Fundamentalist critics of the Catholic faith no longer restrict themselves to mimeographed tracts. Today’s anti-Catholic polemicists use the latest techniques. The best example of this is Catholicism: Crisis of Faith, a slick, 54-minute video featuring interviews with former Catholics who claim their one-time co-religionists aren’t really Christian.
Produced by Lumen Productions of San Leandro, California, Catholicism: Crisis of Faith is packaged to look like a Catholic video. The front of the slipcase looks like a stained glass window. The window’s illustration is of priestly hands raising a host and chalice. On the back of the slipcase is a photograph of a giant statue of Mary. The words surrounding the statue are almost neutral in tone.
“Follow the journey of devout Catholic clergy and laity who courageously faced a crisis of faith and emerged with a life changing experience of Jesus Christ.” This could describe a pro-Catholic video about people who rediscover their faith and become more fervent Catholics. There is no hint in the copy that the video features interviews with some of the most sharp-tongued anti-Catholics in America.
The low-decibel design of the slipcase is mirrored in advertising for the video. Spring Arbor Distributors, a major wholesaler of mainly Evangelical books and tapes, has carried in its catalogues an ad that calls Catholicism: Crisis of Faith “an ideal training resource for churches, Bible schools, seminaries, and mission agencies. Learn of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and how they compare with Scripture.” No screeds mar this advertising; there is no hint of anti-Catholicism.
Spring Arbor’s promotional blurb from Hal Lindsey, author of the best-selling Late Great Planet Earth, says the video “presents a startling investigation of the world’s largest religious denomination. . . . Must see for anyone seeking to understand the times in which we live.”
John MacArthur, Jr., pastor, author, and radio personality, says in his blurb, “I appreciate very much the direct, clear, biblical treatment of Catholicism. . . . For anyone who wants a clear understanding of how Catholic theology differs from the Bible, this is a helpful tool.”
Even Dave Hunt, author of sensationalistic anti-Catholic books, is muted: “Everyone needs to see this video, which cannot be commended too highly. And I especially recommend the accompanying annotated transcript,” which is available for $5.00 from Lumen Productions.[ have debated Hunt several times on radio and television. Usually he tries to take the last word in the exchange, and he prefers the last word to be comprised of passages from Alphonsus Liguori, who, when writing about Mary, used exceptionally flowery language in his praises of her. When taken out of context and without an understanding of his milieu and his century’s literary forms, Liguori’s remarks seem to exceed the bounds of propriety. The last time Hunt tried to use this technique I butted in and used up the show’s remaining seconds with my own comments. In apologetics you can’t afford to be a wallflower.]
Christianity Today, the Evangelical monthly founded by Billy Graham, has run full-page ads for the video.[Generally considered to be the flagship publication of Evangelicalism, Christianity Today nowadays takes, if not an irenic stand toward Catholicism, at least a polite stand. But on occasion it publishes columns that fall into traditional anti-Catholic rhetoric. An unfortunately large proportion of these columns come from the typewriter of J. I. Packer, who is a member of the Anglican Church and considers himself a Fundamentalist. Thirty-five years ago appeared his influential book on Fundamentalism. Despite his intellectual credentials, he seems never to have overcome a visceral antipathy toward Rome. In this Packer is like many people within Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.] In them MacArthur is quoted again, saying, “This is so needed today when ecumenical efforts have done everything to blur the lines and to endorse the heresy as if it were truth.” (Okay, so not everyone is muted.)
The copy explains that “Catholicism: Crisis of Faith is also for Catholics. Produced by former Catholics, this film approaches the subject with care and sensitivity. It gives former priests and nuns the opportunity to speak with compassion to the sincere people they had sought to serve with their lives. Here is an effective evangelization tool you will be pleased to share with seeking family and friends.”
Ads have appeared also in Charisma and Moody Magazine, in holiday catalogues, and in card packs. Among the endorsers used in this advertising is Bob Jones III, head of Bob Jones University. (Bob Jones University Press published former priest Bart Brewer’s autobiography, Pilgrimage from Rome. Brewer is featured in Catholicism: Crisis of Faith). The video’s producer claims that no publication he has sought to advertise in has refused to run the ads.
Lumen Productions was begun by James G. McCarthy, a former Catholic who left the Church in 1977. His attitude about “Romanism” is unmistakable: “I could not remain in the Catholic Church and claim to be trusting Christ fully for my salvation. Every Mass, sacrament, penance, and offering is an insult to the finished work of Christ.”
