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Show 93: The Christian Faith, Part 1 · The Uncensored Catholic

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The of Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. I hope you're enjoying the
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weather where you are. We're getting our first real touch of winter here,
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and you know, I been here for people up north and west of here.
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They're just getting nailed with, you know, feet of snow. You
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know we're not. It's cold, it's unpleasant, but you know it's a
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nice even to have a fire in the fireplace, nice pot of soup.
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So I'm not complaining. So let's jump right in here. We'll pick up
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with radio replies where we left off yesterday. The person who's questioning the two
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priests asks Ingersoll said, I cannot imagine the infinite Creator giving a recipe for
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hair oil for Aaron's beard. Well, you know, Ingersol was a very
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influential agnostic, very influential on our modern culture. Sometime late eighteen hundreds,
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early nineteen hundreds. I believe he had served in the Civil War Union soldier,
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if I'm not mistaken, and very influential in Masonic thought and all that.
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But a blithering idiot, actually well spoken, blithering idiot, And as
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they said, that is just what he did. Imagine he cannot describe,
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even in his own mental. Uh, he cannot even describe this even in
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his own mental process. It is patently dishonest to imply that modern notions of
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hair oil are in any way equivalent to the anointing and consecrating of a priest
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to God in the ancient Jewish rites. That would just that would be just
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like if you know, someone compared the chrism oil that where it's used in
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their confirmation in the Catholic Church to a hair oil or tonic or uh,
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the you know the oil is used when the priest is consecrated. These blessed
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oils have nothing to do with cosmetics. Obviously. The person says, could
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there not have been a hidden spring in the rock struck by Moses? And
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they say there could have. That would not affect the question. There was
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no water flowing when Moses struck the baron rock, and to strike a baron
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rock with a rod is not the normal way of opening up a spring of
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whose existence one is unaware. If there were no spring, then God also
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created the water, which If there were no spring, then God also created
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the water which flowed forth He created who he who created the oceans, could
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quite easily create a flowing spring of water, for it is certain that God's
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infinite power was not exhausted by the creating of the oceans. How could God
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harden Pharaoh's heart? That's interesting, By the way, I just want to
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speaking of rods and water, very old tradition here in the Mountain called divining.
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Yes, it's people are called water witches. Seriously, and don't I
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don't think it's really superstition, and I don't think it's magical witchcraft. They
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actually take a willow rod and they in their hands and they walk around and
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somehow that stick pulls to where there's water in the ground, in an underground
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Well. Now you may think sounds crazy, and it may be I may
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be wrong, But why wouldn't God have blessed certain people with the ability to
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find water when water is essential to human life? Yeah, I mean think
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about it. You know, God gave many gifts to you know, the
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prophets of the Old Testament, to various saints and such. Most of these
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people they call water witches, which you know, they're not witches, they
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don't practice witchcraft, are actually very devout Christian people, and they say God
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gave them this gift. It seems to be hereditary I don't nun So you
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know, maybe maybe Moses's rod was attracted to a place where there was a
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hidden spring, I don't know, or maybe it's, you know, miracles
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just described in the Bible. Either way, it's the power of God working.
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The person asks how could God harden Pharaoh's heart and then punish him for
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not letting the Jews go. The answer the sense is that God permitted Pharaoh
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to harden his own heart. It is but a Jewish mode of speaking.
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Exodus eight fifteen says, and Pharaoh harden his own heart, and God sent
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Moses to ask Pharaoh to let the Jews go, and the means that he
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and that means that he meant Pharaoh to do so. God would not therefore
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have deliberately prevented the Pharaoh from doing so. God permitted Pharaoh to harden his
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own heart, just as he permits men to sin in our own days if
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they are determined to do so. God never interferes with our free will.
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The crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and the Jews must surely be a
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fable. They answer, No man on earth can prove that this did not
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happen. The only argument is that it seems unlikely. I would reply,
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most unlikely if anyone less than God were responsible for it happening. But to
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say that God could not do it is to misunderstand the difference between infinite and
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finite, Between infinitce and omnipotence, is to misunderstand the difference between finite and
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infinite, between impotence and omnipotence. Very interesting point. I mean, recently,
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there was rather ridiculous show on television hosted by William Shatner, of all
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people, a very ridiculous person in my opinion, and he was talking about
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could God have parted the Red Sea? And he showed that actually, in
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this area there are certain winds that blow and certain tides of this sea that
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will cause fair land very occasionally to occur. It's absolutely not impossible. The
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miracle is that God made it happen at the very time the Jews needed to
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cross over and then close the waters behind them, drowning Pharaoh's army. Whether
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it's possible or not, it's not a matter of question. It's certainly possible.
