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Why Be Catholic?

Sorry, Catholics — Jesus never said, “You are Peter, and on this rock . . .” or promised him the Keys 

Jerome D. Gilmartin – February 26, 2024

Well, yes he did. But not according to the theory taught to most Catholic seminarians as the best explanation of Gospel origin. Consider the following hypothetical conversation with a Catholic bishop:

 

“Your excellency, If I may ask, who wrote the first Gospel?”

Most will answer, “Mark.” 

 

“Well, if that’s true — with Matthew using Mark as a source as the USCCB claims and as widely taught for decades in Catholic seminaries — I guess there’s no reason for either of us to remain Catholic.” 

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Will Schism be theCoup de Grâce to plummeting Catholic faith and practice? An urgent appeal to our bishops 

Jerome D. Gilmartin – February 26, 2024

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!” 

 

Does that plea, so courageously expressed by Patrick Henry in 1775, have a corollary in the Church today? 

 

Is ecumenism so dear, or dialogue so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of the Gospels as given to us by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? 

 

As Schism threatens to rend the one Church Christ founded, let faithful Catholics everywhere answer, “Forbid it, dear bishops, successors of Christ’s apostles, forbid it!” 

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Replacing “thin air” Jesus with the true Jesus in Catholic universities 

Jerome D. Gilmartin – September 8, 2023

Pope Benedict XVI: “Intimate friendship with Jesus … is in danger of clutching at thin air.” Jesus of Nazareth, 2007, p. xii. 

 

Catholic universities, and seminaries as well, now have reason to bring an end to five decades of instruction that, as Pope Benedict XVI wrote, has reduced Jesus to “thin air,” surely jeopardizing the eternal salvation of countless students and others.  

 

The Catholic bishops of the USCCB now have reason to discontinue their support for this instruction, e.g.: “The ancient tradition that the author [of the Gospel according to Matthew] was the disciple and apostle of Jesus named Matthew (see Mt 10:3) is untenable . . .” http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/0 Recent recognition of a Gospel-affirming Historical-Critical hypothesis as “Major” by biblical scholars facilitates this correction.  

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The Poison Pill taken by Catholic universities and seminaries — and the antidote 

Jerome D. Gilmartin – July 16, 2021 revised February 3, 2023

It began with a mutiny. Not the upheaval that struck the Church following the July 29, 1968 announcement of Humanae Vitae. Not the many liturgical and other changes that — though not mandated by the second Vatican council — nonetheless were soon implemented.

 

A far more consequential mutiny followed a conference that took place in July, 1967 in Land O’ Lakes Wisconsin. There, led by Holy Cross Father Theodore (Ted) Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame University, leaders of ten major Catholic universities and of two religious orders issued a declaration of independence; most importantly from the Pope: 

 

“[T]he Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.” (Excerpt from par. 1).  http://www.ncregister.com/blog/reilly/the-land-o-lakes-statement-has-caused-devastation-for-49-years. 

 

Within a few years all but a few U. S. Catholic centers of higher education followed suit. They rejected the time-honored conclusions of St. Augustine: 

 

  1. (a) The Gospel according to Matthew was written first by apostle-eyewitness Matthew.  

 

  1. (b) Mark was written by Mark the evangelist based on the preaching of Peter and with access to The Gospel according to Matthew. 

 

  1. (c) Luke wrote referring to Matthew and Mark.  

 

(d) John was written by apostle-eyewitness John.  

 

(newadvent.orgHarmony of the Gospels, Book 1, Ch. 2, par. 3, 4).  

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The Key to Restoring Catholic Orthodoxy 

Jerome D. Gilmartin  –  February, 2022. Revised July 5, 2023

It is well known that the “Spirit of Vatican II” changed the Catholic landscape, undermining the orthodoxy that resulted in the pre-Vatican II golden age of Catholicism. What is not well known among Catholics is this:   

 

For the past five decades “Markan Priority” instruction in most if not all of our Catholic seminaries and universities has been undermining the faith, in particular that of our seminarians. It casts doubt on eyewitness-apostles Matthew and John, as well as Mark, as writers of the Gospels, asserting or implying that these Gospels were instead written by unknown individuals writing a generation later. Superior biblical scholarship, which soundly refutes this errant instruction, is ignored or suppressed, even by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Markan Priority instruction facilitates ecumenism, but reduces the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church to just another of the tens of thousands of Christian faith traditions. Historical-critical instruction of this kind was seen by Pope Benedict XVI as risking reducing Jesus to “thin air.”  

 

This article outlines the fundamental flaws of this widely taught but errant instruction and the compelling case made by recognized scholars for a faith-restoring alternative by which our bishops and leaders in Catholic academia can reverse the five-decade freefall of Catholic faith and practice that has jeopardized the salvation of countless souls.

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Jesus Emerges from the Historical-Critical Fog 

As published in the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly • Fall/Winter 2017 (Introduction added)

Jerome D. Gilmartin  – Author of The 7-Step Reason to Be Catholic, 2nd Edition: Science, the Bible and History Point to Catholicism

Published in the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, Fall/Winter 2017. [Note: No scholar responded with an attempt to defend Markan Priority.] 

 

Introduction added since publication, as well as the section, “Further Evidence for the pre-70 A.D. writing of all four Canonical Gospels,” an excerpt from, “The Poison Pill taken by Catholic colleges, universities and seminaries — and the antidote.” Dei Verbum §18 replaces §19.   

 

Introduction 

 

From the time the Gospels were written in the decades after Christ’s death on the cross and Resurrection, few Christians doubted that eyewitness-apostles Matthew and John, and “apostolic men” Mark (Peter) and Luke (Paul), wrote them. In the late 1800s, however, soon after the First Vatican Council declared the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, biblical scholars using the historical-critical method developed the Markan Priority Two-Source Hypothesis (TSH), which — virtually ignoring the early historical record — casts doubt on evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke as writers of those Gospels and generally attributes them to later unknown writers who may never have seen or never heard Jesus. 

 

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