Considering Catholicism

Four true sentences became, for a lot of us, the entire gospel. They were a trailer. They were never the film. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. You are a sinner. Jesus is God’s only provision. You...

The Romans Road is the gospel many of us first learned: all have sinned, the wages of sin is death, Christ died for us, confess and believe, call on the Lord. Those verses are true. This episode asks why a handful of...

A myth does not want a conversation. It wants you on defense: ten charges in a minute, each one cheap to shout and expensive to answer. This episode is about refusing that game without refusing the person. Love runs...

Anti-Catholic propaganda is not a pile of arguments waiting to be answered one by one. It is a story: a pure church, a theft, a long night, a remnant, a monster with a face. That story has kept the same shape for five...

In the second conversation, Ed turns from his own story to the people who write in every week and say they are exactly where he was two or three years ago. He talks about the things that actually help: treating your...

Ed is no longer just considering. After four-plus years of conversations on this show, he is now a candidate in the mid-year OCIA cohort at our parish and will enter the Church on the Feast of Christ the King. Sitting...

The hardest part of becoming Catholic is often not the doctrine. It is the moment a friendship, a marriage, or a family table starts to feel the strain. In this episode, Greg talks about recent conversations with...

In this re-release of one of our earliest conversations, Greg and Ed sit down on the podcast’s first anniversary to explain why this show is called Considering Catholicism—and not something more generic. Drawing on C.S...

You cannot unring a bell. Once it has sounded, you can leave the room or cover your ears, but you cannot reach backward and make the ringing not have happened. That is the Catholic claim about the sacraments: they are...

Why don’t Catholics just dedicate babies the way so many evangelical churches do? In this episode we look carefully at the difference between a sincere baby dedication and the Catholic sacrament of baptism. Dedication...

Thomas named a frustration many people feel when they look seriously at Catholicism: on paper and in history the Church looks strong, bold, and majestic, yet in many ordinary parishes and contemporary voices it can feel...

Thomas named the papacy as one of the biggest speed bumps on the Road to Rome. The questions are familiar: Who made a man in Rome the boss of Christianity? What about the corrupt popes? Can he just make things up? In...

Thomas raised two related difficulties with the Mass: what the Catholic Church actually claims is happening on the altar, and how underwhelming or casual many ordinary parish celebrations can feel. In this episode Greg...

Thomas asked the natural follow-up question to the “broken window”: if forgiveness cancels the debt but the damage remains, what happens to that remaining damage after we die? In this episode Greg takes up the common...

Thomas asked a question that a lot of people carry quietly: if Christ has already paid the full price for our sins, why does the Catholic Church still talk about penance, temporal punishment, and making satisfaction? In...