McCarthy refuses to reveal how many copies of Catholicism: Crisis of Faith have been sold, but, if the ubiquity of the ads are any indication, this video has become one of Fundamentalism’s most effective attacks on the Catholic Church. It reiterates the Fundamentalist argument that, as McCarthy puts it, “Roman Catholicism has added to the Christian faith and to the gospel itself from the traditions of men.”
Aside from Lumen Productions, McCarthy, 41, runs a ministry called Good News for Catholics. The ministry came first, the video production operation later. One issue of the ministry’s newsletter carried a letter from an unnamed Dominican nun. She charged that in the video “priests in good standing with the Catholic Church were quoted out of context and made to appear ridiculous.” McCarthy answered her: “I assure you that no interview was taken out of context.” But that’s not what one of the priests interviewed said.
Fr. Richard Chilson, a Paulist, has written eight books, among them Catholic Christianity (Paulist, 1987) and An Introduction to the Faith of Catholics (Paulist, 1975). “McCarthy approached me saying that they were doing a video to help Christians understand the Catholic Church. He was all sweetness and ecumenism. I spend a lot of my ministry fighting Fundamentalists, and I must admit to having been duped by this one. I figured they were Evangelical Christians rather than Fundamentalists and so agreed to cooperate in the interview. There was no preparation for the interview other than that I knew they wanted me to speak about the current state of Catholicism.”
The interview lasted an hour and a half and covered a wide range of subjects, including “the crisis in the Church today, the shortage of priests, and dissent.” After the interview Chilson asked to see the finished video. He never was sent a copy and never had a chance to review his edited interview. No theatrical release was given to him to sign, but some months later he received a check for $125.00. (McCarthy says all interviewees signed releases.) Chilson forgot about the video entirely until, while at a convention, “some women approached me and asked if I were the priest in this video. They told me that it was pretty biased and suggested I could go down to Hayward [California] where they would show it to me.”
Much of the Chilson interview concerned the Mass as a sacrifice. “The first extended quote they have from me in the video is part of that explanation, but it is not easy to give the Catholic understanding of Eucharistic sacrifice in a sound bite. That discussion went on for at least fifteen minutes, and McCarthy kept coming back to the idea of sacrifice.”
Then comes a bit of slick editing. The voice-over narrator says, “Other Christian denominations celebrate that the sacrifice is finished. We asked Fr. Chilson why the Catholic Church chooses to focus on it continuing. Why not leave it finished?”
The visuals show Chilson leaning back in his chair and passing his hand across his head, as though searching for an answer. He looks weary and replies, “I don’t know if I can answer that. I am sorry. I know that’s–that’s a real issue between Protestants and Catholics, but I don’t know if I can answer it in any better way than I’ve already kind of stumbled on.”
The video cuts to Frank Eberhardt, once a Catholic seminarian and now a Fundamentalist proselytizer of Catholics. He says, “The Catholic priest cannot really explain how that the finished work of Christ on the cross is continued today in the Mass.”
“They of course made it look like I had nothing to say,” says Chilson, “whereas I had been trying to explain the issue for a good quarter hour. I would stand by what I said in the first shot, although, taken out of context, it does not stand well on its own. The second shot is dirty pool. Indeed, I was suspicious that my response there may not even have been to that exact question. But even if it was, this was not lack of an answer on my part but frustration and exhaustion at going over the same ground again and again.”
Chilson notes wryly that in the interview as much time was spent on salvation as on the Eucharist, but “none of that was used because I gave them the gospel answer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Certainly biased sampling was at work. If you fit their stereotype of a Catholic, you were on screen. If you presented the gospel, you were ignored. I have to deal with this continually from Fundamentalists. The response is invariably that you are an exceptional Catholic” if you present the Catholic understanding of salvation as it really is–not as Fundamentalists think Catholics think it is. “You become an exception that proves the rule.”
