RED-C Know the Truth, be Catholic! Teaching Series Scripts
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Each of the following 90-second spots begins with: " In June 2019, a group of 5 Catholic prelates composed a declaration of truths to address ambiguous and misleading statements made by those entrusted with the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Such statements can endanger our salvation, but the Truth will set us free. So, join RED-C Catholic Apostolate now as we seek to know the Truth about ...",
it continues on with the text listed below for each individual radio spot,
and ends with: "Our Lord wants every human being to gain the fullness of life and truth in Him and through His Church. For more to aid Religious Education in your Domestic Church, go to
redcapostolate.org. Don’t settle for half-truths, presumption, or apathy. Know the Truth. Be Catholic."
0001 Consistent Through Time The Church’s living Tradition and Magisterium provide for a development of doctrine that, while expressing new insights over time, nevertheless, always remains in continuity with what has come before and “cannot be contrary to what the Church has always proposed in the same dogma, in the same sense, and in the same meaning”. The Magisterium is not superior to Scripture, but rather acts as its servant; Tradition, devoted to Scripture, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. We know this is true in our common sense as Catholics since during every Glory Be, we affirm our belief in the Truth “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
0002 Dogmatic Constancy The meaning of dogmas, i.e. infallible teachings divinely revealed, “remains ever true and constant in the Church.” Dogmas offer us definitive Truth that we can hold onto across time and space, illuminating the path of faith; guiding and securing believers. The Church can express Her dogmas like the Holy Trinity or the Immaculate Conception, with greater clarity over time or develop them more fully, but they always embody the essential Truth of the matter in the way that an acorn, while not a fully developed adult tree, contains within it all the necessary potency of a fully realized oak.
0003 Creed: Divine Constitution of the Church God is not glorified principally via material or political progress and the credibility of the Church’s witness to the Gospel can never be measured by the degree to which it conforms itself to the things of this world. “The Church of Christ is not of this world and its proper growth is based, instead, on its ever more profound knowledge of Christ’s riches, stronger hope in eternal blessings. a more ardent response to the love of God, and an ever more generous bestowal of grace and holiness among men.” As the Spouse of Christ, the Church seeks to be present to all people, in order to illuminate them with the light of Christ and to gather them all in Him, their only Savior.
0004 Creed: Insufficiency of the Mosaic Law “After the institution of the New and Everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by obedience to the law of Moses alone without faith in Christ as true God and the only Savior of humankind.” St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans tells us, “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law” and in his Epistle to the Galatians, “A man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
0005 Creed: Muslims and Monotheists “Muslims and others who lack faith in Jesus Christ, God and man, even monotheists, cannot give to God the same adoration as Christians do, that is to say, supernatural worship in Spirit and in Truth of those who have received the Spirit of filial adoption.” Muslims not only have an incomplete revelation of God’s nature, but because they are not part of the New Covenant through Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the worship they give to God can be only of natural origin. Consider this: the worship of Our Lord by the worst Christian is yet more efficacious and proper than the worship of Allah by the best Muslim because it is God himself, through the Holy Ghost and in Christ Jesus as the High Priest, who offers worship to the Father for us at Mass.
0006 Creed: Pantheism Jesus Christ made it plain in John’s Gospel that he is the sole path for salvation: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Idolatry or pantheism—the mistaken belief that God wholly subsists in the created order—“cannot be considered either as ‘seeds’ or as ‘fruits’ of the Divine Word, since they are deceptions that preclude the evangelization and eternal salvation of their adherents, as it is taught by Holy Scripture.” We can fall into the sin of presumption if we do not adhere to this reality. We would fail to love our non-believing neighbor who has a right to the Good News and we would risk bearing false witness by telling ourselves that surely, in God’s mercy, they will be safe from damnation.
0007 Creed: True Ecumenism True ecumenism has as its goal the entry of non-Catholics into that unity which the Catholic Church already indestructibly possesses in virtue of the prayer of Christ: “that they may be one”. The fullness of truth and means of sanctification subsist in the Catholic Church, that is the One Holy Catholic and apostolic church we profess our faith in every Sunday. Other Christian denominations that have separated themselves from the Catholic Church have some truth and some sacraments. All salvation comes from Our Lord, the head, through the Church, His body. Rejecting the Church is rejecting Jesus Christ, her founder. The Church is responsible, therefore, to go out and proclaim Jesus Christ and His Church to the world.
0008 Creed: Hell Human beings are made to give glory and praise to God eternally. On earth, men and women have a clear choice to make about their answer to Our Lord’s question, “But whom do you say that I am?” To aid them the Church proclaims throughout all the ages the Good News that Our Lord first preached: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” God, however, does not force people to be with Him in heaven and any unrepentant soul who choses, by its earthly way of life, eternal separation from God elects thus to be condemned to hell. To these souls our Lord says “depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”.
