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L e t t e r s
Trojan horse apologetics?
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This Rock
Volume 6, Number 10
 October 1995 
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WHY did This Rock devote eight pages to promoting the errors and flawed arguments of the sedevacantists ["Habemus Papam"?, July/August 1995]? I say "promoting" rather than neutral "presenting" because This Rock did not provide either effective or sound answers to most of the sadly simplistic errors that were asserted. A few wimpy answers and some impoverished commentary provided in roughly nine out of 75 paragraphs is hardly the characteristic of a person whose purpose is to defend, promote, or illuminate the faith! I continue to wonder: What was your motive for presenting this material? Before God, I ask you, are you a Trojan horse in the City of God?
James J. Harris
San Diego, California
Editor's reply:
A few people have criticized us because we do not comment on every erroneous assertion or weak string of logic that appears in our letters column. If we were to do that, there would be hardly any room for letters. We comment when a comment seems especially needed, but otherwise we let the intelligence of our readers deal with patent errors. Our readers have demonstrated repeatedly over the years that they are not intellectually helpless. We do not need to hold their hands.
So much about letters but Mr. Harris inquires concerning an article, about which something similar needs to be said. He asks why we did not take apart the sedevacantist position piece by piece. He thinks that by reporting on sedevacantism, as distinguished from critiquing it, we have reduced ourselves to promoters of it. But "Habemus Papam?" wasn't meant to be an exhaustive critique; it was a report. Sometimes we print critiques, and sometimes we print reports. Our readers need to know what this fringe movement is up to, and it was our objective to give an objective overview. We wanted them to know something about the organizations and individuals involved, directly or indirectly, in the sedevacantist movement.
Besides, if sedevacantism, as Mr. Harris suggests (and as we agree), is founded mainly on "sadly simplistic errors," we think most of our readers can see through most of those errors. We think they also realize that a journal doesn't become a "promoter" of a movement when it prints a report of it. This too is a sadly simplistic error, as is the suggestion that Catholic Answers is a "Trojan horse"--or would it be more correct to suggest it is a stalking horse for sedevacantism? To state the proposition is to refute it with the best refutation of all, a hearty laugh.
Satan's successes
I WAS motivated to write to you after reading "'Habemus Papam'?" I believe Satan was successful in provoking the great schism between the Catholic Church of the East and West in the eleventh century. He then applied his old tricks in the fifteenth century, causing the Protestant Reformation. Again the Body of Christ received a catastrophic blow from which we can see its effects among Catholics and Protestants. It has caused great divisions, especially within the Fundamentalist Christians.
Though great strides have been gained through ecumenical councils, scars still remain from the great division. I know relations with mainline Protestant churches have improved over the years, but there are barriers that have been hindering the effort to rebuild the Body of Christ.
Another good example that Satan never slumbers is the bickering over the Novus Ordo Mass. We can see here that the scheme of causing division is once again implemented on the Catholic Church. This time he utilizes some Traditionalists, a few of whom even question the legitimacy of the Bishop of Rome. What will all this dissension produce? Confusion? Loss of faith? Maybe atheism?
I believe Satan has given us a taste of the same medicine he gave the Protestant churches.
Joel Aguire
Palmdale, California
A bit loose?
AT the end of "'Habemus Papam'?" the blurb says Karl Keating is working on a book about "fringe groups within the wider Traditionalist movement." Might I suggest, for research, Msgr. Klaus Gamber's book and the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, which sets out the Church's position on the Latin Mass?
The article on the sedevacantists was very good. I wrote something similar a few years ago, and Michael Davies wrote something like it in Christian Order, but I do think a few of your readers could get the wrong impression by thinking you are implying that all Traditionalists are a bit loose ecclesiastically. The "fringe groups within the wider Traditionalist movement" are not within this movement as expounded by Gamber and the Holy Father. They are "without" and are proud of it.
