Question #5: When did godparenthood begin in the history of Catholicism?

This is Question and Answer #5 in a series on Godparents. Each day I will answer a question. If you have your own question, please post it as a comment to this post. Thank you.

Question #5: When did godparenthood begin in the history of Catholicism?

Most believe it started in the 4th century, once Christianity became legal to prevent pagan infiltration of the sacrament and to bolster it.

Question 4: Can you forgo the requirement of having a godparent in Catholicism?

This is Question and Answer #4 in a series on Godparents. Each day I will answer a question. If you have your own question, please post it as a comment to this post. Thank you.

Question 4: Can you forgo the requirement of having a godparent in Catholicism?

No. At least one godparent is required. You can have up to 2. The only case where no godparent is required is if the child or adult being baptized is in danger of death. Baptism is so important that this requirement will be waived in these cases.

This is Question and Answer #3 in a series on Godparents. Each day I will answer a question. If you have your own question, please post it as a comment to this post. Thank you.

Question 3: What are the restrictions on WHO can be a Godparent in Catholicism?

Well, as mentioned, at least one of the two people must be a Catholic, and should be one in good standing. That person can be either male or female and must be at least 16 years old. The other has to be a Christian at least with same restriction about age.

Question #2: What is the Role of Godparents in Catholicism?

This is Question and Answer #2 in a series on Godparents. Each day I will answer a question. If you have your own question, please post it as a comment to this post. Thank you.

Question 2: What is the role of Godparents in Catholicism

Contrary to popular opinion, the main role of a godparent isn’t just to take over for the care of the child in case the parents die. They could fulfill this role, but that’s not the point. Godparents are meant to be witnesses to the faith, to show good example and instruct the baptized in the faith. That’s why it’s good to select a practicing Catholic who believes in the faith. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Godparents: Part 1: How many Godparents can someone have at a Catholic Baptism?

This is Question and Answer #1 in a series on Godparents. Each day I will answer a question. If you have your own question, please post it as a comment to this post. Thank you.

Question 1: How many Godparents can someone have at a Catholic Baptism?

The person being baptized can have up to 2 sponsors. At least one of the two has to be a Catholic in good standing, meaning they strive to attend Mass at least once a week and are living according to the Church’s teachings. The other can also be a Catholic, but it is permitted to have a non-Catholic Christian “witness”. Technically this person is not a godparent or sponsor, but is rather a Christian witness.

Too much emphasis on "Green"? Part I: Food

In the first of a multi-part series, I will discuss whether we place the wrong emphasis on moral issues and whether our Catholic leadership may be somewhat to blame.

I think a lot of Catholics are confused by rhetoric we hear from our leaders recently. There is a key element to the confusion and that is order of importance. As you know, our current pope has made many comments regarding climate change, food shortages, capitalism, being more inclusive, etc. But what he usually fails to emphasize is context. Take food for instance. He says we shouldn’t waste food. I don’t think this is a forgone conclusion by any means. Obviously people shouldn’t purposely try to waste food but no one does that on purpose anyway. People at least intend to eat whatever they buy. So is it a sin to throw out rotten or expired food? In my opinion it’s not.

For whatever reason, people seem obsessed about food more so than other goods. This makes sense since food directly feeds us, so it seems bad when someone else is starving but we throw out food, in some cases things starving people would be willing to eat. Yet we have no problem with people throwing out clothing, furniture, electronics, or any other goods for the most part. No one says “Hey! Someone in Africa doesn’t have furniture, how can you just throw it out!” We can see this is not even logical. Whether or not you keep a couch will not determine whether the person in Africa will get one. Likewise with food. Whether or not I consume a rotten banana will not feed an African or Indian or anyone else. But the visceral reaction to food waste remains.

In reality, we can only help people eat by increasing economic prosperity for those people. The reason people cannot eat is because they have no money. Obviously the first thing you’ll spend money on is food. Our consumption or non-consumption is irrelevant. The Earth can easily produce more than enough food for everyone. So it’s not as if us wasting food leaves less for everyone else. In fact, according to basic supply and demand theory in economics, if we buy MORE food, the price will go down. Ironically, wasting food is therefore probably beneficial to people who don’t have enough.

Another option we have for providing food to the needy is simply giving them food or money to pay for food. I feel this is a short term solution, because ultimately we all know the saying about teaching a man to fish versus just giving him a fish.

My main point is I have never heard of anyone who purposely throws out good food for no reason except to destroy the planet or for lack of concern for the poor. It’s usually done because the food is gone bad. I do not see any moral issues here with this situation. Plus, if you make the argument that throwing out food means you could have given it to the poor, you could equally make the argument that spending money on too much house or too much clothing or too many movies could have instead been spent on buying food for the poor. I don’t see throwing out food as an important moral issue of our time. Maybe once we are morally perfect, this issue could be addressed. I don’t think the pope should be spending valuable time discussing this topic. There are far more important and immediate sins that must be addressed. Another reason to not discuss this so much is the ongoing confusion people have with real spirituality and a sort of pagan worship of mother earth. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that often people openly involved in manifest sin will emphasize saving the planet or saving animals and will pay little attention to moral sins such as lust, anger, pride, etc. They say as long as you are saving mother earth, all is good, because the “higher power” doesn’t really care about your personal life. With the pope talking about saving the planet all the time, this only lends credence to this pagan view.

