5 Bad Arguments AGAINST Catholicism 

You won't regret coming into the Catholic Church.

Yes please convert cause if you can't see the difference you certainly aren't Pentacostal

Do it. Ex-Pentecostal here…among other inter denominational chaos. The Catholic Church is the true Church. You think tongues-the lesser gift-is cool? We’ve got Christian Mystics! (Nothing Occult, fear not). AND we still believe in the Charismatic Gifts, but they must be rightly ordered, they must serve their proper end, not for our own consolations.

Hey, my fellow catholics are eager to see you in the Catholic Church, and that is good, because we believe that the true teachings of Christ are preserved in the Catholic Church. Don't misunderstand me, I am eager too, but I will not say to you do this or that. Just reflect, pray and do what you think sincerely, to be what God says to you. Open heart, good will, honesty and prayers tend to open the way for God's actions in our life, and, as a catholic, I suspect that He will lead you to Catholicism.

You're welcome here any time you decide to give it a try, brother. May God bless you and guide your decisions according to His Will.

@YAJUN YUAN for all the SDA trolls its funny because they dont actually have any SDA channels with content.

@YAJUN YUAN And Feenyism was declared a heresy.

Just like anyone, it depends on the Catholic. I have encountered warm, loving Christians of all persuasions.

@@jeandoten1510 And yet, ironically, it is groups like the SSPX who are drawing in conservative Christians, not least of which because they have retained the Latin Mass

@@cheryl9856Having spent 20 years singing chant at a Latin Novus Ordo Mass with an internationally acclaimed chant scholar and liturgist am myself somewhat of a "traditional" Catholic, and it disturbs me that so-called "traditional" Catholics seem to think that defying Papal authority by attending an illicit mass makes them more holy than everyone else (I am not making this up I have been told this to my face more than once.) I clarified the status of Father Feeny just in case someone reading this was unclear about his status and the status of his teaching. It just so happens that my conversion to the Catholic church occurred at St.Paul's in Cambridge, MA, which Is where Feeny started his heretical movement and began to establish his cult, so I was aware of his history and problematic theology even before I became Catholic.

@YAJUN YUAN I think they’re talking about just most Catholics in general (your average Catholic) not apologists

Amen!

At this point, he knows more about Catholicism than most Catholics.

@@ahwhite1398 Not a high bar, also irrelevant to the point about which Church Jesus founded.

One of the best and most vehement defenders of Catholicism I know is Jewish. I sometimes tell him that I'm just waiting for a stiff wind to knock him into an RCIA class!

Agreed. I was raised Baptist, so for a long time I had an irrational fear, without any loathing, towards their theology, despite having attended a traditional Methodist Church for years in my latter youth. It's not until reading the Church Fathers that I started adopting catholic theology, praying the Liturgy of Hours and even the rosary. Now I call myself a Mere Christian, because I do NOT protest the catholic church, but disagree with some major dogmas which I respect (and that have nothing do with Salvation). Still, I pray the Hail Mary atleast 3 times a day. I love our lady, for she gave birth to our saviour.

Misunderstandings and lies are not the same thing.

@@brittybee6615 That's true and it's not true. The thing is that I think the vast majority of people aren't getting their information "from" their own thoughts. They heard a trusted teacher say it, and they believed them. That's okay! That's good! You're not supposed to have to **be** a doctor of theology to pick which church to go to! But there's always a chain of ideas to track through, like the true vine of Christ passes down Truth, there is a vine that is of the devil and it wraps itself around the true vine, trying to choke the life from it. And where it is planted, the person who first made the successful arguments that led to this point, they have to hold some moral responsibility for intentionally placing a stumbling block in front of their brother, because they are not walking in love and they are separating themselves from the will of the God who sent us into the world.

@@brittybee6615 I agree. One sees this sort of things by reading the non-canonical scriptures

Wow that's amazing please pray for me and my family's conversion

Brother Ignacio! What a pleasure to see your name pop up. I pray you are well. The Constantine argument is a common one, and it has all types of flaws. I'll be mentioning that one in an upcoming video

Two kind of traditions Jewish and Christian, Same than Works... 2 Thessalonians 3:6 [6]In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we urge you, brothers, to keep away from any of the brothers who lives an undisciplined life, not in accordance with the tradition you received from us. ... 1 Corinthians 11:1-2 [1]Take me as your pattern, just as I take Christ for mine. [2]I congratulate you for remembering me so consistently and for maintaining the traditions exactly as I passed them on to you. ... 2 Thessalonians 2:14-15 [14]Through our gospel he called you to this so that you should claim as your own the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. [15]Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. ... Ignatius was before Constantine. And Constantine was before of the Council of Rome where the New Testament was added to Scriptures 27 books, those books was selected from other Apocryphal by the Tradition of the Church. Sola Scriptura is a big fail. Not saying is not true but our traditions are true also. Is like gears that complement each other.

I looked up john 17:21 I do not see that quote, what version of the bible did you get that from?

@@michael7144 English Standard Version where Mary of Nazareth’s Son is praying to our Heavenly Father: “John 17:21 [21] that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Oh I see, the "mary mother of the church" interjection confused me. Why would you add that? It is very misleading.

I think I can relate! I may on the road to becoming catholic myself! And yes, all these questions have been well and truly wrestled 😆

My pleasure!

Welcome Home Isaac. 🙏🏽

@@believewithyourheart5627 So glad you're on your way. 🙏🏽

@@GospelSimplicity What's funny is that you're actually a *better* debater on Catholicism.. than like 95% of Catholics themselves. Sorry but next time a Protestant bugs me, I'm going to use your arguments😋😋

The thing about the Bible may be because of the mass being said in Latin, not the local language. That being said, I do have an official Douay Bible in English that was made before Vatican II.

