The Catholic Church did not "baptize" a pagan festival into Halloween/All Saints Day.

All Saints Day originates from Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicating a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to all the saints and fixing its anniversary as November 1. 🧵 In fact, the history goes back even farther than that.

In the early days of the Church, Christians celebrated each martyr’s feast on the anniversary of his death.

As the number of martyrs increased over time, though, and because the liturgical calendar can only accommodate a limited number of Christian luminaries in its 365-day cycle, the Church began honoring all martyrs on a single day by the later A.D.300s and the early 400s.

Why don’t Jews recognize Jesus as the Messiah?

Some believe he failed to meet crucial Old Testament prophecies.

Here are four classic objections and our answers: 🧵 Objection 1: The Messiah was supposed to bring worldwide peace (Isa. 2:4). Jesus didn’t.
As Rabbi Tovia Singer puts it: “If Jesus were the Messiah, you would know it from reading the newspaper.”

Answer: Jesus did bring peace—but it was the deeper and more important peace with God (Rom. 5:1).

And Scripture never said all prophecies had to be fulfilled at once. Many Jews themselves expected the Messiah to suffer first, then triumph later.

Jesus implied that the messianic prophecies of peace would be fulfilled when he came to earth again at the end of time (see Matt. 24).

“Co-redemptrix”? “Mediatrix of All Graces”?

Even many Catholics wince at these Marian titles. Some avoid them altogether, worried they sound like blasphemy or competition with Christ.

But here’s what they actually mean (and why they glorify Jesus even more)🧵 First, “Co-redemptrix.”

At first glance, it seems shocking: isn’t Jesus the only Redeemer?

Yes. The “co-” here comes from the Latin cum which means “with,” not “equal.”

So “Co-redemptrix” means that Mary cooperated with Christ in his work of redemption, in a unique and unparalleled way.

The next big ethical crisis is here:

Parents can now choose which of their unborn children gets to live—based on looks, sex, or predicted health.

It’s called “embryo selection.”
Here’s why it should trouble all of us 🧵 Last year, the Church reaffirmed a truth many have forgotten:

Children have “the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin” due to their unalienable dignity (Dignitas Infinita 49).

A child is a gift from God, not a product. No one is entitled to a child, because no one is entitled to another human being.

Dropping the atomic bomb was wrong. Period.

A thread 🧵 The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 180,000 Japanese civilians.

It has been condemned by:

-Every pope since the event
-Vatican II
-hundreds of bishops
-scores of distinguished theologians, apologists, and preachers

And the Catechism is clear:

ARE CHRISTIANS 'COMMANDED' TO SUPPORT ISRAEL?

Where @tedcruz's theology goes wrong - a thread🧵

https://x.com/i/status/1935390720925515829

Sen. Cruz says he "was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed."

Cruz and others believe this means we're supposed to “bless” the modern nation of Israel with military aid in its wars.

This is a bad misreading.

If Jesus was a Jew, why are we Catholic?

A thread🧵 The term Jew is used in at least two senses in Scripture: to refer to those who are ethnically Jews and to those who are religiously Jews.

Jesus was a Jew in both senses.

In fact, he completed the Jewish religion by serving as the Messiah (Christ) whom the prophets had long foretold.

A fair question deserves a fair answer.

Do the cases of Popes Honorius and Liberius disprove papal infallibility?

Thread (feat. @ErickYbarra3)🧵 First, let’s observe what is right about this question.

@Ancient_Masc rightly points his readers to the Vatican I’s teaching as the standard that Catholics must adhere to.

If a pope were to make an attempt to teach infallibly something truly erroneous, then we would have a contradiction to a fundamental and dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church.

5 reasons Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant (and why that matters) - a thread 🧵
1. What they carried

The Ark of the Covenant contained three “types” of Jesus inside: manna, Aaron’s rod, and the Ten Commandments.

Mary carried the fulfillment of all of these.

Jesus is the “true [manna] from heaven” (John 6:32), the true “High Priest” (Heb. 3:1), and “the word made flesh” (John 1:14).

The Bible frequently extols "fear of the Lord."

Does that mean God want us to be scared of him?

No. The truth is much deeper.

Let's dive in:🧵 Proverbs 9:10 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

That means we should explain what both “wisdom” and “fear of the Lord” are.

We have a pope!

Here are the basics on Leo XIV, the Catholic Church's new pontiff: 🧵 1. Augustinian spirituality

Robert Provost professed his solemn vows with the Augustinian order in 1981

In his first papal address, he quoted the great saint:

"I am a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian. He said, 'With you I am a Christian, for you a bishop.'"

The LDS missionaries are at your door, and you don't know what to say to them.

...unless you've prepared beforehand.