As though to prove Chilson’s charge of selective editing, former priest Bart Brewer says in the video, “The Catholic gospel, the Roman Catholic gospel, is absolutely a gospel of works.” But in the transcript we find a footnote to Brewer’s remark: “The Council of Trent dogmatically stated the Catholic position as follows: ‘If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema (cursed).'” One begins to wonder whether this line from Trent has been read slowly by the author of the transcript’s footnotes. It is not referring to how we initially obtain justification–the Council says we obtain it by grace through faith, not through good works–but to how our sanctification (the word commonly used by Protestants) is increased by our good works after we are justified and how that initial justification is preserved by our good works (because by doing good works we stay away from evil works, sins, through which we can forfeit justification). Even Fundamentalists talk about a process of sanctification that comes after justification, yet the passage from Trent has been misconstrued to mean something that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach but that Fundamentalists think it teaches.
(By the way, contrary to what the transcript says, “let him be anathema” is not properly translated as “let him be cursed” [to hell]. In ecclesiastical documents “let him be anathema” means “let him be excommunicated.”)
Chilson, whose doctoral work has been in Mahayana Buddhism, with a specialty in Tibetan Buddhism, said he selected this area of study because Buddhism “seemed to be as contrary to Christianity as it was possible to be.” The video quotes him as saying that, although Buddhists do not believe in God or the soul, behind their myths is a reality that corresponds to the reality addressed by Christianity. In this Chilson, properly understood, is quite correct. It is only to be expected, of course, that, since all people face the same reality around them, even those without access to authentic revelation are able to g.asp certain elements of that reality accurately–while misconstruing others, of course. Even Buddhists get some things right.
The narrator’s comments before and after Chilson’s brief remarks on Buddhism lead the viewer to believe that Chilson in particular and the Catholic Church in general are working toward some vague amalgamation of Catholicism and Buddhism, something not actually implied in Chilson’s remarks. “As to what I said on Buddhism and non-Christian religions, I would stand by it, but again it is taken out of context. This interview was not done as sound bites, but as a long, leisurely conversation. If I had been doing sound bites, I would have needed a lot more time for thought than simply what came to mind as an immediate response to the question.”
Chilson’s experience with McCarthy and the interview has not heightened his desire to engage in discussions with Fundamentalists. “One of the Paulists watching [the video] with me said at the end that perhaps we should not be engaged in ecumenical dialogue [with Fundamentalists], which is one of the three major Paulist ministries.” The sentiment is understandable, even though neither Chilson nor his fellow Paulist probably feels quite that way now that their anger has cooled.
If Chilson was the victim of slick editing, so were anonymous Catholics interviewed outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Neither the video nor the transcript indicates the total number of Catholics who were interviewed. Perhaps only the ones giving the “best” answers ended up featured in Catholicism: Crisis of Truth. All the viewer sees is the narrator asking nine lay Catholics– they are presumably representative of all lay Catholics–how they think they can get to heaven. The responses are not encouraging.
“Well, you know, by being a good Catholic and being nice to one another,” replies one woman.
“As a woman you have to follow Mary’s way to go to Christ,” says another passer-by. (This comment no doubt confirms many viewers’ worst suspicions about “Maryolatry.”)
A man answers that he will go to heaven “by treating people properly. Be fair to everyone.”
“I don’t know. Just behaving myself,” says another fellow, who admits he doesn’t have a good answer.
An equally confused man replies, “by trying to live a clean and decent life, I guess.”
Not one of these is a good answer, though each contains a partial truth (see Matt. 19:16-17). These people are easy foils for Fundamentalists, and their confused ideas are allowed to stand for the Catholic position on salvation.
Footnotes in the transcript flesh out the on-screen arguments, but often disingenuously. In one scene the narrator claims that “Catholicism has continued to add new doctrines to the Catholic faith from the traditions of men. The belief that the nature of the bread changed at the Mass was not added to official doctrine until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. This was the first time the Church sanctioned the theory of transubstantiation.” The footnote gives a lengthy quotation from The New Catholic Encyclopedia. The reader is left with the impression that the Real Presence was a doctrine “invented” shortly before the Fourth Lateran Council and that belief in the doctrine has been coterminous with the use of the term “transubstantiation.”
The transcript does not quote from the second paragraph of the encyclopedia’s article on transubstantiation: “Although the term is neither biblical nor patristic, the idea it expresses is as old as Christian revelation. The scriptural evidence [five passages are cited] requires that the bread cease to exist and that Christ’s body be made present.”[The terms “Trinity” and “Incarnation” aren’t biblical either, but Fundamentalists have no qualms about using them. ]
Further paragraphs in the encyclopedia demonstrate that the Fathers of the Church taught the Real Presence, even though the technical term “transubstantiation” was not used until the Medieval period. Until that time there was no noticeable public denial of the Real Presence, but, when the problem spread beyond a few ivory-tower thinkers, the Fourth Lateran Council, in order to eliminate confusion on the subject, imposed a new word of art–but not a new doctrine. The doctrine came straight from the New Testament, but that’s not the impression left by the video or its transcript.
