#12375 Who Were the Desert Fathers? How Did They Change Catholicism? - William Albrecht
Catholic Answers Live
Catholic Answers
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
“Who were the Desert Fathers and their impact on Catholicism?” This episode explores the lives and teachings of these early Christian ascetics, while also addressing questions like why Mother Angelica has not been beatified and how to interpret the recent LGBT pilgrimage to Rome. Tune in for a rich discussion on the early church and its relevance today.
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Questions Covered:
- 12:35 – why has Mother Angelica not been beatified?
- 14:45 – How should we interpret the recent LGBT pilgrimage to Rome?
- 18:15 – If the early church had martyrs, are those martyrs saints. Also, if Charlie Kirk is considered a martyr, could one day he be considered a saint?
- 22:40 – Did the early church interpret Genesis literally, and then after we realized it doesn’t really correspond to our scientific knowledge, we just started saying it’s not literal? (this is what her son is claiming)
- 31:12 – I was raised in an independent fundamentalist Baptist church. I’m looking at Catholicism. I want to read writers of the early church. Where do I find that and how do I know if it’s a good translation?
- 34:30 – How do we know if the early church fathers were Catholic? Because Protestants quote them too. How do we know St. Augustine wasn’t Protestant?
- 41:15 – I understand for a sin to be mortal we need have knowledge that the act is sinful. But do we have to know the act is specifically a grave offence, or do we just need to know that it is sinful. For example, if one commits a grave offense, but things that act is only venially sinful, would it still be a mortal sin?
- 46:28 – The Bible says that Mary visited Elizabeth in her sixth month. I saw a video that says that means the sixth month of the year, not Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy. Which way does the Church teach?
- 50:40 – Were some of the early church fathers Eastern Orthodox? I know the Eastern Orthodox have their church fathers, so whose are right?
Transcript
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| 0:11.5 | Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Welcome to Catholic Answers live. |
| 0:32.4 | My name is Edgar Lujano. |
| 0:34.4 | Filling in for Cykella one more time. |
| 0:39.7 | It's always a bonus whenever I get to be on the show. |
| 0:45.4 | And here I am, day two. It's fantastic. And not only that, you know, whenever Sai's not in, |
| 0:50.7 | I always have to recruit the man, the myth, the legend himself, the patristic pillar, William Malpric, to join me. William, thanks for joining me for a second day. |
| 0:55.0 | This is great. |
| 0:56.3 | A phenomenal being here with you, brother. |
| 0:58.2 | I'm thrilled and I'm pumped to be here. |
| 1:00.1 | I can't wait to get into it again and talk theology with you, my friend. |
| 1:03.0 | Yeah, likewise, man. |
| 1:03.9 | It's always great to have you on. |
| 1:05.0 | So if you are Catholic, if you are not Catholic, if you have any questions about the Catholic faith, |
| 1:11.5 | we're doing a general, ask me anything. If you do have questions about the early church, |
| 1:16.2 | I want to prioritize those. So if you have a question about that, our call screener will |
| 1:21.9 | boost you to the top. So give us a call 888-3187-884. That's AAA31-Truth. Second hour, |
| 1:31.2 | we're going to have our good friend John Martinone from the Bible Christian Society. So we're going |
| 1:35.5 | to be talking Bible apologetics. So kind of like the ground roots of biblical apologetics and how to |
| 1:41.6 | answer those basic questions that I think every Catholic |
| 1:44.4 | should know. |
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