I can’t blame the pope entirely for this state of affairs. He has spoken definitively on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. but the media doesn’t like reporting this. They have branded him this new avant-garde hip pope who is “with it” and therefore doesn’t talk about those things as much. He’s the cool green pope. Or so they want to believe. Look, I, like a lot of devout Catholics, have an issue with how Pope Francis gives off-the-cuff remarks on a variety of topics, usually in an airplane which leaves the faithful confused. So I think he has to be extremely careful about the messages he purveys. People will always take the path of least resistance. If they believe they can be good people by recycling and posting pro-environmental messages on Facebook rather than actually being a morally good people, they will, and they will use any excuse they can to avoid the actually challenging stuff. That’s why I think it’s so important to have moral clarity in a time of confusion.

Tune in soon for the next installment of this series.

Trump's Audio Tape: Progressives' Hypocrisy

Progressives are out in force bashing Trump's latest audio tape where he makes lewd remarks about women. The level of moralizing coming from these leftist is astounding. It's just sheer moral outrage, as if an unspeakable crime has transpired.

In the meantime, this group of shocked progressives is the same group that actively promotes every and all forms of sexual expression, perversion and depravity. Nothing is off limits for these people adn their ilk, yet they feign disgust when Trump makes some locker room banter.

On the one hand, they promote every form of sexual depravity, telling us it's totally fine to have sex with as many people as you want, whenever you want, however you want. Republicans and conservatives are routinely bashed as being prudish and moralistic because they want to place restrictions on sexuality.

These progressives say there should be no youngest age to be sexual, nothing wrong with any number of partners, they condone all forms of sexuality including violent and degrading ones as long as there is "consent". Then of course when something inevitably goes wrong (or right because sex is actually designed for reproduction), they are the first group to advocate abortion.

So this group condones and encourages every form of sexual perversion and when this leads to pregnancy, they just as strongly encourage the killing of a small child.

If anyone complains that certain pornographic material is offensive or that sexual education in schools shouldn't include all kinds of weird and perverse things, the progressives are always the first to jump down their throats demanding they accept it all and teach it to their kids.

But then when Trump, the epitome of what they want for society in terms of sexual views, actually expresses his views from ten years ago, these fraudsters pretend they are all shocked and we've insulted and harassed their innocent ears.

It's all hypocrisy!

Martha Raddatz: "Sometimes there are good reasons for that"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? During the debate tonight, moderator Martha Raddatz literally treid to debate Donald Trump. He was asked about what he woudl do in Aleppo, a city in Syria. While answering, he said it was a bad idea to tell the enemy the plans before they take place. He was INTERRUPTED by the moderator who insisted multiple tiems in a row that sometimes the military has good reasons for doing this including psychological warfare etc.

It was one of the most blatant examples of the moderators trying to help Hillary Clinton. Under absolutely no circumstances is it the responsibility of the media or moderators to debate Trump when he is supposed to be debating his opponent. I don't recall them helping Trump against Hillary. This reminds me of when Candy Crowley was trying to help Obama when he was debating Mitt Romney by taking it upon herself to debate Romney.

I can't find the exact clip, but here's a small sample of this moderator interrupting and trying to debate Trump:

Trump beats Hillary in 2nd Debate

After watching the entire debate and reading some of the comments online, it seems very clear, Trump won the second debate.

Right from the get-go Anderson Cooper, one of the moderators, attacked Trump on the new audio tape released where he makes lewd comments about a woman and women in general. It wasn't enough that Cooper brought this up, the other moderator, Martha Raddatz had her turn with virtually the same question.

The moderators of this debate were clearly in favour of Clinton. If Trump went a second or two over his time, they would pounce on him. Very often, while he was answering a question, the moderators would cut him off to say he wasn't answering correctly or challenge him on his answer. This rarely if ever happened to Hillary. Hillary was only interrupted a couple of times, while it was a constant occurrence for Trump.

But Trump wouldn't let all that happen that easily. He called out the biased questioners and said he was not being treated fairly which was 100% true. They never brought up the 33,000 deleted emails, even though at least twice they brought up his recent tape where he made lewd comments over 10 years ago. Last, I checked though, lewd comments didn't threaten national security.

Trump had a number of good zingers. When Clinton blasted him or not paying more in taxes, Trump responded by saying it's the government and specifically her that is responsible for the laws, he just follows them. It's a pretty stupid argument anyway that someone is not paying more than they are required to.

So despite the moderators actively debating Trump and him having to take on 3 to 1, Trump clearly came out the winner, and this isn't just form my perspective. I think overall most commentators will believe the same thing.

They keep interrupting Trump