Kevin Bennett
Auckland, Australia
Editor's reply:
Your point is well taken, which is why, in the "Up Front" column that appeared in the issue with the article on sedevacantism, I took pains to say "Traditionalism is not sedevacantism," and I urged Traditionalists to sever all ties with sedevacantists, whose presence at the periphery of the Traditionalist movement taints the entire movement in the eyes of many sympathizers.
Continued rebellion
I WOULD like to comment on your cover story "Evangelicals Who Journey East" (April 1995) and the subsequent letters to the editor. I too was upset by what seemed to be overly judgmental overtones in the article. I still think a move to the Orthodox is a move closer to Rome.
After I read Fr. Ryland's article, I was with a good friend who converted to Orthodoxy. In the presence of a Protestant I started to query my friend about how he dealt with theological conflicts between Evangelical Protestantism and Orthodoxy, such as the priesthood, the Real Presence, the Ever-Virgin Mary, and his answer for the most part was, "The church taught it, so I believe it."
I finally could see how his conversion is only a continuation of his Protestant rebellion. He was burned by Protestant churches, but he could not overcome his petty rebellion, even though he has high admiration for the Catholic Church.
I am now really concerned for the Orthodox Church, with these converts from Protestantism. Will they do unto the Orthodox what they are doing to Protestantism--some 20,000 denominations and counting? With the leadership of the Catholic and Orthodox churches closer than ever, I do not like to see this new infusion of rebellion into the churches.
Eric Burzynski
Chantilly, Virginia
No, no, no
I AM writing in response to Fr. Ray Ryland's article "Evangelicals Who Journey East." His argument that Orthodoxy is just another Protestant Church does not make sense. He quotes from an obscure nineteenth-century French author and "corroborates" this quote by reference to his feelings of comfort and alliance with the faculty of St. Vladimir's Seminary while he was a student at Union Theological Seminary because they were "not Roman."
Because he "felt" they were a kind of Protestant surely does not make them so, does it? That one may feel Fr. Ryland to not be a valid priest would not thereby invalidate his priesthood, would it? His feelings while at Union Theological say more about him and his subjective state than about the Orthodox with whom, by his own account, he had no contact. And who was de Maistre? What was his authority?
I think it to be prima facie that any church with apostolic foundations, which has maintained apostolic succession, valid sacraments, devotion to the all-holy Mother of God and all the saints (many of whom are included on the Roman Church's universal calendar) could not be considered Protestant on the sole basis of not being in union with Rome. What Protestant church has maintained any of the above? Even Protestants who have kept the appearance of catholicity have nonetheless forfeited apostolic succession and sacramental validity.
I wonder whom he and your journal serve by such logic. As an Eastern Catholic (yes, that means in union with Rome), I think you would serve the papacy and the Church far more if reference were made to the Second Vatican Council's documents on the Eastern Churches and ecumenism and to the most recent apostolic letter, Orientale Lumen, and the most recent encyclical, Ut Unum Sint. There would give a much more three-dimensional view of Orthodoxy and, more importantly, the current and official mind of the Church on these matters.
Fr. Ryland's pique with Fr. Gillchrist and the Evangelicals seems to have been taken very personally. While the Evangelicals' motives may seem flawed to Fr. Ryland, I think that their experience is still enormously impressive and edifying. What Protestants have ever been known to do what they did? However flawed, they and their families are now within the apostolic tradition, sharing the divine life through the sacraments, having their sins forgiven, reverencing the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mother of God, and in communion with all the saints. They may not be Roman, but they do now share in the life of the Catholic Church. Further, who is to say that their journey is yet at an end?
You and he should reflect that there is a reason that we profess belief in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, not one, holy, catholic, and Roman Church. Reviewing the above-referenced ecclesial documents may give you some insights why.
I am dismayed that Fr. Ryland is preparing a series of essays on the Eastern Churches. His first attempt is not very promising. I would urge the questioner who asked if it was all right to read books by and about Eastern Orthodoxy to not wait for Fr. Ryland's series to be completed.
