A Catholic Engagement with Latter-day Saints (Dr. Francis Beckwith) - 2/6/25

2/6/25 - Dr. Francis Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University. Among his many books are The New Mormon Challenge and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, winner of the American Academy of Religion's 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Constructive-Reflective Studies. Catholics have done very little thinking about or interaction with the theological beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). The Catholic Church has focused virtually all of its ecumenical efforts on the ecclesial communities that arose from the Reformation, the Orthodox Churches, and Judaism. Left out of these discussions has been the Mormon Church, even though it has grown to nearly 16 million members internationally by 2016 from its modest beginnings in 1830. In A Catholic Engagement with Latter-day Saints, a collection of Catholic scholars address several theological topics over which Mormons and Catholics hold contrary beliefs: the great apostasy, the papacy, the Eucharist, the Trinity, the incarnation, the nature of God, justification, sainthood, liturgy, and deification. The contributors, some of whom are converts to Catholicism from Mormonism, offer a respectful, though critical, analysis of LDS beliefs. Get the book at https://ignatius.com/a-catholic-engagement-with-latter-day-saints-celdsp/