This historical situation mirrors one that occurred in the fourth century. The heresy of Arianism taught that Jesus was not the God-man, but only a man, though the best of all men. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 the bishops defined how the Son’s nature is related to the Father’s. The parties leaning toward the heretical position wanted to adopt the Greek term homoiousios (“like substance”), but the Council settled on homoousios (“same substance”) because only that term–which is not found in the Bible– promised to preserve the truth that the Son is not merely like the Father (so are we, since we are made in the Father’s image), but shares the Father’s divine nature and is thus himself God.
The original release of Catholicism: Crisis of Faith showed a statue depicting a woman attached to a crucifix. The statue was said to be located in the cathedral in Quito, Ecuador. The narrator explained that Catholics have so confused the role of Mary in redemption, equating her work with her Son’s, that they believe she too suffered for their sins.
But the confusion was the video’s. According to Antonio Arregui, Auxiliary Bishop of Quito, the statue is not in the cathedral but in a monastery in Quito, and the woman depicted is not Mary but a local saint known as Santa Liberata, “she who received liberation.” She is said to have been the daughter of a Portuguese prince. “Her father wished to marry her to a non-Christian and corrupt prince,” explains Bishop Arregui. “When she refused, her father ordered that she be crucified.”
Historians have not precisely determined the woman’s dates. Her feast is celebrated locally on July 20. When she appears without a cross, she is shown “with the arms extended and a bit raised. Sometimes she wears a royal crown. In some pictures there is someone at her feet playing an instrument, as if she were courted by a young man.” Bishop Arregui notes that Santa Liberata is discussed in a book printed in Dusseldorf in 1934.
To McCarthy’s credit, the scene with the statue was excised from the video. He says it was cut out as soon as the falsity of the representation was brought to his attention, but he admits it was still in the video as late as 21 months after its initial release. The fact that such an outlandish claim–that Mary too was crucified–appeared in the original version at all tends to undercut McCarthy’s comment that the video “was produced under the direction of former Catholics aware of Catholic sensitivities. Care was taken to avoid unnecessary offense.”
Bill Jackson is the head of Christians Evangelizing Catholics, a Fundamentalist group engaging in the distribution of anti-papal literature at Denver’s World Youth Day. Raised a Protestant, Jackson “accepted Jesus” in 1949, then went to a Bible college in England. He began missionary work to the Irish people in 1957. Three years ago, in honor of his spending a third of a century evangelizing Catholics, he was given an honorary doctorate by Baptist College in Montana.
Until earlier this year Jackson’s ministry was headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. It was moved to Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, in part so it could coordinate the attempt to reach the hundreds of thousands of young Catholics expected to attend World Youth Day to see John Paul II.[To counter expected Fundamentalist proselytizing at World Youth Day ’93, which will be held in Denver from August 11-15, Catholic Answers is printing 300,000 copies of a 32-page booklet that gives the historical and scriptural bases for the Catholic faith. Among the topics considered in Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth are the origin of the Catholic Church, how one can locate the true Church established by Jesus, the Church’s leadership structure, the complementary roles of Scripture and Tradition, the sacraments and their purposes, the efficacy of prayers to the saints, how salvation is achieved, and prospects for the future of the Church in a world that is looking for a new beginning. Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth will be distributed at no charge to the young people in Denver. The booklet takes an upbeat approach and features a full-color cover. The text is suitable not only for older teens but for all adults, making the booklet an ideal educational aid in parishes. Immediately after the conclusion of World Youth Day ’93 Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth will be available for bulk distribution at parishes at low per-unit rates. The single-copy price will be $3.00. For further information contact Catholic Answers at (619) 541-1131.]