Here's a calm, effective three-step approach:🧵 Longtime Catholic apologist Tim Staples says he has found that "this approach does at least two things: It fosters a conversation without causing an abrupt end to it, and it has never resulted in anything close to a cogent response"

Cardinals are gathering in Rome to prepare to elect the next pope.

You might be wondering exactly what a papal conclave is, and how it works.

Here are the answers.🧵 A papal conclave is the election process by which a new pope, the visible head of the Catholic Church, is selected.

After a pope dies or resigns, a papal conclave commences within three weeks to elect his successor.

A conclave is the gathering of the College of Cardinals in which these papal electors choose the next pope.

Making families great again is a good and laudable goal.

However, we cannot do evil that good may come (Rom. 3:8), and IVF is a morally unacceptable practice.

Here's why👇
catholic.com/magazine/onlin… x.com/WhiteHouse/sta… First, here's the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In paragraph 2375, it introduces a discussion about what kind of "Research aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged".

After explaining why surrogacy and sperm/egg donations are gravely immoral (2376), it says:

This point can't be overstated.

In paragraph 17 of Humanae Vitae, Pope St. Paul VI prophesied—yes, prophesied—three catastrophic social consequences of widespread contraception.

It's chilling to read today:🧵 1. "[F]irst consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards."

There is much we could say here, but just the divorce rate alone—compared to where we were in 1968—is staggering. (Graph via allianceformarriage.org)

Its sharp rise began in the late sixties, when the development and legalization of modern contraceptives joined with the Sexual Revolution to create a perfect environment for easy, seemingly-consequence-free adultery and the accompanying rise in marital unhappiness and breakdown.

Then “a general lowering of moral standards”?? We don’t have enough space here even to scratch the surface.

"How can I believe that Jesus even existed when
the only evidence for him comes from the Bible?"

Here are three ways to approach this question:🧵 Many skeptics doubt the Gospels because its authors were believers.

Since these Christians had an investment in Jesus’s life, they argue, they probably used those writings to push an agenda rather than relate accurate history.

When the Church is rocked by scandals and immorality, remember that she has been here before, and God always leads his people into light.

In the late eleventh century, the evils of clerical corruption and sexual immorality plagued the Church extensively, weakening the influence of the Gospel and obstructing the Church’s salvific mission.

But God brought forth a stalwart defender of purity and truth, St. Peter Damian, who exhorted the pope to reform the clergy. The monastic reform produced holy men later elected to the papacy such as Pope St. Leo IX, who initiated one of the most comprehensive ecclesial reforms in history.


In his Liber Gomorrhianus (Book of Gomorrah), Peter Damian shed light on the rampant sexual sins of the clergy, calling them a “diabolical tyranny” that produced a “cancer of sodomitic impurity.”

He remarked that these sins were “raging like a cruel beast within the sheepfold of Christ” and believed that unless the pope “opposes it as quickly as possible, there is no doubt that when [he] finally wishes for the unbridled evil to be restrained, [he] may not be able to halt the fury of its advance.”

He also penned his Liber Gratissimus (Most Gracious Book) against simony, in which he remarked “the custom of simony was so widespread that hardly anyone knew it was a sin.”

The abuse was of grave concern because it rooted priestly ordination in greed and made clerics susceptible to secular control. Peter was so incensed at the sin he discussed it in frank language: “hardly any festering wound causes a more intolerable stench for the nose of God than the excrement that is greed.”

This is a great question, and it highlights a difference between how many modern Protestants understand “worship,” and what the Bible means by “worship.” 🧵

https://twitter.com/iWomansplainer/status/1676426849310605312

First, we need to distinguish three distinct things, which happened in three distinct places in the New Testament:

1. Preaching/Teaching (Synagogue)
2. Prayer (“Lonely Place”/Upper Room)
3. Worship (Temple) twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

THREAD OF CATHOLIC ANSWERS APOLOGISTS/SPEAKERS IN 100% REAL HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

1. @Trent_Horn as a very real horn 2. @CyKellett donning an extremely convincing Buzz Lightyear costume

Reminder: the Catholic Church did not "baptize" a pagan festival into Halloween/All Saints Day. All Saints Day originates from Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicating a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to all the saints and fixing its anniversary as November 1. "Hallow" comes from the Germanic root word for "holy," and a person who is hallowed is a saint—someone who has been made holy. “E’en” is a contraction of the word "even," an older way of saying “evening.” Halloween is thus “All Hallows’ E’en” or “the evening of All Saints’ Day.”

What is the Mass? (thread 🧵)

There are two ways we can define it. First: the Mass is the ordered observance of the Lord’s passion and death using the outward signs he determined for doing so. We can look for this definition in Church texts. For example, we have the very brief, succinct statement from the Roman Missal (“Mass book”) of 1962 approved by Pope St. John XXIII...