Open Forum

The callers choose the topics during Open Forum, peppering our guests with questions on every aspect of Catholic life and faith, the moral life, and even philosophical topics that touch on general religious belief.

Questions Covered:

• 04:21 - Is it true that the pope during WWII helped Hitler?
• 15:57 - Do children born through in vitro have souls?
• 17:11 - Why is it that we can have occasions of merit yet can’t merit the grace of final perseverance? 
• 19:00 - I had some Jehovah’s Witnesses pass through my door and had an argument about Jesus and Michael the Archangel being the same. I really don’t know which scriptures to reason out with them.
• 30:20 - What is Catholic teaching on cremating the dead?
• 36:33 - Is it true that before Vatican II the Church taught you could only be saved through the sacraments?
• 46:20 - If the Catholic Church doesn’t accept in vitro because it is not the normal way of conceiving, how does that square with Mary’s conception of Jesus?
• 49:37 - How are we to understand all the laws in Leviticus? Are those still in effect in the New Covenant?

Resources Mentioned:

• “The end of the ‘Hitler’s Pope’ myth” by Fr. Leo Chamberlain
• Hitler, the War, and the Pope by Ronald J. Rychlak