Jackson mailed out, apparently to Catholics as well as to Protestants, a card with a reproduction of the statue that appeared in the video’s original release. An accompanying letter said, “There are some Catholics who, while they know that Mary was not actually nailed to a cross, would think this to be a fitting reminder of what she suffered. . . . There are other Catholics who would be horrified to think that anywhere in the world there would be Catholic piety which could accept Mary on a crucifix. . . . There might be some of you who would think that, by printing such a card, we are just Protestants trying to ‘get at’ Mary and Marian piety within the Catholic Church. Let me hasten to assure you that I have the highest regard for Mary, the mother of Jesus. . . . Your response to this message will be appreciated.”
Several Catholics of our acquaintance have come upon the cards and have written to Jackson and then to us. Perhaps their complaints to him were relayed to McCarthy and helped prompt him to yank the “crucified Mary” scene from the video.
Toward the end of Catholicism: Crisis of Faith is a snippet from the motion picture Martin Luther. The segment is introduced by the narrator, who says, “This conflict between Scripture and Tradition was at the heart of the Reformation during the Middle Ages.”
In the motion picture the Catholic prosecutor is shown saying, “Dr. Luther, you admitted these writings were yours. Will you tell us now, do you persist in what you have written here, or are you prepared to retract these writings and the beliefs they contain?”
Luther replies, “I ask pardon if I lack the manners that befit this court. I was not brought up in kings’ palaces, but in the seclusion of the cloister. I am asked to retract these writings….”
The narrator interrupts and asks rhetorically, “Protestant critics? Not exactly. The leaders of the Reformation were all Catholic priests and theologians.” He then mentions John Wycliffe, John Huss, Huldreich Zwingli, Martin Luther, and, incorrectly, John Calvin, who never was a priest.
The brief segment from the film Martin Luther is credited as being produced by Lutheran Film Associates and used “courtesy of Gateway Films/Vision Video.” Walter Jensen of Lutheran Film Associates confirms that Martin Luther is in the public domain and so can be used by anyone; no permission is necessary. He says Lutheran Film Associates was not made aware that a portion of the film would be in McCarthy’s video. Jensen notes that he was “concerned” about the use of the film by anti-Catholics.
William Curtis of Vision Video says that McCarthy’s organization approached Vision Video for permission to use the film and that Vision Video “thought they would do a helpful critique” of modern Catholicism, but Curtis characterizes Catholicism: Crisis of Truth as “a Catholic basher.” He says Vision Video is “very, very disappointed” with McCarthy’s production, and in his estimation the video offers “a very biased presentation” of Catholicism.
Lumen Productions hoped to have Vision Video distribute the video –Curtis said McCarthy sent his office review copies–but Vision Video “refused to distribute” the final product and was “rather disgusted” with its contents. Curtis said of the video and its contents that his company “would not endorse or support that at all.”
One of the former priests featured in Catholicism: Crisis of Faith is Bob Bush. McCarthy’s newsletter introduced Bush to its readers this way: “Late on the night of March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 1981, a small press produced our first publication, a booklet entitled Good News for Catholics. The next day 800 of the 3,000 Catholics departing from a ceremony at a local civic auditorium received a free copy.
“Jesuit priest Bob Bush was in that crowd. He was searching for God, but he didn’t receive a booklet. There simply were not enough. Five years later, Bob, having learned the gospel through his own Scripture studies, left the priesthood and the Roman Catholic Church. When he learned of the opportunity that had almost been his in 1981, he remarked, ‘That booklet could have saved me a couple of years!'”
Bush’s is the first voice heard in the video after the narrator’s. The scene is the church at the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco. Bush looks into the camera and says, “This is St. Ignatius Church. It is adjacent to the University of San Francisco. I studied here during my years of seminary training. My name is Bob Bush. I was ordained here in 1966. Twenty-one years later I submitted my letter of resignation.”
This wording is so imprecise that viewers might conclude that Bush’s entire theological training took place at USF. According to the registrar’s office, he indeed studied at USF, but only during the summers of 1964, 1965, and 1966, and each summer he took only two courses, Spanish and theology. To the extent he learned Catholic theology, he learned most of it elsewhere.[Bob Bush’s brother, Bernard Bush, remains a Jesuit in good standing. He runs a residential facility for priests who have emotional problems.]
Bob Bush appears eight times in the video, each instance only a sound bite. After another former priest and a former nun speak against the Immaculate Conception and its chief consequence, Mary’s sinlessness, Bush sums up for the viewer: ” ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ [Rom. 3:23]. All have fallen. Yet the Catholic Church defined that Mary was conceived without sin.”
