More on the Catholic Theology of the Mass

After I had posted my previous message about Dr. Scott Hahn’s defence of the Catholic theology of the Mass (which turned out to be a long post, because I had to quote his entire talk), I became more interested in his views, so I watched more of his videos, and researched his background, and discovered that he has an interesting history of converting from Protestantism to Catholicism—and he deserves credit for that. Protestantism is a heresy, and any move away from Protestantism is a move in the right direction.

I also discovered that he has several videos in which he tries to justify the theology of the Mass—all of them following more or less the same line of reasoning. The above video is the shortest one I could find; the rest tend to be rather long. It appears that he has recognized that the Catholic theology of the Mass is one of its weakest points (if not the weakest); and so he tries to defend it often. But defending the indefensible is not a winning strategy. The only way to deal with a theological error is to correct it; not try to defend it against all the odds. The Catholic Church has an authoritative Pope and a Magisterium, which should be able to cope with that problem without too much difficulty. Trouble of course is that the Catholic Church is too tied up with tradition to be able to easily change, or correct its theological errors.

Perhaps what is required is another Council of Trent, or a Vatican III,  in which all of Catholic Church’s remaining theological errors and “traditional baggage” can be discussed, identified, and corrected—without attempting to reach a compromise with the heresies of Protestantism. The theology of the Mass is not the only error of Catholicism. There are more. The Bible for example teaches that there is “one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). That does not leave any room for a “third mediator,” such as Mary or the saints. “Praying” to anything other than the first two is not biblical.

There is a difference between praying for someone (living or dead, that their sins may be forgiven for example, as in 1 John 5:16; or that they may be healed, as in James 5:16); and praying to a dead “saint” asking them to “intercede” with God on our behalf. I don’t know if the dead saints are still aware of the living, and can continue to pray for them or not. It is possible that they can. But that is a different thing entirely from praying to a dead “saint” asking for their “intercession”. For the first option, there is biblical support; for the second, there isn’t. There is absolutely no chance, biblically speaking, of prayers addressed to anyone other than Deity actually being heard, let alone being answered. It seems to me that Catholic theology has mixed those two concepts up. They have confused praying for, with praying to.

The same applies to “intercession”. The only one who has a proper “intercessory” role to play with God is Jesus Christ (Heb. 7:24–27). People can “pray” for each other (including possibly for the dead); but praying to the dead asking for “intercession” is a different thing. If the “saints” in heaven want to “pray” for me (assuming that they are in a position to), I certainly appreciate their kindness, and will thank them for doing it when I get to heaven. But the idea of me “praying” to them, asking for their “intercession” is a different ball game entirely, and has no basis in scripture. The Bible teaches that when we pray, we should say, “Our Father which art in heaven” (Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:2). I know of no scripture that says we should pray, “Our saints which art in heaven”. The Catholic doctrine of the “intercession of the saints” is another one of their theological errors that need to be corrected.

Still another one of their serious error is enforced priestly celibacy, which again has no basis in scripture, and which has caused untold harm to the Catholic Church over the centuries. It has barred the most gifted and able Catholics from entering the ministry, because they were normal people and wanted to be married! From the limited research I have done into it, it appears that it was introduced initially in order to save money. A celibate priest requires less money to live on than a married priest. That is no way to establish doctrine in a church. Where “tradition” conflicts with the clear teaching of scripture, “tradition” needs to be ditched. That is the best way of knocking the wind out of the sail of Protestantism—but without attempting to reach a compromise with Protestant heretical beliefs.

Returning to the above video, it is the shortest one I could find in which he defends the theology of the Mass, so in it he gets to the point quicker than the rest. But the arguments he sets forth are the same, and therefore no additional comments are required. But it is shorter and more to the point, therefore it is worth watching.