Catholic Answers LIVE
Catholic Answers Live, hosted by Cy Kellett, is a daily, two-hour radio program dedicated to Catholic apologetics and evangelization. According to listener surveys, it is a runaway favorite on Catholic stations across America.
As a call-in program, Catholic Answers Live connects listeners to prominent leaders in the Church today—including scholars, nuns, priests, bishops, and cardinals—and touches on every aspect of our lives as Christians. You'll hear discussions on just about everything relating to the Church: doctrinal controversies, family concerns, social issues, evangelization, ethics…you name it!
Catholic Answers Live airs every Monday through Friday from 6-8 PM Eastern (3-4 PM Pacific) on over 360 AM and FM stations in the United States, Sirius Satellite Radio channel 130, and through the Internet at catholic.com. If you can't listen live, you can subscribe to our podcast or download individual shows from our MP3 archive.
Call in with your question at 1-888-31-TRUTH!
Most Recent Episodes
Questions Covered:
01:12 – Did fetal microchimerism have a part to play in Mary’s assumption?
06:10 – There is a practice where people fast during lent from one thing (food, vice.) Some people say that when you pray Sunday evening prayer 1 on Saturday, it is now Sunday where you feast and you don’t have to fast from your Lenten fast anymore. Is this a sound practice or should one only stop their Lenten fast on Sunday?
09:55 – Is it true that the ends never justify the means? It seems that this belief would prohibit things like war. A popular moral question is; If the nazis asked you where a Jewish family is hiding, isn’t it best to lie? How else can you respond? I haven’t heard you speak on this and I’m interested in your perspective
13:22 – Why do priests not get to marry? Doesn’t this lead some into sexual sin anyways when they harm children in the worst cases? God gave us a holy marriage between men and women for this purpose. Why?
19:14 – If the West believes in original sin, and the Eastern Orthodox believe in ancestral sin, where does that put Eastern Catholics? I spoke with one Eastern Catholic priest who said they affirm ancestral sin, but I thought in order to be Catholic you had to believe in original sin?
21:08 – Both are good, but is it better to know history or philosophy? Concerning Catholicism or life in general (your opinion).
23:15 – I have a question concerning canon 285.2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
It states: “Clerics are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.”
Is the law thinking of any special area here? Could you give an example of something that is totally fine to do for a layperson but not for a priest?
31:09 – Do you like tooled leather?
32:12 – Can you explain Vicarious Satisfaction as taught by Aquinas vs. Penal Substitutionary Atonement and is Penal Substitution the foundation for salvation by Faith Alone?
36:52 – Kinda a silly question, but when Moses, Elijah, and other old testament characters “saw God,” did they see Jesus before He was sent from heaven and born unto the world through the Blessed Virgin Mary? Or did they actually see “God the Father?”
40:41 – You have previously critiqued the philosophical version of the Kalam argument because you believe God is capable of actualizing a universe with an infinite past. Let’s take that for granted. It seems to me that an atheist cannot make such an appeal to support the possibility of an infinitely old universe. Therefore, could someone use the philosophical version of the Kalam as a sort of “internal critique” of the atheist worldview. One can say, “What you describe is impossible without divine omnipotence making it happen.”
44:39 – To what extent is the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary a potential stumbling block to reunion with Eastern Orthodox churches? I have heard that they believe something similar, called the Dormition of Mary, but I don’t know if the belief is uniform among all Eastern Orthodox churches, or if it’s exactly the same as the Assumption.
47:59 – Why did God not give us a mortal sin (or Grace) detector so we can know with certitude what we did was deadly or venial or simply a vice?
51:00 – What if a person had no faith all its life, just refused to believe and then gets dementia or alzheimers is there still hope for them to get to heaven
52:32 – Can you please contrast the passage from Luke 1:28 where the Angel Gabriel addresses Mary with the greeting “Hail, full of grace,” with the passage from Acts 6:8 (also authored by Luke) where Stephen is described as “full of grace.”
…
Questions Covered:
02:59 – What are the implications of praying to a saint that may or may not have ever existed? Couldn’t this be dangerous/dubious in some way? I’m referring to saints that were probably local myths/legends. I take it you know some examples better than me since I’m a new Catholic.
06:23 – Are there other Marian beliefs beyond her Assumption and immaculate conception which the church could realistically issue as doctrines in the near future? Maybe even dogmas?
12:53 – Can Catholics play D&D?