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With God, all things are possible. So let's get into what father
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Sparrago has to say today, and we're starting a New Chapters, Chapter five,
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The Christian Faith. The Christian faith, this is a firm conviction arrived
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at with the grace of God, that all Jesus Christ taught on earth is
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true, as well as all of the Catholic Church teaches by commission she has
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received from him. So true Christian faith is belief both in Jesus and the
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church he founded and gave his authority. At the Last Supper, our Lord
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said, this is my body, this is my blood. Although the apostles
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had evidence of their senses that what lay before them was only bread and wine,
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yet they believed that the words of Christ were true. The holiness of
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the holiness of the life of Christ, the numerous miracles that he worked,
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the predictions of his that were fulfilled, had convinced his apostles that he was
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the son of God, and that therefore every word that he spoke was true.
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God promised Abraham made as sentence, and then commanded him to slay his
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only son, Abraham Abate because he knew that God's word must come true.
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This was a splendid example of faith. Saint Paul calls faith the evidence of
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things that do not appear. Christian faith is at the same time a manner
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of understanding and the will. Before a man believes, he inquires whether what
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he is asked to believe was revealed by God. This inquiry is a duty,
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for God expects of us a reasonable service and warns that he who has
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hasty to believe is light in heart. But when once a man has arrived
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at the conviction that the truth which is in question was really revealed by God,
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then the will must at once submit to what God has laid down,
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even though the reason cannot fully grasp its meaning. If the will does not
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submit, faith is impossible. No man can believe unless he wills to believe.
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Now, this is a very interesting point. When I was at a
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certain Sun Baptist university in Virginia, and I would bring out points of their
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doctrine such as what saved always saved that disagreed with the plain words of the
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Bible. I would ask about it, and they would say, we believe
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that because our doctrine. We would believe our doctrine be true. I would
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say, but the Bible says, nope, no, we believe it because
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of our doctrine. Okay. Another good example, they said, you know
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one time many times. Actually, we believe drinking alcohols a sin, and
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any man who drinks if a drop of alcohol, commits sin. I said,
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well, Jesus not only made wine, but drank wine at the Last
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Supper. If Jesus did that, then he sinned. And if Jesus sinned,
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he can't be God. And they would get extremely angry and shut me
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up, and eventually they had everyone shun me and stop talking to me.
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Before I ever decided to become Catholic, I was just asking honest questions.
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The Protestant doctrine does not actually allow questioning, not honest questioning. There are
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plenty of Protestants who are what you might call cafeteria Christian. They say,
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well, I believe this, but I reject what Christ taught about homosexuality.
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But you can't do that. You either believe the entire Bible or none of
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it. You either believe the whole Word of God or none of it,
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the full teachings of the Church or none of it. Because the truth is
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the same, yesterday to day, tomorrow forever. If any part of Christian
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doctrine is false, then all of Christian doctrine is false. Why is that,
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Well, because we believe in an omnipotent God. We believe that Jesus
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Christ is actually the Word of God through which all things were created. If
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he says it, it must be true. If the Church he guaranteed against
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all error teaches it, it must be true. Protestants don't understand that when
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they deny the real presence of Jesus Christ, body and blood in the Eucharist
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and holy communion as they well, they just call it communion whatever bread and
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wine. When they deny the real presence as Jesus made so explicitly clear in
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all four Gospels, I mean explicitly clear, or you know his teaching,
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and divorce, they deny the permits of marriage. They're denying the divinity of
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Christ. You cannot believe Jesus's God and disbelieve the real presence of the Eucharist.
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Even Martin Luther later said that he was inspired to deny the Eucharists by
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the devil. Yet all Protestant denominations deny the real presence of Christ, of
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Jesus Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist, and
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all Protestant churches say divorce is okay, even though he said it's not and
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now many, many Protestant churches say that gay sex and gay marriage is okay
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when he said, and so are the Apostles, and the Old and New
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Testament agree, it's very much not. And many, unfortunately within our own
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church, seem to think they can pick and choose doctrine that agrees with their
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politics and their ideology, and they cannot. Whenever you do so, whenever
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you say I know better than God, you're violating the first well two commandments.