My Southern Baptist friends who used to say "Does the pedophile priest thing bother you?" have suddenly gone very quiet now that the multiple pedophile scandals have been exposed in the Southern Baptist church over the years.

Church is against those kind of actions, and I think on all Christian denominations also. So those attitudes goes to the person. Is not healthy if we want to become one Church again, like Jesus want it, to blame on each other. Is not the Church, is simply an horrible sin from the ones that suppose to guide us to God, reason why is so painful.

@@jimohara4796 and the Southern Baptists are currently being investigated by the DOJ

"not throw the church out with satan"👍🏼

Welcome Home. Me too

May I ask you, does it offend you when lifelong Catholics say things as “welcome home” or “welcome back”? I used to say things like that to people who stated they had converted and I was told it was patronizing, which was absolutely not my intention. I wanted to express my joy in having a brother or sister fully in communion with the Body of Christ.

Sadly, I agree with you. When I first came to Christ I was surrounded by seventh day Adventist’s, and from their council, I must say, I was terrified of Catholics. Really! Thank God for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who will always bring us into truth.

Sadly agree as well. Evangelicals spit venom at Catholism and are very quick to judge. Further why are they sending their missionaries to Catholic majority countries when they should send to those that have other faiths or are mainly atheists? Cherry-picking? Me thinks so

@@sproutfire8878 I would very much agree with you that anti-catholic discourse is not very helpful; but I'm not sure what your issue is with protestant missionaries going to 'catholic' countries? I'm sure you'll agree that many who call themselves catholic, while they may have been baptised as a catholic; actually don't go to mass (or only go for cultural reasons) and don't accept the gospel. This can, of course, be a problem in protestant circles as well; and I would welcome catholic missionaries to come to 'protestant' areas. If nothing else, for those who haven't been receptive to the protestant approach there, a different approach might make them more receptive to the gospel, and ultimately that's the most important thing.

@@IamGrimalkin What's wrong is that they go with misinformation about the church and want to pull people out if it. What they should do is encourage them to learn more about their Catholic faith and become more involved in it, if they say anything at all. The Gospel is already there. I agree if missionaries want to spread the Word, there's a world full of people who have not heard it to go to.

@@lyndavonkanel8603 Personally, I still don't see the issue. If they grew up catholic and still haven't accepted the gospel, perhaps the catholic approach isn't working well and a different approach might work better. Of course they could point them to a different group of catholics with a different style, but it's far easier to just go with what the evangelist already knows about. Edit: misinformation is of course bad. But encouraging compeltdly lasped catholics to try Protestantism instead is a fine approach, if they try an alternative expression of chrsitianity it might click with them better.

A big part of the terrible unhappiness, loneliness, & feeling lost in the modern world is because we have thrown away all the rituals, & there’s nothing for people to hang onto or to rebel against. My grandparents always had a large garden & canned food. Once they were too old to keep a garden, I noticed an empty feeling creeping in every year. At first, I thought it was sadness over them getting older & losing some traditions, but a few decades later I’ve realized it helped me feel grounded in the world, the seasons, & all the people who came before me. Having a religious calendar with seasons is more important than people think.

no way - her upbringing has nothing to do with her anti-catholic tirades - ex-catholic people feel the need tyo repeat every anti-catholic meme they find in order to justify their betrayal to the faith

I see the argument that protestants don't understand Catholicism, and so caricature it. That can be fair enough. When someone was raised Catholic and does understand it from the inside, those same arguments don't really stand. The only thing I don't agree w/ is crossing ourselves. Why not do that beautiful ritual. I don't agree w/ many Catholic doctrines, but I do find deep comfort in the sign of the cross, and blessing myself, or making a simple prayer w/ the holy trinity. Catholics are Christians and they obtained much wisdom through the ages.

For sure the most distinct doctrine of the Church is Pope. I don’t think it’s the most important doctrine but definitely one of the biggest hurdles for someone to overcome because for them they think you can freely believe whatever you want to believe about the Scriptures and they’re immersed in a culture based in relativity. My mother suffers from this is an anti Catholic and at the same time thinks all Christianity is the same which obviously it’s not

Deborah, I also started watching Austin when he first visited my parish, Saint John Cantius Church in Chicago. And the priest who gave him the tour is my Pastor. He's the Superior General of the Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius and also the Pastor of said Parish. He's the youngest Superior and Pastor. His name is Father Joshua Caswell and his blood brother is also a priest whose name is Father Nathan Caswell. And guess what? 😁 They are converts to the Catholic Church! Yep! CONVERTS! 😃😊😇 They were Pentecostals from Canada. I met Father Joshua many years ago, back when he was Deacon Joshua. He came to my old Parish, St. Thomas More and gave a homily. After Mass we had coffee and refreshments in the parish hall. My daughter and I were sitting at a table by ourselves (that's how it usually was) so then Deacon Joshua came straight to our table and introduced himself. He sat down with us the whole time he was there and told my daughter and me his conversion story. The Virgin Mary had a huge role in his conversion. His parents actually became Catholic and took the whole family with them but Father Joshua was not really convinced but he had to because he was still a minor. But later on in his life is when he finally had his own true conversion of heart and Mary had everything to do with it. 😁😇😊 Short version of his conversion of heart (he was already Catholic) is that he saw that the Virgin Mary was like the moon that reflects light from the sun. Mary reflects and magnifies light from her Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. So he saw that in Mary's Magnificat where she states, "My soul doth magnify the Lord" in Luke's gospel. Father never forgot my daughter's and my name. He saw us only that one time in my old Parish when he was a Deacon. We saw each other again a couple of years later and he called my daughter and me by our names! 😃 I couldn't believe that he remembered our names after only seeing us just one time then seeing us again at Cantius a few years later! We went to his *Ordination* at St. John Cantius! So we were able to get a first blessing from him and his brother, Father Nathan.