Orthodoxy is quite able to present itself clearly and without confusion and does not need his ill-conceived apologetics to clarify it. I would be happy to provide the questioner and Fr. Ryland with the reading list if it would assist them. Look at the world through Catholic eyes and with a Catholic world view, not Roman only, to the exclusion of all else.
Dennis B. Ingraham
No address given
Fr. Ryland responds:
You have misunderstood a number of points in my article. It did not assert that Orthodoxy is "just another Protestant church." Nor did Joseph de Maistre, whose quotation stated that "every non-Catholic church is 'Protestant.'" Notice the quotation marks. He is saying that, with regard to authority, the basic issue which separates Christians, all non-Catholic churches and individuals take a Protestant stance.
The anecdotal personal reference was not offered to "corroborate anything. It simply pointed out that the students (and, I would know now, the faculty) of a Protestant seminary felt for the Easterners a kinship that never would have occurred to us with regard to Roman Catholics. We knew the Easterners were on our side in that basic respect that matters to deeply to Protestants--no pope for them!
In the magisterial documents you mentioned, you can see that the Catholic Church never refers to the separated churches of the East as "Catholic." They embrace much of the Catholic heritage, but it all belongs to the unity centered on Peter, a unity from which they have separated themselves. Until they return, they cannot share in the fullness of the Catholic faith. Ut Unum Sint makes this crystal clear. I would add that they cannot share fully even in what they already have, so long as they cut themselves off from Peter.
You draw a false distinction between the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" and the "Roman Church." You exhort us to "look at the world through Catholic eyes and with a Catholic world view, not Roman only." What is "Catholic" that is not simultaneously "Roman"? The Eastern Catholic Churches, such as your own? Were they called "Eastern Catholic Churches" before they returned to unity with Rome? No. Nothing in Catholic teaching will support a distinction between "Catholic" and "Roman."
You said that I seem to have taken my "pique" vis-a-vis Fr. Gillchrist et alia "very personally." I do not know how one takes his own "pique" "very personally." I do know that you have read into my article irritation or anger (that is what "pique" means) that does not exist. I did not question the motives of the Eastern converts in question. I did (and still do) question the reasons they gave, for reasons that I believe are profoundly Catholic.
It is true, thank God, that those converts do now "share in the life of the Catholic Church," as you say, to a further degree than before, but still by no means fully. Section 14 of Ut Unum Sint says this clearly.
Brazil's Protestant center
I THANK you for the gifts which we received through Catholic Answers, namely This Rock magazine, Catholicism and Fundamentalism, and Refuting the Attack on Mary. I have placed these materials in our monastery library and reading room for the profit of the English-speaking brothers.
With the rapid growth of Fundamentalism here in Brazil, we need to be well informed in Catholic apologetics. There is so much work to do, the harvest is immense, but the workers are few. Our city of Anapolis is dubbed "the Protestant center of Brazil" and has more than 400 different churches or sects. The Catholic faithful here are blessed to have a dynamic and orthodox bishop and solid priests, but many Catholics ignorant of their faith are leaving the Church.
Those of us preparing for the holy priesthood need to use all the means at our disposal for preparing for the harvest which increases every day. These means include much prayer and growth in charity, but also intense study and intellectual formation. The materials which you have generously provided certainly help us in this time of preparation.
Bro. Patrick Selin
Anapolis, Brazil
Convert, then marry
I CAN fully relate to the concerns of cradle Catholics. As one myself, now in my mid-twenties, I have only just realized the treasures that the Church contains. It often seems that we have the mean, but without studying or listening to the menu we don't know what we are eating.
Up until a couple of years ago, even though I never left the household of God, I spent most of my time staring out of the window, never taking the time to look around to find my Lord Jesus, the Mother of our Lord, and all the other riches contained in the Church. I attended Mass as a matter of habit rather than the desire to seek out the truth or meaning to life.
In the last year my faith has blossomed, starting off with my now-fiancee asking me about my faith and realizing how little I knew. We began to go to the local RCIA program; I was my fiancee's sponsor. I have learned as much as she! Now I wonder why everyone isn't Catholic
David Joyce
Henhem, England
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