0009 Creed: Diversity of Religions The religion born of faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and the only Savior of humankind, is the only religion positively willed by God. Article 845 in the Catechism sums up the relationship of non-Christians to the Church by declaring, “To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church.” That is, the intentional, positive will of God is that, ultimately, all men and women become Catholic, “that they may be one just as we are one” even if Judaism was the first response to God’s revelation and Muslims, [quote] “acknowledge the Creator.”
0010 Creed: Living Relationship with God Pope St. Paul VI taught us that “Our Christian religion effectively establishes with God an authentic and living relationship which the other religions do not succeed in doing, even though they have, as it were, their arms stretched out towards heaven.” It is the Incarnation of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, that makes this so. He is the one mediator between God and Man who, being fully Man and fully God, is able to offer Himself as a representative of all of humanity to reconcile us with the Father. The Second Person of the Trinity became man to make us heirs to the Kingdom of God and participants in His very life. As Catholics we pray that other religions know Our Lord Jesus, so that they may enter into this living relationship.
0011 Creed: Right to the Good and True All of us cherish the words of the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” A distortion of these principles over the last two centuries now demands man use his liberty in pursuit of his happiness even at the expense of his life (or others’, no matter how vulnerable). In fact, God the Father endowed us with free will—liberty—so that we would opt for the good and the true out of love for Him and for the other. God risked man turning away from Him in order that man might also enjoy the possibility of freely choosing goodness and truth who, ultimately, is God.
0012 The Law of God: Conversion through Justification Christ died for you and for me on the Cross and it is His passion, death, resurrection, and ascension that paid our debt of sin and won for us the grace we need to be saved. Through His Church He offers us this grace in the sacraments, especially Baptism, which He instituted in the Church He established. In the Mass, Christ offers the perfect sacrifice for us, but also asks us to join our sacrifices to His. This sacramental grace justifies us and gives us the strength we need to carry out the objective demands—the letter—of the divine law. Our Lord's grace makes it possible for us to follow all of His commandments and be converted from serious sin.
0013 The Law of God: Love and Obedience Created by God with the capacity to love and with a right to the good and the true, we are wise to acknowledge and respect the specific moral precepts declared and taught by the Church in the name of God, our Creator and Lord. Love of God and of one’s neighbor cannot be separated from the observance of the commandments of the covenant renewed in the blood of Jesus Christ and in the gift of the Spirit. We are in error if we think we can, in the words of Pope St. John Paul II, “justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the Divine and natural law.” Thus, “these theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition.”
0014 The Law of God: Justice and Mercy All of the commandments of God are equally just and merciful. It cannot be the case that by obeying the Divine law someone could at the same time sin against God by this act of obedience or morally harm himself or sin against another. Our Lord, in Matthew 25, gives countless examples of how living a life of self-sacrifice means loving God at the same time and how these conduce to our salvation. We also must trust Our Lord that, through the charism of binding and loosing that He bestowed on the Apostles in Matthew 18, He has endowed His Church with the authority to mark out and define specific rights and wrongs.
0015 The Law of God: Means and Ends There are moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law which include negative prohibitions absolutely forbidding certain kinds of action, inasmuch as these kinds of action are always gravely unlawful on account of their object. No good intention or good consequence is ever sufficient to justify the commission of these kinds of actions. That is to say, the ends (our goal) can never justify the means (the actions we take to achieve our goal).
0016 The Law of God: Abortion A woman who has conceived a child within her womb is forbidden by natural and divine law to kill this human life within her, either by herself or with the assistance of others; whether directly or indirectly. As early as the year AD 50, we have the Church’s written prohibition against abortion under any circumstance. We must reject even exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which seek to rationalize abortion. Catholics, should work diligently through the ballot box and through civic action to restrict abortion and, ultimately, end its practice.
0017 The Law of God: In Vitro Fertilization Procedures which cause conception to happen outside of the womb “are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act,” said Pope St. John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. God created man and woman to bond permanently in marriage and to literally join together physically to bring about new life. The human bond thus created is essential to the creation of life. Relegating it to a laboratory distorts the relations of persons and turns the human being into a commodity to be bought when desired or, in the case of abortion, discarded when no longer wanted.
0018 The Law of God: Suicide and Euthanasia No human being may ever be morally justified to kill himself or to cause himself to be put to death by others, even if the intention is to escape suffering. “Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.” The Catechism tells us in para. 2324 that euthanasia is murder, “whatever its forms or motives,” and in para. 2325 that suicide is forbidden by the fifth commandment and “seriously contrary to justice, hope, and charity.”