I remember reading in one of comments When he saw the Pope JP2 forgave his attacker. He clearly knew he wasn't the anti Christ. Good or bad Popes. Truth must prevail in accepting our Faith. Will pray for you and your Mother, Brother.

Same here

Glad you appreciated that!

If you really wanna like it harder that much, if possible break a couple of bucks off for my Man Austin. Up to you though. GOD BLESS. PAX.

Thank you so much for your kind words and your prayers. That truly means a lot to me. God bless!

Thanks, Johnny! That's really helpful feedback

That's still differen than actively reading the bible. Other Christians have much more lengthy sermons in church, but still read the bible for themselves and tend to be better versed in it, compared to the average Catholic. When I talk to most Catholics, they really don't know scripture. They may hear scripture in Mass, but that doesn't mean they really know it. For many Catholics that don't value the bible to read it, the only scripture they would know is the Our Father prayer, just because it's recited in Mass.

So glad this channel has been helpful!

It’s kinda funny that I first learned the concept of steel manning from Harris.

@@brittybee6615 Harris does talk about steel manning, but maybe he doesn't appear to carry it out like he claims. I remember some debates w/ Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris and Peterson seemed to be the better example of steel manning.

@@saintejeannedarc9460 Credit where it’s due, I think Sam did a good job there. I don’t know, maybe he has to be in direct interaction with someone to try being fair 🤷🏻‍♀️

JUST FOR YOU!

But for real, I saw the comment and thought, let's do it

@@GospelSimplicity Thanks Austin! Pax Tecum! 🙏🏽

That surprises me, but it's great if it's true that Catholics see protestant Christians as brothers. Protestants generally aren't so gracious. The Catholics I encounter online are pretty dubious of us though.

Amen!

Hey Erick I love listening to your stuff. Especially your conversation on penal substitution, and the other one on indulgences. I started a new podcast called the Catholic OCD podcast and would love to have you on to talk about penal substitution

Thanks Erick, means a lot!

He's based

@@MeadeSkeltonMusic Yeah, based in LIES! He's good on Israel and dispensationalism, though, credit where it's due.

@@MeadeSkeltonMusic be has terrible arguments 😂

#PissethAgainstTheWall

Maybe it should have been "Dr" James White😅😅

I can't stand how papalists won't even call the rest of us Catholic.

@@Mygoalwogel do you want to be?

@@Proclivitytolife That's like asking you if you *want to be* Christian, and assuming you aren't already.

@@Mygoalwogel no, I meant, do you want to be *called* Catholic. The type of Protestant Christian who will deny that Catholic Christians are indeed Christians, aren't the kind who usually want anything to do with the name "Catholic". I don't know if you are one of those who will deny that Catholic Christians are Christians, but you used the term "papalist" to refer to us, which is rather insulting, and it's difficult to believe that you don't realize it is insulting, and thus it would seem that you did so to insult me on purpose - which then leads me to think you are maybe the type of Protestant Christian I was referring to in my comment. And if that's the case, I then legitimately wondered if you actually want to be called Catholic or if you are just saying that.

@@Proclivitytolife I don't mean to be insulting. That's why I avoided the term "papist." If _Christians in fellowship with the Pope_ call us "Protestants" or "Lutherans" or "Nestorians" (all derogatory terms), then we may call them "Papists." If CiFWtP refuse to call us members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, then we may refuse to call them members of the Christian Church. Call us Catholics and we'll call you Christians. But then how do we refer to distinctions?

Its incredibly easy to deal with those who harp on the catholic churches scandal problems. Its easy because its usually from a person who either ignores any scandal with any protestant preacher, or is misleading on purpose. There are so many prot scandals, they just dont get the headlines of catholic ones, unless its a big one like ravi. I just google a couple things and the convo is really over. People doing bad things on their own are not an argument against any church, it goes both ways. If its a calvanist, i just ask them if their preacher was pre destined to commit those crimes or not and thats usually enough to get them into meme mockery mode and then its basically done.

Nothing can be worse than the abuse itself but it is a form of abuse in itself (and a crime) by covering up the truth.

@@viviennedunbar3374 Yes and any one in charge in the church guilty, should be dealt with and locked up. Most rational Catholics would say this. We dont want abuse, at all. 0%. Lock them up.

Look at Blue Collar Catholic (his name is Rob) on youtube too he has addressed scandal and sex abuse in the Church. He has given his sources as well. I will paraphrase and look him up there were studies done about sex abuse of the sex abuse that occurs the most is in public schools and less so in Christian schools of which there are now scandals in Protestant Churches that are less than public but even more so than in Catholic. This is not to throw shade on our Protestant brothers and sisters or on our own Catholic Church even one abuse is a scandal. The Church is full of sinners and Christ never promised a perfect Church. Yet because the Catholic Church has a hierarchy and now is addressing those scandals thru reporting and zero tolerance it is nonexistent...there were about less than 2 percent of priests who committed this horrific scandal during a certain time period. In Protestant denominations because of lack of reporting and hierarchy authority these reports are less publicised thru the secular and maintstream media who in general don't like the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. So these reports show there are more of these scandals in Protestant denominations but on the whole scandal in Protestant and Catholic circles are much less than public secular circles. So we must all do better in this realm. The secular media amplifies these scandals in the Catholic church making it sound bigger than one it is because the Church doctrine and organization proper has always fought against modernism, abortion, traditional roles of men vs women etc which is at odds with the liberal media alignment with leftsist ideals. And as Austin says here because individual sinners chose do wrong doesn't negate the Truth of the Church ...just as a bad Methodist or Baptist who commits scandal doesn't speak for their Church body. As a Catholic we don't follow or not follow the the Church because this guy in the church sins...we follow the Catholic Church because it is the bulkwark and pillar of Truth of our Lord Jesus Christ who established it. He told us to beware of bad shepherds....Judas was with Jesus at the Last Supper....some left but some stayed...we don't leave Jesus and His Church because of Judas. The other point is Catholics and Protestants must show by their example that we are Christians thru our actions...this is the biggest for evangelization...it hurts the body of Christ when we don't.

