Tessa 🇻🇦

[Producer @ Avoiding Babylon @CatholicRob]

Going to be a good show tonight. We have Christian Bergsma on to talk about the Catholic case for YEC. Link below!

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@CatholicRob Is he related to Dr. John Bergsma?

[𝔃𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔰 𝔰 @OrdinariateUSA]

Father Vincent Capodanno - “The Grunt Padre”

Born in Staten Island, Capodanno joined the Navy in 1966 and was a chaplain of 5th Marine Regiment, with whom he was deployed to South Vietnam.

In September 1967, an adjacent company was ambushed by 2,500 NVA soldiers. When Fr Capodanno heard of the attacks, he went, unarmed, among the wounded and dying in the battlefield to comfort and pray with them.

He was shot in 3 places during the gunfighting, but refused medical evacuation. He wanted to stay with his Marines.

Later that night, Fr Capodanno ran into enemy machine gun fire to aid a wounded corpsman, and was killed in action.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor the following year.

He was renowned amongst the Marines as a chaplain who willingly shared in the hardships of the men on the front lines, earning him the nickname “the Grunt Padre”.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@BreeSolstad That is so sick & twisted.

[Brian Burgess @Burgess7281975]

Or perhaps you could just stop gaslighting Catholics.

(1) Our Lord cited from the Septuagint (containing the Deuterocanon) over 10x as frequently as the Masoretic texts according to protestant sources.

https://t.co/DeXmM1FeLk

(2) The Deuterocanon is consistently referenced prior to the Canonization of Scripture.

(A) Council of Rome

"Now indeed we must treat of the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun. The order of the Old Testament begins here: Genesis, one book; Exodus, one book; Leviticus, one book; Numbers, one book; Deuteronomy, one book; Joshua [Son of] Nave, one book; Judges, one book; Ruth, one book; Kings, four books [that is, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings]; Paralipomenon [Chronicles], two books; Psalms, one book; Solomon, three books: Proverbs, one book; Ecclesiastes, one book; Canticle of Canticles, one book; likewise Wisdom, one book; Ecclesiasticus, one book . . . . Likewise the order of the historical [books]: Job, one book; Tobit, one book; Esdras, two books [Ezra and Nehemiah]; Esther, one book; Judith, one book; Maccabees, two books" (Decree of Pope Damasus [A.D. 382]).

(B) Council of Hippo

"[It has been decided] that besides the canonical Scriptures nothing be read in church under the name of divine Scripture. But the canonical Scriptures are as follows: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the Son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, the Kings, four books, the Chronicles, two books, Job, the Psalter, the five books of Solomon, the twelve books of the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Ezra, two books, Maccabees, two books . . ." (canon 36 [A.D. 393]).

(C) Council of Carthage III

"[It has been decided] that nothing except the canonical Scriptures should be read in the Church under the name of the divine Scriptures. But the canonical Scriptures are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, Paralipomenon, two books, Job, the Psalter of David, five books of Solomon [Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Sirach], twelve books of the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees . . ." (canon 47 [A.D. 397]).

(D) 1992 Catechism

120 It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.90
This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) and 27 for the New.91
The Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi.
The New Testament: the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of St. Paul to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude, and Revelation (the Apocalypse).

#CatholicX

[Father V @father_rmv]

Saint André de Soveral was a Portuguese-Brazilian Catholic priest and Jesuit missionary who became one of the first martyrs of Brazil. Born around 1572 in São Vicente, near the island of Santos in colonial Brazil, he grew up in a time when the Portuguese empire was expanding its presence in the New World. As a young man he studied at the local Jesuit college, where his vocation took root. In 1593 he entered the Society of Jesus, completed his novitiate in Bahia, and received formation in Latin, moral theology, and the languages of the indigenous peoples.

After his studies he served as a missionary among the Potiguar Indians in the Rio Grande do Norte region. He later left the Jesuits to become a diocesan priest and by 1614 was serving as parish priest in the small settlement of Cunhaú, close to what is now Natal. There he ministered to a community of farmers, workers, and converted indigenous people who lived around a sugar-cane mill. His life was one of quiet pastoral care in a frontier land marked by tensions between European settlers, native populations, and foreign powers.

On the morning of 16 July 1645, while celebrating Mass for about seventy faithful in the chapel of Our Lady of the Candles, Father André faced sudden violence. Dutch forces allied with local indigenous groups, amid the conflicts of the Portuguese Restoration War, stormed the church after the consecration. The attackers blocked the exits and massacred the defenseless congregation. André urged his people to prepare their souls for death and was himself slain while praying. His companions, known collectively as the Martyrs of Natal or Protomartyrs of Brazil, shared the same fate that day.