0019 The Law of God: Nature of Marriage Marriage is by divine ordinance and natural law an indissoluble union of one man and of one woman. Genesis declares that man and woman in marriage “become one body” and Our Lord told his disciples that “what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” “By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love” are ordered “to procreation and [the] education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown.” St. Jerome in the 4th century taught that a spouse, even one “addicted to every kind of vice,” is a spouse while they live and another may not be taken.
0020 The Law of God: Non-marital Intercourse & Civil Remarriage By natural and divine law willfully engaging in sexual intercourse outside of a valid marriage is always sinful. As St. Paul instructed: “A wife should not separate from her husband—and if she does separate, she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband—and a husband should not divorce his wife.” Holy Scripture and Tradition do not affirm in any way that one’s conscience is justification, for example, to be partner to sexual acts in the context of a civil marriage when one or both persons is sacramentally married to another person. Conscience has no “right” to contradict natural and divine law.
0021 Contraception Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter Humanae Vitae reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception. Natural and Divine law prohibits “any action either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, which is specifically intended to prevent procreation.” All forms of contraception are intrinsically evil, and legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses; and it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.
0022 Communion for Those in a Non-Regular Marriage Holy Communion cannot be received by anyone, husband or wife, who has obtained a civil divorce from the spouse to whom he or she is validly married, and has contracted a civil marriage with another person during the lifetime of their legitimate spouse. This specifically applies if they are living in a sexual way with the civil partner, and they desire to remain in this state with full knowledge of the nature of the act and with full consent of the will. Living in this way puts them into a state of mortal sin and therefore they cannot receive sanctifying grace and grow in charity. These Christians, therefore, must be living a lifestyle as “brother and sister,” and have gone to confession for previous mortal sin, in order to receive our Lord in Holy Communion.
0023 Homosexual Acts People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner. Two persons of the same gender sin gravely when they seek sexual pleasure from one another. Homosexual acts cannot be approved under any circumstances. Some persons may state that, just as God the Creator has given to some humans a natural sexual desire for persons of the opposite sex, so God also has given to others a natural same-sex attraction to be acted upon in a physical manner. This opinion is contrary to natural law and Divine Revelation. While persons experiencing a same-sex attraction have a God-given dignity, acting on this attraction is a grave sin.
0024 Homosexual Unions Human law cannot give two persons of the same sex the right to marry one another, since this is contrary to natural and Divine law. “In the Creator's plan, sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very nature of marriage.” God made us in his image and likeness, male and female. And those whom God calls to marriage become one flesh for life, and God normally blesses them with children and draws them closer to each other in Him. Homosexual unions can never become marriage since they biologically cannot be open to children nor can they attain the unifying goal of God’s complementary design of man and woman. Marriage is, was, and always will be the union of one man and one woman in a permanent, faithful and fruitful union.
0025 Non-Sacramental Marriage Christian marriage is truly a sacrament of the New Law in the strict sense of the word. This dogma has always been taught by the Church. The Catholic Church defines the sacrament of marriage as a covenantal union in God between a baptized man and a baptized woman who knowingly and willingly enter into and understand what they are doing, and have the capacity to follow through. Both must also recognize that marriage is a lifelong, exclusive and monogamous union that is open to bearing fruit in the procreation and education of their children. Therefore, unions that have the name of marriage without the sacramental reality of it are not capable of receiving the blessing of the Church, as they are contrary to natural and Divine law.
0026 Legal Recognition of Homosexual Unions The civil power should not establish legal unions between two persons of the same sex, since such unions would encourage grave sin for the individuals who are in them and would be a cause of grave scandal for others. Any civil redefinition of marriage to include homosexual unions is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home. The Church maintains this position out of love for the two persons involved, as well as society, in general. The legal redefinition of marriage to include homosexual unions, would lead to the erosion of true marriage as a social institution.
0027 Sex-Change Operations The male and female sexes, man and woman, are biological realities created by the wise will of God. We are either male or female persons, and nothing can change that. A person can mutilate his or her reproductive organs, but cannot change his or her sex. It is therefore a rebellion against natural and Divine law, and a grave sin, that a man or a woman may attempt to change their sex by mutilating themselves. Simply declaring oneself to be a member of the opposite sex is also contrary to natural and Divine law. Likewise, civil authorities do not have the capability nor right to legitimize gender fluidity. Sexual identity is not a social construction but is an objective fact rooted in our nature as either male or female persons.
0028 Capital Punishment Recent revisions to the Catechism state that the death penalty is inadmissible and that the Church works with determination for its abolition, worldwide. Although many individual teachings in the Catechism have previously been taught infallibly, the Catechism itself is not an infallible document. This is one reason it is capable of being revised. It follows then, in accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, that the Catholic Church has not erred in her teaching that the civil power may at times lawfully exercise capital punishment on wrongdoers. The death penalty can be tolerated or even required in situations where there is no other way to preserve the just order of societies.