Protestants--I'm thinking mainly of the Evangelical variety here--have a convenient dodge when it comes to scandal within their ranks because when it happens they just read the guilty party out of their communion and say he was never really one of them.

I hear Catholic defend adoration of Mary quite often.

@@saintejeannedarc9460 Do they actually use the word "adoration," or are you interpreting what they mean? Also, since I see that your username is French, I should make the caveat that I can't speak for the proper vocabulary in other languages. But there's simply no room in Catholic theology for "adoration" of Mary, if we understand that word in its typical modern sense. Any hesitation about that fact is either from gross ignorance, or a perhaps well-intentioned but mistaken desire to counteract Protestant minimizations of Mary's role.

Thanks!

Greetings! True worship comes from the heart. Can you say that any one who is doing anything to Mary is actually putting her above her son in their heart? Do you know their heart, no matter what words are used to describe the act?

No, apparently that's no worship. Even though the commandment against idolatry describes all those elements that are forbidden, and even though it looks exactly what what is forbidden in an express commandment, it is said to not be that. I don't understand it either?

@YAJUN YUAN How did priest learn to read and write? Before I answer that, a bit of a background story. For those who don't know. In 313, Emperor Constantine I's Edict of Milan legalised Christianity, and in 330 Constantine moved the imperial capital to Constantinople, modern Istanbul, Turkey. In 380 the Edict of Thessalonica made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire, a position that within the diminishing territory of the Byzantine Empire would persist until the empire itself ended in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, while elsewhere the church was independent of the empire, as became particularly clear with the East-West Schism. The East-West Schism (also known as the Great Schism or Schism of 1054) is the break of communion since 1054 between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. A succession of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism The Catholic Church was the dominant influence on Western European civilization from Late Antiquity to the dawn of the modern age. In Christianity's ancient Pentarchy, five patriarchies held special eminence: the sees of Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. These were also places of learning. The prestige of most of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders, or in the case of Byzantium/Constantinople, that it was the new seat of the continuing Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire. These bishops considered themselves the successors of those apostles. In addition, all five cities were early centers of Christianity, they lost their importance after the Levant was conquered by the Sunni Caliphate. Modern western universities have their origins directly in the Medieval Church. They began as cathedral schools, and all students were considered clerics. This was a benefit as it placed the students under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and thus imparted certain legal immunities and protections. The cathedral schools eventually became partially detached from the cathedrals and formed their own institutions, the earliest being the University of Paris (c. 1150), the University of Bologna (1088), and the University of Oxford (1096). What few people are aware of is that after the decline of the western half of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Half remained strong and grew to innovate and preserve a lot of the Roman and Greek culture. The Byzantine Empire as it is often called stood the test of time for another thousand years defending western Europeans from Muslim and other invasions. They preserved lot of the Roman and Greek culture, among other things and eventually will reintroduce that back to the west in late medieval times, resulting in the renaissance and eventual protenstian reformation. The other civilization and religion of the preserved Roman and Greek culture were Muslims. The Islamic Golden Age was one of the most remarkable periods of scholarly achievement and cultural flourishing in human history. Covering the years from approximately 750-1250, the advancements made during this period are akin to the blossoming of wisdom in ancient Greece, or the later European Renaissance. Like ancient Greece and the European Renaissance, the Islamic Golden Age was made possible by a happy coincidence of politics, patronage, and great minds. From Camels to Stars in the Middle East The Islamic Golden Age was a complex and fascinating period of history that encompassed every area of life and human endeavor. This lecture will provide an overview of this important period by examining the who, what, when, why, and how of the Islamic Golden Age. You will also be introduced in this lecture to several stories, people, and places that will recur throughout the course. The scientific advances and cultural achievements that lay at the heart of the Islamic Golden Age spread outward from Baghdad first by migrating across the Abbasid empire, and then to the non- Abbasid corners of the Muslim world. Soon they found their way into non-Muslim lands, thereby advancing the cause of learning in Europe and elsewhere. How this brilliant burst of human attainment spread is an important but easily overlooked question. It began in the now long-lost House of Wisdom and the translation movement established by Harun al- Rashid in about the year 786. Al-Rashid’s goal-and that of successive caliphs, starting with his son, the caliph al-Mamun-was to translate every manuscript and book of any intellectual worth, regardless of its geographical, cultural, or religious provenance. Consequently, the wisdom of the pagan Greeks was acquired just as greedily as that of Byzantine Christians, Persian Zoroastrians, and Hindus from India. This was a truly enlightened and religious approach to knowledge acquisition on the part of the newly emerged Muslim superpower, the Abbasid caliphate. Native Arabic scholarship had itself only recently emerged from its infancy. Fortunately, most caliphs employed the good sense to rely on Jewish, Christian, and other translators in the religious, ethnic, and cultural melting pot that the Middle East had been for millennia. The Islamic Golden Age was an essential intellectual bridge between the ancient empires of Greece and Rome and the later European Renaissance that began in Florence during the 14th century. Even the dullest critic is forced to concede that the rebirth of Western European culture did not happen without the rediscovery of Greek and Roman culture. At the same time, the native Muslim scholars and others who brightened the course of the Islamic Golden Age were no mere custodians of earlier empires. During the Crusades Christians found Muslims so developed that Christians were seen as barbarians. Eventually Crusaders inspired by higher education of the Muslim world, open the same in the west. Resulting in the first universities. European higher education took place for hundreds of years in cathedral schools or monastic schools (scholae monasticae), in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century. The first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), and the University of Oxford (1167). Just how significant was Islamic Golden Age you can learn here. islamichistory.org/islamic-golden-age/