For centuries these events were remembered locally as a testimony of faith under persecution. In 2000 Pope John Paul II beatified André de Soveral along with his fellow martyrs. Pope Francis canonized the group of thirty on 15 October 2017, recognizing their sacrifice. Today Saint André is venerated especially in northeastern Brazil, where his feast day on 16 July recalls a priest who lived simply among his flock and died defending the faith in the midst of colonial strife. His story stands as an early chapter in the history of Catholicism in the Americas, embodying courage, missionary zeal, and steadfast witness.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@JasontheLayman Joseph Smith was an opportunist, & I’m sure he saw every other denomination as competition.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@storiesOfMormon The keys to the Kingdom symbolize the specific office of Davidic Royal Steward, which the papacy fulfills. The office is an office that is carried on in succession, just as it was in the Davidic Kingdom. Jesus is the Davidic King of Kings, & the Catholic Church is His Kingdom.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@surskitmaxxing So much of Mormonism relies heavily on the power of suggestion to influence the thoughts & feelings of very impressionable people. And then the use of more manipulation & fear tactics that get them locked in.

[Pope Respecter @poperespecter1]

This short clip shows why anyone who takes Dyer seriously is ngmi. He says the Pope got the papal lands in the 11th century and that this was declared in the famous document (by a Pope he couldn't even name) "Dictatus papae."

Anyone who took Intro to European history knows Papal lands were given to the Pope in 756 by the Frankish King Pepin. And Dictatus papae [by one of the most famous popes in history Gregory VII] says nothing about the papal states.

Yet he says all this like he knows exactly what he is talking about.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@FlanaganOnFaith Congratulations, & thanks be to God!! 🙏 ♥️

[Erick Ybarra @ErickYbarra3]

"[...] they can only see the bishops as the Apostles and the pope as Peter."

I submitted my manuscript, The Papacy, to Emmaus Road Publishing (St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology) back in 2019/20, a total of 6 years ago. In that script, I devoted an entire chapter to the ecclesial thought of St. Cyprian of Carthage, wherein I speak at length on the Patristic conception of the "Cathedra Petri" and how this, for Cyprian, was a reality in the local church with the ruling bishop (of whatever city-church), as well as a reality on the universal level with the bishop of Rome.

This is a matter that has long been known in the scholarly literature and does not take any Catholic apologist by surprise. Undoubtedly, Ben Bollinger, a former Eastern Orthodox who converted to Catholicism, is well aware of what Cassian (Kyle) King brings up here with the local bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs being an anti-type of the Apostle Peter.

Does it have any anti-Vatican 1 value?

No, it does not. If there was any value in St. Cyprian's insistence on Matthew 16 being the charter for the Church's episcopal government, it was not something that could lend favor to Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology. As Fr. Nicholas Afanasiev observed, Cyprian's ecclesiology contained all the data points that would logically require an all-embracing vortex with a single Head, rather than a multitudinous group of equals, and yet he himself inconsistently rejected such a place in his own designated universal Peter stationed in Rome (c.f. my recent YouTube upload on Cyprian). And this is because Cyprian believed that the Petrine office of the local church was divinely equipped to wield jurisdiction over his flock, while the Petrine office at the universal church was divinely appointed to be nothing more than a conditional symbol of unity. For further info, see Afanasiev's article in The Primacy of Peter (ed. John Meyendorff).

In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church, with which Afanasiev is in conceptual harmony, has already made it clear that it has no place for a universal Peter acting in the way that Cyprian believed was Peter's divine right vis-a-vis the orbit of which he is the center and source of unity.

How do I know this?

Because the Orthodox Church doesn't pay heed to private individuals who can figure out some way of configuring a Petrine primacy into the governmental organization of the Church. Rather, the Orthodox Church depends upon consensus and reception.

The latest document wherein there was near universal agreement amongst the autocephalous bodies of Orthodoxy is the Chieti document in 2016. And in that document, the Orthodox accepted the following:

"In the West, the primacy of the see of Rome was understood ... with reference to Peter’s role among the Apostles. The primacy of the bishop of Rome among the bishops was gradually interpreted as a prerogative that was his because he was successor of Peter, the first of the apostles. This understanding was not adopted in the East, which had a different interpretation of the Scriptures and the Fathers on this point."

In other words, the Orthodox Church doesn't understand universal primacy to be rooted in the Apostle Peter at all. How this can be questioned is beyond my comprehension. The current Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, who, for any canon-loving and historically-conscious Orthodox Christian is the universal primate of Eastern Orthodoxy, has outright denied any connection between Peter's primacy and the canonical primacy of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.

The Ravenna document (2007) comes closest to speaking, not of a Petrine, but a Patriarchal headship in the order of primacy in the Church. And yet Ravenna has not the acceptance of the Russian Church, which is 50% of the global population of Orthodox Christians.

What grounds are there to insist that the Eastern Orthodox Church holds to a unique primacy of St. Peter of divine right that gets organized on local, regional, and universal levels?

There are none.

In fact, speaking of Orthodoxy's rule of going with the "consensus", the 2 Encyclicals of 1848 and 1895, widely received by the EO Church, and considered by many Orthodox scholars to be the very last authoritative expression against the Papacy, out right states that there is:

[...] no prerogative in St. Peter over the other Apostles, least of all in his successors."