0029 Separation of Church and State All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus Christ. Therefore, civil societies and all other associations of men are subject to his kingship so that the duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. As Catholics, we should not believe in the modern understanding of separation of Church and state. Rather, a distinction should be made that recognizes the autonomy of each, within their own spheres of competence. The Church should not make civil laws, and the state should never squelch legitimate expressions of religious beliefs. Free exercise of religion means that a person has the right to express, exercise, and promote their religious beliefs in the public square.
0030 & 0031 The Catholic Church Teaching on Christ’s True Presence in the Eucharist At the consecration of the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the whole substance of bread and wine change into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church very fittingly calls this transubstantiation. In order to be in accord with Catholic faith, every theological explanation of this mystery must maintain that the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine. This formulation of the Church’s faith in the Holy Eucharist is suitable for people of all times and places.
0032 Christ’s Sacrifice in the Mass is Real The sacrifice of the Mass is not merely a spiritual sacrifice of prayers and praises of the people, nor is it only Christ giving himself to the faithful as their spiritual food. For Catholics, it is natural to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The fulfillment of prophecy demands a solemn Christian offering, and the Mass itself is wrapped in the sacrificial atmosphere with which our Lord invested the Last Supper. In the Holy Mass, a true and proper sacrifice is offered to the Blessed Trinity and this sacrifice is propitiatory both for persons living on earth and for the souls in Purgatory.
0033 The Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary The Mass is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that just as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest, by virtue of his Sacrament of Holy Orders, are changed into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven. We believe that the mysterious presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence.
0034 Only the Priest Can Offer the Sacrifice The unbloody sacrifice at the words of consecration during the Mass, when Christ is made present upon the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest alone, acting in the person of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful. The faithful offer the sacrifice by the hands of the priest who represents Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body. The faithful unite their hearts and present them in praise, expiation and thanksgiving to God the Father with intentions of the priest, in the one and same offering of the victim and according to a visible priestly rite.
0035 Grave Sins Must Be Confessed by Number and Species The sacrament of confession to a Catholic priest is the only ordinary means by which grave sins committed after Baptism may be remitted. By Divine law, all grave sins must be confessed by number and by species during the sacrament of confession. It is also important that the priest understands the specific species of the sin that is being confessed. As long as the priest understands this – or as long as the penitent reasonably believes that he understands – and no sins were intentionally omitted by the penitent, then an adequate confession has taken place.
0036 The Seal of Confession The seal of confession is the grave duty of the priest to keep absolutely secret all sins that are told in sacramental confession, and anything else that is told by the penitent and is related to the confession. This seal binds the confessor and any other person who in any way discovers what was confessed. By Divine law, a confessor may not violate the seal of the sacrament of Penance for any reason whatsoever. No authority in the Church has the power to dispense the confessor from the seal of the sacrament and the civil power has no authority to order him to do so.
0037 Unworthy Reception of the Eucharist By virtue of the will of Christ and the unchangeable Tradition of the Church, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist may not be given to those who are in a public state of objectively grave sin. Pastors have the duty first to instruct the faithful in a general sort of way that they ought not approach the Sacrament of Holy Communion if they are aware of mortal sin, or are in grave disunity with the teachings of the Church. In addition, sacramental absolution may not be given to those who express their unwillingness to conform to Divine law, even if their unwillingness pertains only to a single grave matter.
0038 No Eucharist for Heretics A heretic is any baptized person living a nominal Christian life, who obstinately denies any of the truths that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. Heretics must abstain from the Eucharist, because they do not adhere to the teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. According to the constant Tradition of the Church, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist may not be given to those who deny any truth of the Catholic faith by formally professing their adherence to a heretical or to an officially schismatic Christian community.
0039 Priestly Celibacy The discipline of priestly celibacy stems from the example of Jesus Christ and belongs to immemorial and apostolic tradition, according to the constant witness of the Fathers of the Church and of the Roman Pontiffs. As it is written, “Stand firm, then, brothers and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” Though many have violated the chastity of the Church by their presumption, following the will of the people and not fearing the judgment of God, priestly celibacy should not be abolished in the Roman Church, either at the regional or the universal level because it is a sharing in the celibate priesthood of Christ.
0040 Only Male Deacons, Priests, and Bishops By the will and example of Christ and the Divine constitution of the Church, only baptized males may receive the sacrament of Holy Orders, whether in the episcopacy, the priesthood, or the diaconate. During the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus commanded his apostles to “Do this in memory of Me.” So, how the “ this” is carried out is critical. From these words of Christ at the altar, the “gift of life” is prepared and presented to his bride, the Church. Therefore, the priest – the only one who can perform this action – must be male. He, in the person of Christ, gives life to the faithful – the bride of Christ.