@YAJUN YUAN "How did priest learn to read and write? " What is important to realize is that after the decline of the Western half of Roman Empire, western Europe was for centuries ruled by various barbarian kingdoms, and only thing that unified them to give any sense of stability was Christianity under the guidance of Roman Catholic Church. They all converted to Christianity and there was cooperation between popes and kings. Nearly four hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire, in 800 A.D., Charlemagne or Charles the Great of the Francs, was crowned emperor in 800 a.d. by Pope Leo III, who declared the beginning of a new Holy Roman Empire. It joined a number of kingdoms and territories in central Europe, including Bohemia, Germany, Burgandy, and Italy. Charlemagne’s family held the crown for 88 years, but then a series of civil wars broke out for 80 years over who would rule. The empire re-united in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, claiming he was successor to Charlemagne. Thus began the continuous existence of the Holy Roman Empire for eight centuries, until 1806. Charlemagne is referred to by some as “the father of Europe.” He is buried in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Aachen, Germany. Charlemagne has been called the "Father of Europe" (Pater Europae), as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the classical era of the Roman Empire and united parts of Europe that had never been under Frankish or Roman rule. His rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire considered themselves successors of Charlemagne, as did the French and German monarchs. The Eastern Orthodox Church viewed Charlemagne less favorably due to his support of the filioque and the Pope's having preferred him as Emperor over the Byzantine Empire's Irene of Athens. These and other disputes led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Before that, for about 400 years in the early medieval times, there was a problem. No unification, so not enough stability. No formal well developed infrastructure, no libraries, no record of other major civilizations, and so western Europe had to figure it out from scratch, and used Bible as the primary source. Church provided the structure and priests spread it to local populations. Around that everything developed. Architecture, thinking about death and life, sin and virtue, morality, years, months , days were based on saints and holy figures etc. To your specific question here are some answers by others. On Quora Francis Marsden - 38 years a priest. Lived and studied six years in Rome. ... gave this answer: "Quite a lot of the ordinary parish clergy were simply apprenticed as boys or young men to the local parish priest. He taught them enough Latin to say the Mass and administer the sacraments correctly. So basically they learnt on the job, in the parish. Maybe they did some study at a local cathedral school or monastery. In the end the bishop would have to examine them and ordain them. For this reason, however, the educational level of many priests was not all that high. At least they could read and write, which most of their parishioners were unable to do. Then there were the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, founded specifically for the education of clergy, to which bright young men were sent at 14 to do the Trivium and Quadrivium, and then theology and philosophy. If they took minor orders only, they might well go into the Civil Service and serve the King. If they were ordained deacons and priests, they were likely to rise in their ecclesiastical positions to the higher clergy. They would be qualified and licensed to preach, which was often not the case with the lower clergy or “massing priests”. Religious orders had their own structure, often differentiating between the better educated priest-monks or choir monks, and the lay brothers who did most of the farming and manual work. It was to raise the educational level and improve the preparation of priests that the Council of Trent introduced the seminary system. The canon Cum Adolescentium Aetas, adopted during the council's twenty-third session in 1563, made it compulsory for every diocese to erect a seminary for the purpose of educating the local clergy."

