#12573 Why Is Catholicism So Complicated? Scapulars and SSPX - Joe Heschmeyer

Catholic Answers Live

Catholic Answers

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Why do Catholics make religion so complicated?” This question opens a discussion on the intricacies of Catholic beliefs and practices. The episode also addresses the significance of the number 37 in scripture, the relationship between the Gospels of Mark and John, and whether one can wear a scapular without being baptized.

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Questions Covered:

02:05 – Why do Catholics Make Religion so Complicated?
09:58 – The number 37 seems to show up a number of times in scripture is there some significance to this?
13:35 – If Mark was written before John, why doesn’t Mark’s Gospel include the “I AM” statements?
22:31 – Can I wear a Scapular if I am not Baptized?
23:16 – If I attended Sunday evening Mass but they did different readings than the Sunday morning Mass, does it still fulfill the Sunday obligation?
29:30 – What is the SSPX and sedevacantist relationship to the Church?
40:12 – How can I defend the Faith when I am not sophisticated in my arguments at the moment?
50:15 – If the Kingdom of David ended when God said it wouldn’t why does God not apply the same standard to the Great Apostasy?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent.
0:05.2	When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers.
0:11.5	Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Welcome to Catholic Answers live. My name is Edgar Lujano filling in for Sykelet today. While he's out, I get to have some fun on this side of the glass. I am the producer for the show and call screeners. So if you're ever called the show, you get to talk to me. Today we've got the one and only, the shameless Joe, oh, sorry, shameless popery host, Joe Heschmeyer. What's up, Joe? How's it going? I'm going well. How are you doing?
0:54.6	Good, good. Well, you're really great at talking to people who are considering the faith.
1:00.2	I think you said you even teach classes of OCIA, right?
1:03.2	Well, sometimes, so my parish will someone have me come in and do just kind of a Q&A open, whatever questions people have.
1:10.7	I mean, honestly, it's kind of like
1:12.3	an in-person version of what this show is, where people can call in with their questions. So it's
1:17.1	nice, too, because from a preparation perspective, selfishly, it's impossible to prepare for it.
1:23.2	So fair enough. No extra work. All right, perfect. Well, today we're going to prioritize people who are in OCAA or even if you're not in OCAA. If you're just considering the Catholic faith, if you're open to it, it's an ask me anything for that day. So go ahead and give us a call. You will go to the top of the line. So people who are already Catholic who are not considering Catholicism, you're more than welcome to call as well, but we will prioritize those who are open to Catholicism.
1:49.4	The phone number is 888-318-318-7-884.
1:54.3	That's AAA-31-Truth to get your question over to Joe.
1:58.9	All right, Joe, to jump right into it.
2:01.2	So one accusation that we get a lot as Catholics is that we overcomplicate the Catholic faith,
2:06.8	that in order to have salvation, there's all these extra criteria that you have to bring on.
2:13.6	Do we, as Catholics, overcomplicate faith or religion?
2:19.5	No.
2:20.3	I understand where the critique is coming from.
2:23.0	And I think it's worth making a couple of distinctions, which maybe this is already going to sound too complicated for people.
2:29.1	But on the one hand, the spiritual life is very simple in a certain way.
2:33.4	It's spiritual life.
2:35.0	And life is a gift from God, and you can do nothing to earn it.
	...

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