“And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” – Matthew 16:17-19

Matthew 16:17-19 is one of the most controversial passages in the Bible. Rome bases its claims to Petrine authority primarily upon this entry. But today I would like to focus on just a small portion of the passage:

“…the gates of hell shall not prevail against (the church).” – Matthew 16:18

I listen to a lot of Catholic talk radio strictly for…

Back when I attended Catholic grammar school in the 1960s, the nuns would have all of the students assemble on the first weekday of May every year to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. Weather permitting, the students would line up by class on a field adjoining the church, and then proceed into the church singing Ave Maria. Bringing up the rear of the procession was the May Queen and her two attendants. The nuns inevitably chose the prettiest and smartest eighth grade girl to be the May Queen. She was dressed to the nines for the occasion and carried a small crown of flowers. After she entered the church and proceeded to the small Marian altar to the right of the main altar, she placed the crown on the statue of Mary, honoring her as the Queen of Heaven.

Little did we know at the time how un-Biblical all of…

Several months ago, I wrote a post about one of my memories of growing up within Catholicism. When I was in grammar school, the nuns would periodically go to the blackboard and draw a three-legged stool as a symbol of the Catholic church. The idea was that the church was extremely well-supported by its three pillars of guidance and authority: Holy Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the magisterium (the pope and the bishops as teachers). All three legs were taught to be equal in authority. It was pointed out by the sisters that, in contrast, the poor Protestants had only one leg, Holy Scripture, supporting their stool, which of course made for a laughable and completely untrustworthy seating device.

In that previous post, I commented on how pope Francis’ controversial lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees has exposed the baselessness of the claims regarding the divinely-led teaching authority of…