@YAJUN YUAN Michael Wright - Former Lecturer at University of Auckland (1981-2003) writes. At one level, it’s easy to answer. A priest, as priest, is consecrated to perform the eucharistic service, which in Latin Christianity in the Middle Ages was called the Mass. In all forms of Christianity, this is the most crucial element of the life of the religious community, and for the laity typically forms the weekly focus of their religious experience. However, in Latin Christianity, the Mass is seen as not simply a gathering of a community in remembrance of Jesus’ death. It is believed that the actual sacrifice of Jesus is made present again, and in the Middle Ages it was believed that the merits of that passion were made available to be bestowed on some good cause. So, priests would not just say Mass for their parishioners; in one typical role, they offered Masses for the benefit of a soul or souls in Purgatory. You can see the traces of this in large medieval churches, which often have small chantry chapels, built for just this purpose, in the nave of the church. Other churches will have a series of chapels with their own altars around the choir. Priests who said these Masses were, of course, paid. We think of a priest, or ordained minister, as having a church and a congregation, and in the Middle Ages many priests had a parish, too. So, they would preach to the members of the parish at Mass. They would hear confessions, and they would offer general spiritual guidance (if they were good priests). This didn’t come for free: a parish priest would be entitled to some portion of the tithes and weekly offerings, and if they were lucky the position entitled them to the use of, or income from, lands. You get a huge range of financial positions: some parishes were so well endowed that priests were given that benefice as a source of income, while they went off and did other stuff; some parishes had only a moderate amount of land, so the priest did a fair bit of practical farming; and some priests were hired by the absentee priests in the first category, to actually do the parish thing, and they were often paid a very small salary, not a lot more than an agricultural labourer. In order to be a priest, you had to be able to say the Mass, which was performed in Latin. So you had to have at least some education, and you had to be examined by a bishop and be accepted as being sufficiently educated, and of sufficiently unscandalous life, to be a priest. The standards, especially for poor priests in the more obscure parts of the countryside, could be very low indeed. On the other hand, because formal education was, to a large extent, in the hands of the Church, the path to priesthood could be the best intellectual education the Middle Ages had to offer, and the one most readily open to a boy without much wealth behind him. There would be a parish school, perhaps taught by the local priest, and then the Cathedral school or, from the 12th century onwards, the universities. You didn’t have to be a priest to go to university, but if you had patronage, being priested and given the income of some parish was a way of getting financial support. So you get highly educated people who can be given an income that had no duties to take up their time, who were available to do work in, say, the household of a bishop, which work could be very practical administrative work; and since bishops were both secular rulers in their own right, and were often employed by monarchs as ministers of the crown, there’s a class of priests acting as something like a modern Civil Service. All this is a gross oversimplification, and may have inaccuracies, but in general: a relatively large proportion of men in the Middle Ages were priests (I don’t know exactly, and it would vary, but think 1-5% of the population); they might be near the centre of an urban or religious community, with a church building for religious and other communal purposes; or they might be the spiritual advisers and guides of the wealthy, who could afford a chaplain; or they might be employed in one or other of the knowledge industries. They might be rich, or they might be dirt poor. They might be learned, or they might be ignorant and credulous. They might be of great piety, or they might be cynically self-indulgent. But they were everywhere. Notes: The Mass, or eucharist, or communion. Famously, the question of what goes on here is one of the most divisive in Christianity. Some see the eucharist as a purely commemorative event, others regard the body and blood of Christ as really present. The latter was the belief in the Middle Ages, and there are miracle stories of people seeing the communion bread bleeding told to confirm that belief. How the real presence happened was a topic of a lot of philosophical enquiry, and the notion of trans-substantiation is only one of the answers proposed. The central fact about a priest is that he had the ability to cause this miracle to happen. Education. In the early Middle Ages, most formal education happened in the religious houses (monasteries, etc.), which had the consequence that women had the ability to participate in the highest levels of intellectual activity. As the universities became the centre of learning, women faced a new barrier, since by and large women weren’t admitted to universities. Most universities were ecclesiastical entities, but there were a few that were secular (e.g. Bologna), set up to study law or medicine. In general, education in the law, and less commonly medicine, was the only high-level secular education going, though the University of Oxford had courses in farm management in the Middle Ages. Priests were men. One of the attractions of the new styles of Christianity that rose in the later Middle Ages was that they sometimes gave women a chance to be leaders.

And even more than this, there is no one “original text” but multiple textual traditions so that you have to choose one, or mix and match parts of some with others. Between different texts and different canons the “sola scriptura” runs into the problem of it not being obvious what you mean by “scriptura”. What ends up happening is that the text and canon is circumscribed to fit a theology; so you de-canonize books or redact pericopes that suggest things you’ve deemed “unbiblical” on the basis they aren’t in the Bible even though they are written there, but that text can’t be part of the Bible because it says something unbiblical... (....) sigh, lol.

@@huntz0r Yes, you are correct. Unlike Muslims with their tradition of accurately coping the Qurʾān, Christians always lacked that kind of precision and hence Bible was changed from each branch of Christianity, some Early Christian beliefs were left out, some new ones were added and often mixed with other influences. Plus there are translations that are not 100% accurate. King James Bible, has few mistakes in translation that I even know. There are plenty of misquotations from the Bible, take your pick which one. Probably the most famous one is "God helps those who help themselves." The earliest recording of this saying is actually from Aesop’s fable "Hercules and the Waggoner." A man’s wagon got stuck in a muddy road, and he prayed for Hercules to help. Hercules appeared and said, "Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel." The moral given was "The gods help them that help themselves." Aesop was a Greek writer who lived from 620 to 564 BC, but obviously did not contribute to the Bible. As a biblical truism, the proverb has mixed results. We can do nothing to help when it comes to salvation; salvation is through Christ alone. In the work of sanctification-becoming more spiritually mature-we are to join in the work. 1 Peter 1:14-15 says, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior." Arab version of this is: Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. -Arabian proverb In other words: “There may be fairies, there may be elves, but God helps those who help themselves.” ― Stephen King, Misery So clearly some things are part of culture but not nesecerally in any of the Bible even if they are often though they originated from it. "Hate the sin, love the sinner." "Although this is a biblical-sounding admonition, it is not directly from the Bible. It’s actually a loose quote of something Mahatma Gandhi wrote in 1929, “Hate the sin and not the sinner.” Augustine expressed a similar thought back in AD 424: “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” The biblical principle backing this up is found in Jude 1:22-23. We are to hate sin-even our own. And we are to show love to other people. The “hating sin” part is coming under fire today as more and more people define themselves by their sin and resent the guidelines God has given us in His Word." www.gotquestions.org/not-in-the-Bible.html

It's funny because when you read older texts they will write that they "worship" Mary and "adore" God and be totally orthodox about it, and today the words have just switched meaning

@@timee3221 , adoration and worship is for God alone, we honor and praise Mary and ask for her intercession in prayer..

hahaha the catholic sympathizer who simultaneously refuses to be catholic just said you worship Mary. #itstrue

@@timee3221 exactly

@@kathleentiernan668 I don’t think you understand what we were saying. May want to reread everything slowly again :)

HI bro, just happened to read your thoughtful comment and as a former Catholic myself i would just like to relate that my problem with the CC is that I never got an understanding of what salvation really is according to Jesus. The Church told me that if i had been baptized I was "born again" according to their theology but thru a long series of events and the witness of others and my research and then my own experience I finally found out that wasn't true. So I was just wondering what your experience is and what is the kind of faith that leads to salvation for you? I take notice from reading the comments that Catholics are concerned about leading others to their church but not so concerned about leading anyone to salvation.