In the 1895 Encyclical, Peter is said to be an "equal among equals" before he is a "first among equals" and sat as "an equal in synods."

Therefore, I had to admit that I am a bit dumbstruck to see anyone, be they Eastern Orthodox or Protestant, acting as if they have struck oil by finding this Patristic conception of the local bishop being the instantiation of the Apostle Peter in the local setting vis-a-vis the presbyters, deacons, and the laity. This concept has been written about in the script I turned in a long while back, and I had been writing about it years before that, even.

Nor am I the first to bring this point up, as I was following the best Catholic scholars in early Christianity. As someone who is himself without a Master's degree, nor a PhD, I have to do my due diligence in following the best of scholarship, even if I took liberties to share my own gloss on certain historical subjects.

And here is what I've learned. The earliest Saints of both Catholic and Orthodox devotion to speak on the nature of the universal Petrine office are the saintly Popes of Rome. We see this in Pope St. Siricius, Pope St. Innocent, Pope St. Zosimus, Pope St. Celestine, and Pope St. Leo the Great. These are all saints, and their opinions count more than Orthodox apologists'. They understood that the Petrine office was both local and universal, but its universal station is of the highest and most all-embracing order. It is to no wonder, then, why it holds universal jurisdiction.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@McBagginns @samdgrant_ Pretty much all of them are protest-ant to some extent. Since Jesus only founded one Church (the Catholic Church) they all have to protest against the Catholic Church to some degree in attempts to justify their own existence apart from her.

[Father V @father_rmv]

Venerable Ivanios Panikkervettil, born Panikkervettil Thomas Panicker Geevarghese on 21 September 1882 in Mavelikkara, Kerala, emerged as one of the most influential Christian leaders in modern Indian history. From an aristocratic Syrian Christian family in the princely state of Travancore, he displayed early academic promise and deep piety. He pursued higher education at institutions such as Madras Christian College, earning a master's degree with distinction, and became known as the first priest in Malankara with such advanced qualifications.

Geevarghese served initially in the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Ordained a deacon in 1900 and a priest in 1908, he worked as principal of M.D. Seminary High School and later as a professor at Serampore College. His experiences there, combined with encounters with Indian monastic ideals through figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, inspired him to found the Bethany Ashram in 1919. This monastic community blended Eastern Christian traditions with Indian ascetic practices, emphasizing both contemplation and active service. He also established a women's religious house, the Bethany Madom, to promote education among Syrian Christian women.

Consecrated bishop in 1925 as Geevarghese Mar Ivanios, he became a central figure in the Malankara Reunion Movement. Deeply concerned with restoring full communion with the universal Catholic Church, he led a group of clergy and laity into unity in 1930. Pope Pius XI recognized the significance of this step by establishing the Syro-Malankara Catholic hierarchy in 1932 and appointing Ivanios as the first metropolitan archbishop of Trivandrum. Under his leadership, the new church grew rapidly, with dozens of parishes formed, missionaries sent out, and numerous conversions, especially among marginalized communities.

Ivanios placed immense value on education as a tool for social upliftment. He founded around fifty schools and Mar Ivanios College, an institution that continues to serve thousands today. His vision extended to interfaith dialogue and broad ecumenical outreach. He met world leaders and thinkers, including U.S. President Harry Truman and George Bernard Shaw, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco.

He passed away on 15 July 1953 in Thiruvananthapuram. Recognized for his heroic virtue, he was declared Venerable by Pope Francis in 2024, advancing his cause for sainthood. Venerable Ivanios Panikkervettil remains remembered as a bridge-builder who reunited ancient Christian traditions with the Catholic Church while rooting them firmly in Indian soil through education, monastic renewal, and compassionate service.

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@DianeKamer He did!

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@havoc_211 @CatholicDrip___ “Christ’s Church is Roman, Part 2 - Dr. Alan Fimister”https://t.co/AIDYOxLAbK

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@havoc_211 @CatholicDrip___ It is by Divine Providence that the capital of the pagan world became the capital of Christendom.
“Christ’s Church is Roman - Dr. Alan Fimister”https://t.co/zEPdNTwpDn

[Tessa 🇻🇦 @ChirpnChickadee]

@havoc_211 @CatholicDrip___ Your perception of history is very skewed. When Peter was writing from “Babylon” he was in Rome, as that was a codeword used for Rome at the time. Early Church fathers who were much closer to the time period than you, attest to him being bishop of Rome til his martyrdom there.

[Peter's Barque @petersbarque]

@CatholicDrip___ https://t.co/nMLOA4fJCB

[Catholic Drip 💧 @CatholicDrip___]

Who has the Keys 🗝️🗝️ ?

Mormons claim them, Protestant ignore them, the Catholic Church has them

Matt 16:19 - I will give you [Peter] the keys to the kingdom of heaven💧