatory celibacy for priests did not occur until the tenth century, and so this is a juridical... [Read More]