@@Jerome-72 Hi , thanks for your reply. Believe it or not, the first time I read the bible was actually senior year at the Catholic high school in religion class, book of Genesis, until came to Christ about 7 years later, at a Bible study ,was working for a Christian builder that had studies at his home on Wednesday nites . The Lord had His arms around me then, and I know He will never leave me or forsake me despite myself and my sinful nature, Jesus took that on the cross, i've been " crucified with Christ" Galatians 2:20. Think you might've been on to something when you mentioned the CC stance about salvation, The "church", (any church), cannot save you, God s word brings us to salvation, that 's how I got "saved". Galatians 4:12 I still pray and recite a few comforting prayers ; the Our Father or Lord's Prayer , the prayer of St. Francis and the Apostles Creed .from my Catholic upbringing. Take care brothers and sisters , Jesus Saves

@@anthonyprezioso8115 I went to Catholic high school too and i remember that i firmly believed that there was no salvation outside of the CC. That made perfect sense since you must be validly baptized by a Catholic priest and all graces are received thru the sacraments of the CC, but thru the witness of others I became convinced that was false and not consistent with scripture (see Jn. 1:12.-no clergy are needed for the HS to do His work.) However, what i wanted to get to... was what it takes to "come to Christ". That is the main thing we need to be together on and the wrong answer can lead to a false confidence. Many churches just don't explain salvation clearly. To come to Christ we must have a complete change of heart. Beforehand we thought that we could do something to please God and make up for sin in some way by our own suffering, obedience, etc, but now we must agree with God that we have nothing to bring to the table, but by faith alone ( which Catholics strongly deny) in the work of Christ alone as our only righteousness before God and make this the only ground of salvation. Are you on board ?

Good catch! I do these videos in one take without notes, and that often gets me in trouble :)

We should probably get away from insisting too hard on particular definitions of particular words. Adoration as a word in English has more than one meaning. So does worship. Adoration can be the feeling I have for my spouse, and worship can be an honorific (as when calling a judge “Your Worship”). I may fall down in worship before an icon but not be *worshipping* the icon. The word is used this way at times in English Bibles in contexts that would lead you to believe idolatry is going on if you stuck rigidly to the definition of “worship” as that which we offer only to God. There are higher and lower forms of worship (especially understanding worship as a high form of attention) and the highest form is reserved for God, but we give lower forms to the Mother of God, the saints, angels, even principles like beauty. The important thing is that we get the order correct, not only having God at the top, but other things in their proper place within the hierarchy.

Even though the official position of the church may be that adoration is to God, and veneration is to Mary, I still see Catholics use adoration language for Mary. I see it in comments fairly often, but even a simple search brings up high profile Catholics w/ published works doing it. An example is a title in The National Catholic Register: "Adoring Christ With Mary: Eucharistic Devotion and the Mother of God". This is published in a popular Catholic site, that I've referenced a number of times. Another book title popped up from a Polish Catholic, "I Abandon My Heart to God: Prayers adoring Christ with Mary, Our Lady of Good Help". So is this really a misstep on protestant's part, because we seem to be picking it up from valid sources?

@@saintejeannedarc9460: In both of the examples you gave, the adoration is towards Christ, not Mary. In each case, Mary is adoring Christ _with us._ (It's not some special theological usage; the phrase "with Mary" means what it normally means in English.) Consider: If I am polishing my car with Mary, it means we're both waxing and buffing, and _the car_ (not Mary) is getting shiny. Likewise, if I am adoring Christ with Mary, it means we are _both_ worshipping the second person of the Trinity and _He_ (not Mary) is getting adored and receiving sacrifice. So, to answer your question directly: Yes, I think that was a misstep on the protestant's part: Your inclination was to be hyper-vigilant* for a hidden meaning that never occurred to the Catholics who wrote that verbiage. BTW, in Latin you would not have been able to have that misunderstanding: The different word-endings would make it clear that Christ was the direct-object of the verb "to adore," and Mary was not. So, your ability to misunderstand this phrasing isn't _solely_ over-sensitivity on your part; it's also a symptom of English grammar. Make sense? *** I can relate to that hyper-vigilance. I grew up a Protestant, focused on the Protestant-apologetics world. I really didn't give serious examination Catholicism until age 35, and my initial reactions to Marian phraseology were _very_ negative. But it was the issue of _authority_ and _how we come to know_ the doctrine and practices of Christianity that yanked my upbringing out from under me. I found that the Epistemology of Faith implied by Protestantism was unworkable and indefensible from an apologetics perspective. I became convinced that _either_ Jesus did not intend Sola Scriptura; or, if He did, then He was too ignorant-of-humans to be God. But He rose from the dead! Therefore He is God. Therefore He _didn't_ intend Sola Scriptura to be Christians' resource for knowing the content of the Christian religion. That was my first firm conclusion. But what did that mean, vis-a-vis the churches and denominations? Well, all the currently-extant Protestant churches practiced some version of Sola Scriptura. (I'm excluding a few unserious liberal ones that just made stuff up as they went and acknowledged no reliable divine revelation whatsoever; these I disregarded out-of-hand.) If therefore, Christianity was not a _lost religion,_ it had to be found outside Protestantism, either in Catholicism or one of the Orthodoxies. But the divisions among the Orthodoxies turned out to be fundamentally the same epistemic problem, carried out at an episcopal or synodal level. That left Catholicism as the only remaining option, other than denying Christ. So, I was compelled to learn more about Catholicism and the history of Christianity from the end of the Apostolic age, through the Middle Ages, and past the Reformation. And _this_ led me to discover that my aversion to flowery-sounding Marian language was related to my aversion to flowery-sounding expressions of "courtly love" and "fealty to a feudal lord" we see in medieval _chanson_ and other expressions of Middle-Ages culture! It was hierarchical and medieval, whereas I personally am American, bred to take "all men are created equal" as a dogma! My _culture_ finds this earlier culture repellent, because it is _in a state of reaction against_ that culture. If you, like me, are a 20th/21st century American, then you are raised to call the _President of the United States_ nothing more than "Mr. President." But a medieval person would have been accustomed to address _even his local magistrate_ in far-more flowery terms: Things _we_ would describe as "flattering to the point of obsequious, and emotionally overwrought." Their "polite nothings," to us, sound like the words of a psycho stalker. So, when you encounter Catholics getting misty-eyed over Mary, ask yourself: "Are they just parroting prayers and devotional terms invented in a very different age?" And also ask yourself: "If a medieval Christian heard _me_ talk about Christ the way I do, would he be shocked at how coldly disrespectful I was to the Lord I claimed to adore?" Cultural misunderstandings can flow in _either_ direction! Food for thought.

