On this special episode of IRREVOCABLE with Fr. André, recorded in the spirit of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Fr. André welcomes Prof. Julian Dunraven and Dr. Regan M. Alpert, a former Episcopal priest, for the opening investigation in The Exploitation of Faith — The Catholic Church Case.

Did Christianity lose its way when the persecutions ended and the Church entered into a relationship with the Roman Empire? Did Constantine and the Council of Nicaea create a new Christianity—or did Constantine encounter a Church that had already been proclaiming, worshipping, suffering and dying for Jesus Christ for nearly three centuries?

The discussion examines the Roman persecutions and martyrs, the Resurrection and Pauline Christology, the pre-Nicene witness of the early Church, Alexandria and its intellectual world, Arius and Arianism, St. Athanasius, the Council of Nicaea, Constantine’s vision of the Cross, religious freedom, and the dangerous relationship between spiritual authority and temporal power.

At the center of the investigation is a crucial distinction: the Faith of the Church can remain intact even when Christians and ecclesiastical institutions become vulnerable to corruption, ambition and the misuse of political power.

Can the Church keep the Faith while renouncing compulsion? Can Christian authority be earned through truth, holiness, witness and persuasion rather than imposed through the machinery of the state?

And above everything stands the Cross:

The Cross of Life.

The Cross of Victory.

The Cross of Mercy.

The Cross of Miracles.