#12715 Why Is the Resurrection So Important? AMA: Dropped Calls - Joe Heschmeyer

Catholic Answers Live

Catholic Answers

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why did the Pharisees and Sadducees fiercely disagree about the resurrection, and why is the resurrection so central to Catholic belief? In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers apologists explain the theological importance of bodily resurrection before tackling questions about the Protestant and Jewish biblical canons, including why Maccabees is missing despite its connection to Hanukkah. The discussion also explores common misunderstandings about Catholic teaching on salvation, including accusations of “works-based salvation,” how justification can grow even while Christians still commit venial sins, and the connection between the Bread of Life discourse and Christ’s Passion. The episode concludes with pastoral advice for someone in OCIA facing family conflict about becoming Catholic and attending Mass.

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Questions Covered:

04:22 – Why was there a dispute between the Pharisees and Sadducees on resurrection, and why is it so central to Catholic teaching?
11:14 – Is the protestant bible based off of the Jewish translation of the bible? Why doesn’t the Jewish bible have Maccabees, since those books contain the origin of Hanukkah?
20:10 – How would we respond to someone who pushes back when we say don’t believe in a works-based salvation? They say that we would claim someone loses their salvation if they miss Mass.
30:20 – How do we reconcile a justification that progresses and still commit venial sin?
37:01 – How close in time was the bread of life discourse to the Passion of Christ?
51:30 – I’m in OCIA and my husband doesn’t agree with my decision. If I were to become Catholic and I can’t make it to mass because of issues at home, will I be in mortal sin?

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. Hello and welcome to Catholic Answers Live. I am Cy Kellett, your host. Thanks so much for being here with us.
0:36.2	We appreciate it because we really like
0:37.7	getting to do this, and we appreciate that you make it possible. Joe Heschmire is our guest for both
0:42.9	hours, and it's a drop calls show. And, okay, some mixed feelings about drop calls. Maybe you're
0:49.1	like, I can't call, but you know what? Also, we get to pick the calls we want to answer on the drop call show. So there tend to be a lot of interesting things to discuss. And Joe Heschmire is a pretty interesting guy on his own, of course, Joe Hesmire, apologist here at Catholic Answers. A long time online Catholic Apologists with his blog that he created called Shameless Poperery, which is now a very popular podcast,
1:14.7	Shameless Popery. You can also get it at Joe's YouTube channel and the author of some books
1:19.9	that have made a real difference, including Pope Peter and the early church was the Catholic
1:24.7	Church and one that we have just gotten great, great feedback on.
1:28.8	The Eucharist is really Jesus.
1:31.0	Joe Heschemeyer, thanks for being here with us.
1:34.3	Do I not have Jeff?
1:35.2	It's my pleasure. I just realized I had myself on mute, but I am happy to be here, and hopefully, the rest of Joe goes better than the first.
1:41.3	He's a really good apologist. I just want to say that.
1:43.9	But that means that his brain is not thinking about certain other things, like that normal people might turn on the microphone or that kind of thing.
1:54.8	But this is, this tells you how great an apologist he is.
1:58.1	He's not wasting his brain cells on the trivial.
2:02.0	It's all used on the important stuff. I like the way you spun that very quickly and beautifully.
2:09.8	Well, there's that, you know, there's the absent-minded professor thing and I, or the disorganized,
2:15.8	not quite sure where he is professor thing.
2:18.3	And I think you have a little bit of that, Joe.
	...

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