Bush demonstrates Fundamentalists’ strength and weakness: simplicity and oversimplification. The “proof” is simple, a single verse. It is quoted as though it can be interpreted only univocally. The viewer is led to a single conclusion: If everyone has sinned, Mary must have sinned; if the Catholic Church teaches she was sinless, it must be teaching erroneously. This is the simplicity of the argument, and it is an argument that appeals immediately to minds uncluttered with questions.
The simplicity that appeals to some people looks like oversimplification to others. They think to themselves along these lines:
What does it mean to say “All have sinned”? It must mean, and certainly Fundamentalists mean by it, that all people have committed actual sins, sins which are their own acts–as distinguished from original sin, the stain of which is inherited by us from our first parents, who sinned at the origin of the race. (The absence of actual sins is what Catholics mean when they say one consequence of the Immaculate Conception was Mary’s sinlessness.)
Is the sentence “All have sinned” to be taken broadly or with implied exceptions? Apparently the latter, since everyone knows that neither children below the age or reason nor people born severely retarded are capable of sin. Thus Paul could not have been referring to either young children or the severely retarded in Romans 3:23 because they have not sinned. To whom was he referring? No doubt to the adults recipients of his letter. If his words allow for these obvious exceptions, could it not be that he allowed for another, unmentioned exception –Mary?
That is the kind of thinking someone not given to oversimplification would engage in. It is not the kind of thinking anti-Catholics appearing in this video engage in. The sound bites in which their thoughts are presented are arguments which they themselves find convincing, and those sound bites contain no nuances.
This is certainly the case with one of the former priests interviewed, Bart Brewer, head of Mission to Catholics International. His autobiography, Pilgrimage from Rome, is featured in the catalogue distributed by McCarthy’s ministry.[The catalogue includes a booklet written by McCarthy, The Mass: From Mystery to Meaning, and Loraine Boettner’s Roman Catholicism. Boettner’s book remains Fundamentalism’s key anti-Catholic polemic, even though it was published more than thirty years ago.]
Brewer, like Bob Bush, speaks eight times in the video. The first time he says, “The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, which mean that it appeases the wrath of God, that indeed it does take away sins. However, the Scripture is very clear about the fact that there is only one propitiatory sacrifice, namely, what our Lord did on the cross.”
Here he leaves the issue, much as he leaves it in his tracts, in his newsletter, and in his autobiography. Brewer appears unwilling to attempt to counter his opponents’ natural and frequently-stated rejoinder, that the Mass is not a new sacrifice but is a re-presentation of the same sacrifice as on Calvary.
This is not mere wordplay. It is easy enough to see how the Mass might be a new sacrifice that only mimics Calvary. It takes a little more effort, but not much, to entertain the possibility that somehow God permits that once-in-history sacrifice to become really present in a different (sacramental rather than historical) way on Catholic altars.
This possibility deserves consideration. If it is untrue, it deserves to be refuted on its own merits. If it is impossible for God to arrange such a re-presentation, that impossibility needs to be demonstrated. A thorough critic or scholar would not cavalierly dismiss the Catholic position the way Brewer does. But a cavalier attitude is unmistakable throughout Catholicism: Crisis of Faith.
Back to Bob Bush. When the Catholic understanding of salvation is discussed, Bush brings up purgatory. “But when you search through the Scriptures, you go all the way through, you know, through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, all the way down to the Book of Revelation, you go all the way through, and you won’t find it. There is no purgatory in there.”
Not by name, maybe, but it’s there. After his death, Jesus “went to preach to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19). What was this place or state? In Catholic literature it is called by various names, but it well may have been purgatory. In any case, it was a third state, neither heaven (which was not opened until the Resurrection) nor hell (because the spirits Jesus preached to were not damned).
Then there is Revelation 21:27, which says that “nothing unclean” will enter heaven. This is a key verse.
Most Fundamentalists would accept Martin Luther’s idea of forensic justification: Christians are declared by God to be righteous, but are not, by that declaration, made righteous. They are, so to speak, still dirty, but are covered with a white cloak through Christ’s merits. They look clean but aren’t. If all this were true, then all Christians die unclean because their souls have not been madeclean, but only declared to be clean. What follows is that, if Revelation 21:27 is applied, these Christians are unable to enter heaven.
