(LifeSiteNews) — On this episode of Faith and Reason, author and historian Joshua Charles joins John-Henry Westen and Deacon Keith Fournier to discuss his incredible conversion story from Protestantism to the Catholic faith, the current state of the Church, the connection between COVID and the reign of the Antichrist, the Trump presidency, and more.
Deacon Keith opened the episode by asking Charles to share his conversion story. Charles explained that he was brought up as a Protestant and loved reading the Bible as well as prominent Protestant authors like Martin Luther and John Calvin. But he began to ponder where the Bible, the infallible word of God, comes from and how the faithful should settle theological disputes.
“And I kept running into this scenario where I’d have good, faithful, virtuous people, educated people who would disagree about all sorts of issues,” he said. “I mean, basic fundamental issues. And for me it was an intellectual issue, but it was also an issue of love fundamentally, because Jesus said, ‘If you love me, you will obey my commandments.’”
“And I wanted to love Jesus, but the problem was, is whether it was baptism or different moral teachings or how the Church is governed or how we rightly worship. … You know, a million issues under the sun. I was getting different answers as to what those commandments were,” he added.
Eventually, after extensively looking for answers in Sacred Scripture, Charles found that disputes were answered by an infallible magisterium.
“In Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem, there was the controversy over circumcision and whether Christians had to first be inducted into Moses to be followers of Christ,” he said.
“The apostles in Acts 15:15-28 appealed to the apostles and the elders, so men they had already begun to appoint. So it wasn’t just men directly appointed by Christ,” he added. “It was men directly appointed by Christ, along with men who those men had appointed.”
“So something interesting is going on there. Why are they including men who were not directly appointed by Christ as sharers in their authority? That was interesting, I would say it’s apostolic succession.”
Charles soon realized that Protestants didn’t have that apostolic succession in their churches, which eventually led him to the Catholic Church.
Later in the episode, the panel turned to the 2020 COVID lockdowns and the possible connection between the Antichrist and the nearly global shutdown of the public Holy Sacrifice of the Mass during that period.
Charles noted that the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent teaches that any part of Scripture on which the Church Fathers are unanimous is binding on the faithful. He claimed that the Fathers unanimously believed that during the reign of the Antichrist, there would be a global suspension of the Mass for three and a half years.
“One of the things [the Antichrist] will do for three-and-a-half years is bring the public Sacrifice of the Mass to an end, globally,” he said. “So you can imagine my concern when, during [2020], the public Sacrifice of the Mass was brought to an end, pretty close to globally.”
“Nothing like that has ever happened in history, nothing. Some people have cited the plague in Milan with St. Charles Borromeo, temporary and local things,” he added. “Although St. Charles Borromeo and his priests went around to the different parishioners to give them the sacraments all the time. … We had never had anything like this on such a global scale.”
Then Charles further underscored just how apocalyptic the shutting down of Catholic churches seemed.
“Going into that time period, I was seeing something historically unprecedented, but also in the strictest sense of the word, apocalyptic,” he said. “So what that means for the upcoming years, I don’t entirely know.”
“It wasn’t just about the shot, it wasn’t just about lockdowns, it was the cessation of the public worship of God almost globally,” he added. “And so whatever temporal rulers were involved with that, I think need to be held responsible.”
To hear more about COVID and the Apocalypse, Joshua Charles’ full conversion story, and much more, tune in to this episode of Faith and Reason.
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