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Really with the ten Commandments, you're making yourself own your own God and
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worshiping your own opinion or your political ideology as a god. You're committing apostasy
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and heresy and heterodoxy, but also idolatry, and that's a mortal sin.
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Once you do that, you're absolutely you've excommunicated yourself. And every time you
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receive communion in a state of mortal sin, Jesus said, you've become guilty
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of his body and blood, the same as if you committed murder. So
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someone who says to you, yes, the church says this, but that's
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old fashioned thinking. On say, the issue of homosexuality, they're committing a
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mortal sin and damning themselves to help they're openly and willingly putting themselves away from
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God and in a place away from God, which is hell. And if
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they don't repent and go to confession and come back into communion with the Church
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before they die, they'll be lost for all eternity. And they may say,
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oh, this is kind, this is nice, this is modern.
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You're you mean, you're cruel, You're a heater of what is it?
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A homophobic as if you were actually afraid of gays for some reason? I
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mean, come on, who's afraid of anyway? Never mind, let's just
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say, mister Humphreys, off of are you being served? Does not scare
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me? Okay? Anyway, maybe there's a bunch of them coming at me
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like a gang, I might, you know, I mean, no,
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one's afraid of homosexuals. There is no such thing as homophobia. What there
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is as someone saying, God, Jesus, the Word of God and the
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Old Testament and the New Testament, and in the continuous teachings of the Catholic
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Church that he found and guaranteed from all error, has taught for thousands of
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years that homosexuality is wrong, that teaching is not changing. And you know,
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it's not a matter of effeminacy or being masculine. If you're a woman,
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it's a matter of engaging in gay sex. Or it's even worse if
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you call a marriage that is apostasy, that's an abomination. The Bible actually
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says to live with a man as a woman as an abomination. So yeah,
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that really is quite a serious sin. It's not sinful to have same
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sex attraction. It's sinful to act on it. The same way as it's
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sinful. It's not a sin really if you're a married person to you know,
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meet another person that you find attractive. That's human nature. It's a
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sin to indulge in that. It's a sin to act on it. You
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know, it's a sin to indulging, you know what Jesus said, committing
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adultery in your heart to fantasize about it, and it's just a mortal sin.
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It's a sin of adultery to act on it, just the same as
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it is for homosexuals to have sex with each other. You know. That's
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what the Bible says, and it's not gonna change. And actually, with
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all his flaws, Pope France is just reiterated and said last week the church
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teaching on homosexuality will not change. And yet, you know how many Catholics
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think that it's okay to be gay. As they say, they're actually committing
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a worse sin than most homosexuals who well, any homosexual who's chased. You
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know, if your nature is to have same sex attraction, that's a mental
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disorder essentially, But it's not your fault. I mean, you know,
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it's something you've got to work through. But you can be as queer as
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a three dollars bill, and if you don't act on it, you have
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a committed to sin. A heterosexual Catholic that may be, you know,
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happily married with fifteen kids, and goes to Mass and iteration and fasts every
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Wednesday and Friday, I don't know, Tuesday, Friday. What is it
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Anyway, who says it's okay to be gay is committing a mortal sin,
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the sin of idolatry. That's really really badoxy and you know scandal. Yeah,
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that person's in much greater danger of hell. That person who goes to
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Mass daily is committing a mortal sin every time they receive the eu Christ.
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That person is in far greater danger of going to Hell than the chased homosexual
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and there are many actually chased homosexuals. I have known some. Unfortunately some
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are priests because that has been encouraged and it shouldn't be. It's no coincidence
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that this whole pedophilia priest scandal. You ever notice the priests aren't molesting little
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girls, they're molesting little boys. But we call it pedophilia. No,
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actually what it is is predatory homosexuality. But you know, hey, I'm
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not a shrink. You know, the psychological community tries to do the whole
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I'm ok, you're okay thing, So they call it pedophilia. Well,
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actually it's predatory homosexuality. These are home sexual men praying on young boys,
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as they have done throughout the ages. Just go upon a Greek history book.
