John Henry Cardinal Newman was a 19th century British convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism.  In full transparency, I should be clear that today I am not going to assess his controversial views of the inerrancy of Scripture or evolution. Also, the topic of whether Newman be a good candidate for a future valid canonization is better tackled by the WM Review here. Today, I am only going to assess his teaching on the "Development of Doctrine" and what that means for Catholics in the 21st century. As a Jesuit-educated 20 year old in the late 1990s, I had been told by many in my life at that point that all [...]

Most American Catholics do not know the definition of a heretic.  However, a smaller percentage of mainstream Catholics who have studied a little theology might know that Catholics used to call Protestants "heretics," whereas they now prefer the term "separated brethren."  An even smaller percentage of Catholics, namely traditionalists, still prefer to label Protestants as "heretics" (as well they should.)  However, most traditional Catholics today are hesitant to grant the moniker "heretic" to anyone in the clergy without a formal canonical trial.  Why are they so free with the first group and hesitant with the second group? They are afraid that an obvious heretic in the hierarchy as such undermines [...]

Recently, while reading the Book of the Apocalypse (the last book in the Bible frequently called "Revelation" by Protestants) I noticed the astonishing Greek words εὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον (Apo 14:6) translated into the Latin as evangelium aeternum meaning "The Eternal Gospel" in English.  Upon reading that, I realized it was the very best definition of Catholicism, namely, the Eternal Gospel precisely because Divine Revelation cannot change (Mal 3:6.) If you look up catholic in a dictionary, you will find the word universal as one of the main definitions of the word.  This refers to catholic in general.  (Notice, I did not capitalize the word catholic in the two previous sentences.)  Thus, [...]