MYS134: Merry Christmas! Jimmy Akin is answering more weird questions, including whether an insane person confessing sins to a cat could result in forgiveness; whether one could baptize with tea in emergency; and whether some bodily mortification is spiritually healthy.
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Questions covered in this episode:

* 02:51 – I’d like to know about the so-called “Satanic Panic” around Dungeons and Dragons, but also the related panic about D&D and murder/suicide.
* 14:38 – Does CCC 2290 have anything to say about people’s addiction to coffee? We all seem to give coffee a pass even though people spend lots of money on it and develop significant physiological and psychological dependence on it. Find any humorous coffee meme and substitute the word “heroin,” and suddenly it isn’t so funny.
* 20:57 – Where would we be today if the Library of Alexandria never burned down?
* 24:20 – I have questions about bodily mortification. I am reading about the lives of saints who did actual damage to their physical bodies. To me, that seems very wrong, as our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and God created the body as “good,” so much so that burial of the dead is an act of Christian charity. Yet, we still are being advised in some quarters to “subdue” our bodies” with either extreme and unhealthy neglect, or actual harm.
* 30:33 – Was Jesus dead all day on Holy Saturday and just waiting to come out on Sunday?
* 32:55 – What would the implications be in terms of philosophy, theology, and morality if animals other than humans were discovered to be sapient?
* 38:42 – In dire circumstances, can one baptize using tea? It’s mostly water. What if it’s sweetened?
* 41:45 – In Confirmation class a kid once asked me this: “If there were an insane man who thought his cat was a priest, and he went to Confession to his cat and heard the cat give him absolution, would his sins be forgiven?”
* 49:50 – I read that Augustine believed that concupiscence is specifically passed down through the act of intercourse of the parents. Would concupiscence still be part of a child if there was artificial Insemination without any sexual act involved?

* : (the book containing the short story “Monkey See” that Jimmy mentions)
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