14:27 – Will there be different happiness levels in heaven? For example if ones family didn’t make would they be less happy then if someone’s family did make it?
16:37 – What is “hyper papalism?”
18:09 – Does the Church currently teach that coeducation (especially of adolescents) is evil and are people dissenters for preferring it?
21:47 – The “lost” years of Jesus. Please.
28:49 – While Jesus was incarnate, how was he the creator of his contemporaries? (I’m cath., just looking to understand better).
31:21 – What does Mary’s assumption mean in context of resurrection? Why are some biblical figures resurrected and others are assumed to heaven (like the prophet Elijah), and what can we expect? I know that’s more than one question, but I also know you’ll come up with a succinct answer
33:53 – The topic of bulimia, anorexia, if eating disorders are sinful or not, are they signs of demonic oppression? How can one overcome them with the means of which the Church provides? Daily Mass isn’t possible unfortunately
36:37 – In Matthew 12, 1-8 Jesus is referring to a story from 1 Sam 21, 2-7. My question is, why is He talking about David and his companions (verse 3) eating the bread, when David was alone there talking with Achimelek? The young men David is talking about are not there with him, so they did not eat the bread with David. It seems that Jesus is wrong about the story He is referring to. I’d appreciate an answer to this, thanks for your work Jimmy
41:52 – How do I respond to a seventh day Adventist asking, If the soul survives beyond death, then why do you need Mary to be bodily assumed? I don’t know if I should approach this the same way I would approach this with any protestant or if I should deal with soul sleep and then use the same argument. Thank you God bless.
50:50 – I’ve been thinking about patron saints and would like to identify some for those suffering with schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder. St. Dymphna is a good start, but are there any others?
52:14 – Doctrinal development in general… This is a core issue with my family members not accepting the Church. They will admit the Marian dogmas may be true, and don’t in principle reject them. They just can’t see why we should be compelled to accept them as “De Fide”.
…
Questions Covered:
03:31 – How would you respond to Dr. James Madden’s objections to near death experiences?
12:15 – If I get to heaven, is Andrew the name he will call me by or will he have another name for me?
16:11 – How many pipes does Jimmy have?
17:25 – I’m a revert. How would I feel in heaven if a loved one wasn’t there?
20:42 – Do some textual variants within the New Testament be due to variants from different manuscripts?
23:41 – When will you go on a speaking tour and will you come to Mississippi?
28:54 – How do I respond to someone who says the keys in Mt 16 cannot be the singular key of authority mentioned in Rev 3 and Is 22?
33:55 – Do we have free will in heaven?
41:29 – Does the Church have a definitive teaching on what the sensory experience of purgatory will be like?
48:55 – I was baptized in a non-denominational church and am in OCIA. Where would I be salvation-wise right now if I were to die since I haven’t received any confession?
53:20 – Were all the 95 Theses of Martin Luther wrong?
…
Questions Covered:
16:27 – How can I help a friend get out of a bad situation where a child is involved?
19:13 – I’m contemplating divorce and need advice.
22:50 – What bothers me about the church is that when someone is in a relationship with a narcissist, the Church doesn’t take into consideration the pain caused by that person. What are your thoughts on this?
28:45 – My son is going through a separation due to his wife coming out as bisexual. Please pray for us. No one ever talks about the devastation that’s left behind.
34:05 – Ive been married for 30 years and my wife no longer wants to be close to me and wants to separate. What’s your advice?
41:51 – Is it better to stay in a marriage than to divorce? How do you deal with all the conflict and misery?
46:03 – I want to share what helped my husband and I save our marriage.
49:35 – I’m new to Catholicism and have been divorced 3 times. Will this preclude me from becoming Catholic or being married ever again?
…
Questions Covered:
03:10 – Why isn’t there an instance in the bible where a child is adopted into faith?
07:52 – What is the Catholic view of Matthew 16:28? Is it an unfulfilled prophecy?
14:33 – Is it sinful to work on Sunday?
20:28 – Today in class they were talking about schizophrenia and my teacher asked if anyone was religious, to make a comparison between the two. I didn’t raise my hand. Did I do something wrong by not speaking up?
28:52 – I just found out that one of my friends is a Freemason. Am I still allowed to associate with him?
37:48 – Would a land value tax be better than an income tax in light of Catholic Social teaching on just taxation?
51:00 – What does the mark of the beast mean? Are we all born with it? What was Jesus doing after the Resurrection but before the Ascension?
…