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That is really the nature of homosexuality. You don't often see a homosexual
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man praying on a young girl. You know, it doesn't work that way.
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Really, we can't apparently be honest. And apparently if you are honest,
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now you know you hate people. I don't hate people. I want
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everybody to go to heaven. I mean, if I see a blind man
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walking toward a cliff, I'm just say, hey, look out, you're
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walking off a cliff, and if I see someone committing, you know,
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in grave danger of committing immortal sin, which is actually far more dangerous than
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walking off a cliff, I had the duty as a Christian to tell them,
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and so do you. Anyway, foos Baragua continues. Faith is concerned
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with many things which we cannot perceive with our senses and cannot grasp with our
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understanding. Faith is a conviction respecting that which we see not. We believe
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in God that we do not see him. We believe in angels that we
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have never seen them. We believe in the resurrection of our bodies that we
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do not understand how it can be. So. Too, we believe in
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the mysteries of the blessed Trinity, of the incarnation, of the blessed sacrament
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of the altar. This is why faith is so pleasing to God. Blessed
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are they, says Our Lord to Saint Thomas, who have not seen but
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who have believed. Faith never requires us to believe anything that is contradictory to
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human reason. The mysteries of faith are above and beyond our reason, but
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are never opposed to reason. For God has given us our reason, and
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it is the same God who has given us the teachings of Christ and his
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church. He who rejects any doctor of the Church ultimately finds himself involved in
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a contradiction. Hence Bacon truly says, a little philosophy takes a man away
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from religion, but a sound knowledge of philosophy brings him back to religion.
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We act quite in accordance with reason when we believe, because we trust ourselves
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to God's truthfulness, and because we know for certain that the truths of the
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faith are revealed to us by God. A short sighted man believes a man
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with longer sight when he tells him that a balloon is floating in the heavens.
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A blind man believes one with sound sight when he tells him that the
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map before him is a map of Europe. We believe in the existence of
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the cities of Constantinople, Pei, King, and Buenos Are, and so
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doing we act recably. But what a tragedy is happening in Turkey? By
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the way, I mean, the Muslim brotherhood has taken over. And pray
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for the Christians are left. It's horrible. It's horrible what's happening. And
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pray for the Christians. That are left in China also horrible. What's happening
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and so doing? We act reasonably, But how far more reasonable do we
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act? When we believe in God. Man may be mistaken or may be
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deceiving us, whereas God cannot err and cannot deceive us. It is the
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truthfulness of God on which we rely on which we make an act of faith.
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We must, however, previously, be certain that the doctrine or the
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fact which we asked, which we are asked to believe in, is one
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which has truly been revealed by God. God bears witness to himself as the
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author of miracles and prophecies. The man of good will can always find a
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sufficient reason for believing. A man of bad will will find an excuse for
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not believing. Very true. We believe the words of Christ because he is
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the son of God and can either deceive nor be deceived other or moreover,
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he has established the truth of what he taught by miracles that he worked.
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Now, that's going back to what I was saying earlier. You know,
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Jesus either is God and tolds the truth, or if he said something faulty,
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he's not God. You can't have it both ways. It would be
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a blasphemy to suppose the our Lord, who is truth itself, could ever
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have, in one single instance deceive us. Think of that. Hence,
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faith gives us a greater certainty than the evidence of our senses. Our senses
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can deceive us, God cannot deceive us. Christ himself appears appeals to the
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miracles he wrought when he says, if anyone will not believe me, let
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him believe the works. We believe the teachings of the Church because Christ guides
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the Church to all truth through the Holy Spirit and guards it against all error.
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And because God even up to the present day, has confirmed the truth
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of the teachings of the Catholic Church by miracles. If you don't believe the
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Catholic Church, the teachings of the Catholic Church, you don't believe in God.
