Shameless Popery

Protestants sometimes object that we shouldn’t (or at least don’t need to) ask the Saints and angels for their prayers, since we can go directly to God. After all, they argue, the Temple veil that once impeded our access to God is now torn… right? That argument, which is also used against the Catholic priesthood, misinterprets this critical moment in the New Testa

Asking Mary and the Saints to pray for us might seem (at best) inefficient or (at worst) like it undermines the sovereignty of God. But here’s an argument you may not have heard before about how the sovereignty of God is **better** revealed in the intercessory role of the saints and angels. Transcript: Welcome back to Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. Today, I want

The Catholic Church is no stranger to controversy and scandal, whether it be the Crusades or the Inquisition or the role of Catholics in the colonization of the New World, or more recent scandals like the sexual abuse scandal. And non-Catholics might hear about all of these things and wonder, “how can you remain Catholic despite these things?” Here are some straightforward tips

Modern Christians tend to misunderstand two of Jesus’ most radical teachings: his prohibition against divorce and remarriage, and his teaching about the Church. But what if this isn’t just a coincidence? After all, the biblical texts explaining marriage tend to do so by comparing it to Christ’s relationship with the Church, and vice versa. Does this explain why th

Jesus’ teaching on marriage (and particularly on divorce and remarriage) is so radical that his stunned disciples respond, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry” (Matt. 19:10). So what is Jesus’ radical teaching, and why don’t more Christians know about (or follow) that teaching? And is it true that Jesus creates an “e

In light of the war between Israel and Palestine, accusations of anti-Semitism in the fight between Ben Shaprio and Candace Owens, and some of your own comments… how SHOULD Christians think of biblical Israel, the Jewish people, and the modern nation-state of Israel? What role, if any, does the Old Covenant play today? And is it heretical to speak of the Jewish people as stil

In Acts 5, when the Apostles are on trial before the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee named Gamaliel (the same Gamaliel that St. Paul studied under) provided a simple test to determine if a religion really came from God or not. So what was his test, and what does it mean for the credibility and legitimacy of Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, and Islam? …

As Catholics, it’s easy to point out how divided Protestantism is, with all of its different denominations. But what about all of the divisions within Catholicism between “conservative” and “liberal” Catholics, Traditionalists, Charismatics, or a thousand other possible splits? As it turns out, the objection that Catholics are just as divided as Protes

Catholics (and Orthodox) believe that the Church is infallible, whereas Protestants tend to believe that only the Bible is unerring in this way. But which of these approaches looks more like what we see in the Bible itself? Here’s how Jesus’ teachings only work with Infallibility.   Transcript: Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer. So I want t

Each year on St. Patrick’s Day, certain Baptists will claim that St. Patrick wasn’t REALLY a Catholic, but was instead a Baptist. But what do we learn from listening to St. Patrick in his own words? And what do we know about the world of St. Patrick from those who lived during his lifetime? As it turns out, Patrick was way more Catholic than you may realize… and h