@@cw-on-yt Well thanks for the amusing image of polishing your car w/ Mother Mary. Yes, I suppose that does make sense, otherwise it might read Adoration of Christ And Mary, to read the way I first took it. Yes, I'm a bit hypervigilant and not used to the way Catholics talk about and pray to Mary. I'm used to it enough, but not in my own practice. That's also far more charitable an explanation than I got from another Catholic who came rather unhinged and accused my of attacking the RCC and lying about it. I do just disengage from such encounters, because I'm fairly sure it was clear enough, that was not my tenor or intent. So thanks for your graciousness. The thing is though, I did read the article in the National Catholic Register. The author said that he believed Mary was also present in the Eucharist. I don't think this is conventional Catholic doctrine and that seemed, well, extreme. He is a Polish author, and perhaps that is the difference. Mariology in N. America is toned down, compared to other places where it does reach extremes I've heard some Catholics be uncomfortable w/. This was a N. American site this article was published in though, so I was startled to see that, as I've read that site a number of times and it has seemed a well balanced Christian site before, even if I don't agree w/ all of Catholic theology. As for sola scriptura, I'm still fully onboard. God's word is eternal and infallible. The church is temporal and not infallible, so I can't see the church as equal to the word.

Very true!

wait, on the one day that he made the sacrifice you don't have mass? that makes no sense

No, we don't have mass on Good Friday. We pray the Stations of the Cross. The altar is stripped bare and Good Friday is seen as a day of mourning

@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr We go to the Church and listen to the Scriptures on how Christ was killed. But the Eucharist is not there, since Christ is dead. Then on Good Sunday we have a new mass, with Eucharist, so we celebrate He is back. The Eucharist is not just the sacrifice, it is also Jesus being present.

@@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr grasping at straws

@YAJUN YUAN Yajun! I was hoping you'd show up eventually. Go check out the videos I did on the subject,

@YAJUN YUAN The external expression is covered in Episode 2

I would love to dig into that some time

I think it was NIV. Just one I had on my shelf. I primarily read ESV, if that's helpful

@@GospelSimplicity Thanks for letting me know, brother. 👊

Hahahah mission accomplished 😎

@@GospelSimplicity Yep, I didn't see it coming either. I'm thinking, "What the heck did I just see sweet young Austin just say?"

@YAJUN YUAN let Jesus tell you more John Chapter 6:53-58

Didache (90AD) "The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles" - the earliest written catechism. The Lords instruction on how to worship Him on the Lords Day: (Mass and the Holy Euchaist) "On the Lord's Day gather together, break bread and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure. Let no one who has a quarrel with his neighbor join you until he is reconciled by the Lord. In every place and time let there be offered to me a clean sacrifice."

St. Alphonsus Ligouri in his Discourses on the Mass and Office. He wrote: “A single Mass gives more honor to God than can ever be given to Him by all the prayers and austerities of the saints, all the labors and fatigues of the Apostles, all the torments of the martyrs, and all the adoration's of the Seraphim, and of the Mother of God.”

@YAJUN YUAN The mass and the eucharist is the center of early Christian worship not the sermon. The bible was made canon in 382AD and was not accessible to common man until way after the invention of the printing press in 1455AD. Except for the rich and clergy, man was illiterate for more than 1500 years. - It's not so easy to be literate when the only books are at the church and they are written in Latin. The scriptures was heard in mass at church and not read for most of history. St. Ignatius of Antioch (110 A.D.): "They (Gnostics) abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist it the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again." St. Irenaeus of Lyons (140 - 202 A.D.): "…He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, "This is my body." The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, He confess to be his blood" St. Justin Martyr 155AD: “…in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name….” St, Augustine (354-430): "What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the wine is the blood of Christ"

Yajun is an obsessive follower of catholic vídeos. He is adventist. Adventism is antitrinitarian christianism and therefore false christianity.

indeed...and in the end all these "denominations" might all be called traditions of men...Jesus is not going to judge you based on what denomination you belonged to...

I don't think I've ever heard a protestant pastor ever bring up Catholicism in a sermon. I've seen some protestant channels cover Catholic doctrine. Sometimes it is very fairly covered, attempting to explain it properly, before refuting points of doctrine or dogma they don't agree w/. Pastors, RC Spraoul, Gavin Ortlund and Mike Winger would be more gracious examples. Someone like Spencer Smith is an ungracious example. I've seen a plethora of Catholic channels go after protestants, very often undermining the authority of the holy bible to do it. In practice, Catholics are supposed to believe the church is equal to sacred scripture, but in practice, in videos like this, it would seem to be above scripture.

That could be fun!

He's graduated and been married for about a month already, hope he's had a happy honeymoon. [Didn't you notice the haircut? 😅].