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Why because God said, upon this rock I found my Church, and
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the gates of Hell not prevail against it. If you believe the Church that
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Jesus founded has taught error, and I can quote you know a dozen other
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scriptures where he guarantees that the apostles have that teaching authority and that they are
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to be believed, and they are true and they teach literally like with his
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own mouth. And even Martin Luther said that Jesus appeared to him in dream
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and said that the Peter's tongue was his mouth was his key case, and
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his tongue was his key. If you believe that the Catholic Church is false
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and that there's another Christian Church, then Jesus is a liar. And if
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Jesus lied, he's not God. If you disbelieve the Catholic Church, the
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one Apostolic, holy Catholic Church that has been in existence since the very day
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of Pentecost to this day about two thousand years, has ever taught error,
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has gone astray? Has you know, whatever Protestants will say, you know,
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Catholics worship Satan, the popes of the Antichrist. If you believe that,
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you're actually calling Jesus Christ a liar, and therefore your faith is in
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vain because he's not God. You believe in a liar. You can't have
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it both ways. As I keep trying to say, our Lord before his
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ascension said of the apostles, behold, I am with you all days,
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even to the end of the world. Okay, he's with his apostles and
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their successors in the Catholic Church, even to the end of the world.
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At the Last Supper, he said, I asked the Father, and he
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will give you another paraclet that will remain with you forever, the spirit of
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truth. Only the Catholic Church is that guarantee. No other church has the
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guarantee that the Holy Spirit will prevent them from all error. No other church
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has the authority to even exist. Actually, the Holy Spirit is therefore still
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in the midst of the church, just as it was, just as he
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was on the day of Pentecost. God moreover still works miracles in the Catholic
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Church. Witness the countless miracles of lords and those that take place at the
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well of Saint Winfred and Winnifred in Wales. That was one I was trying
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to remember the other day. I kept saying, Remember, I said,
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there was this well and I couldn't remember where it was. It's the well
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of Saint Winifred. And also those that must precede every beatification, every saint
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who was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, they had to prove that
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saint actually worked miracles, and it's a rigorous process. There's so many saints
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that they can't prove the validity. They don't get beatified, they don't get
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declared official saints, even though they were very holy people and are obviously saints
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in heaven. It's really the church tries to disprove miracles. The Church never
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tries to uphold a false miracle. Witness again, the numerous bodies of saints
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that have remained incorrupt for years after their death, as those of Saint Francis
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Xavior, Saint Teresa's, Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, Saint John of the Cross,
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and many others. These are people who die whose bodies don't decay,
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and they smell of roses. You don't believe me, Go to any cush
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just about any country in Europe and go to an old Catholic church and there's
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going to be a saint on display whose body is completely incorrupt, preserved from
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all decomposition. Yeah, and yeah, we actually do have some here in
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America. Very recently, a lady who has you know, will probably be
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beatified soon. She was a nun and her body is exhumed and found not
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to have decayed in the least, and she's been dead for a long time,
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so Witness again the head of the Venerable ivl Oliver Plunkett in the Dominican
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Dominican it at Drugada. I guess it's sweep, and I said, it's
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nontown I'm really familiar with, which not only remains incorrupt, but emits a
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most delicious fragrance. They say they smell like roses. Most of these bodies
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were buried in the earth for years and were found incorrupt when their graves were
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open. Witness again the miracle which takes place at Naples every year when the
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blood of Saint Januarius becomes liquid on being brought near the silver case in which
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the head of the Saint is kept, and again solidifies as soon as it
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is removed. That's incredible. You would think everybody in the world would know
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this. I actually did not know it until I read Father Sparrago's book,
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and then I looked it up, and apparently everybody in Italy just kind of
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takes it for granted. It's crazy, you know, I mean, the
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miracles would convince people, but nobody talks about them. Faith gives us more
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certain knowledge than that which we gain through our senses or that which we arrive
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at by our reasoning powers. Our senses can mislead us. God cannot.
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A stick part of which is in water looks bent. A sound that strikes
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against a flat building seems to come from the opposite quarter from which it really
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proceeds. Our intellects, too, can deceive us, weaken us as it
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is, weakened as it is by original sin. As we see better with
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a telescope than with the naked eye when the object is far away, so
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faith sees further and better than reason. We must not confuse faith with opinion.
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Faith is certain and sure opinion is not. And there's so much impack
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there. And we're not through with this chapter, so we'll pick it up
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again tomorrow. But you know, I've talked before about how these miracles happen
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and if the media would just report them then and you know, people would
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believe and become Catholic, which is the very reason that the media does not
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report them usually. So y'all keep praying for the conversion of all Christians to
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return to the Catholic Church, and for the conversion of sinners. And I'll
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talk to you amara until then. In the words of Saint Padre Pio,
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pray, hope and don't worry.