Naturally, Fundamentalists won’t put up with such a conclusion, even if it is a logical consequence of their own principles, but neither Fundamentalists in general nor Bob Bush in particular will tackle this problem, which might seem to them to have no solution. But there is a solution, and that solution is purgatory, through which souls are made clean.
Aside from the narrator, the anti-Catholic with the most lines in the video is Frank Eberhardt, who studied for the priesthood at St. Joseph Seminary in Kingston, New Jersey.[Three years ago a Catholic Answers staffer publicly debated Eberhardt in Philadelphia. Eberhardt took second.] Eberhardt appears on screen right after Chilson runs his hand across his head and leaves an impression of confusion. “The Catholic priest cannot really explain how that the finished work of Christ on the cross is continued today in the Mass.” In fact Chilson did explain it, but his explanation was left on the cutting room floor–a fact Eberhardt does not mention. Nor does he mention that he puts words into Catholic mouths.
At one point the narrator interviews two Catholic women on the street. One says she does not believe in purgatory. “I think of it as an outdated idea. I don’t know what it means.” (It is not clear how she can reject a doctrine she can’t even define.) The other woman says about purgatory, “I have very mixed feelings on that. I am not awfully sure.” She seems no better grounded in her faith than the first woman. Each is a walking stereotype.
The narrator asks rhetorically whether we “earn” salvation. Then comes a cut to Eberhardt. “The problem with that, of course, is that the Scripture nowhere says that we can pay for our own sins.” He speaks a few more sentences, but none of them tell the viewer that the Catholic Church does not teach that we “pay for our own sins.” Eberhardt does not quote any Catholic authority on the issue, for the simple reason, of course, that every Catholic authority– every pope, council, and theologian that has considered the issue –condemns the idea that we earn salvation. The Catholic position is that salvation is a gift from God, and you can’t earn a gift. Either Eberhardt, despite all his training while a Catholic, never g.asped this elementary fact, or he willingly obscures it today, the better to make a case against the Catholic Church.
Doreen D’Antonio, a former Sister of Christian Charity, explains that in her convent there was a statue of a saint for every need: “If we lost something we would pray to St. Anthony. . . . St. Blaise if we had a sore throat. . . . We had an elevator for older nuns, and in that elevator was this humongous medal of St. Christopher. It was amazing. We would have little statues of Mary and Joseph. . . . We would have the little statue right on the window sill, hoping and praying that statue would prevent it from raining on a particular day.” D’Antonio doesn’t broach the possibility that the nuns she lived with weren’t really superstitious or that maybe she was but they weren’t. Perhaps she read into their sentimental piety far more than was there and is retrojecting into their minds her own misconceptions. We never find out.
The video moves straight to Alfonso,[According to the newsletter Bart Brewer’s Mission to Catholics International issues, Alfonso was married recently. With his new wife he has returned to India, there to push the Fundamentalist cause.] who quotes Exodus 20:4, which concerns making idols for worship, and the narrator interrupts to note that
Alfonso “served as a Jesuit priest for 21 years.” Back to Alfonso: ” ‘You shall not bow down to them’ or worship them [Ex. 20:5]. It’s the same word.” He means that to kneel before a statue must necessarily be to worship the statue. He appears oblivious to a natural conclusion drawn from his own (erroneous) premises: The fervent Fundamentalist who clutches his Bible to his breast while kneeling to pray must be worshiping a book. After all, books, like statues, are made by human hands and might become idols when used religiously.
Then the narrator alleges that the Catholic Church “regularly omits” the injunction against idol worship from its listing of the Ten Commandments in catechisms. Alfonso claims that the Church dropped what Protestants call the Second Commandment and, in order to end up with a total of ten, split the final Commandment into two parts, making the Ninth and Tenth Commandments. “So they had the Ten Commandments. Now this is crookery. This is trickery. You’ve changed the Commandments. But why did you drop the Second Commandment? Because there is a lot of business in making statues.”
In the transcript of the video there is a footnote to the narrator’s charge that the Church “regularly omits” Exodus 20:4 from the listing of the Ten Commandments: “Instead, the Church considers it part of the First Commandment.” Here, in the video’s own transcript, is a clue to the answer to Alfonso. In the Bible the Commandments are not numbered. How best to split up the verses so we end up with Ten Commandments?
The Catholic view is that what Protestants call the First and Second Commandments really deal with the same thing, idolatry, so they should be merged into one Commandment. What Protestants call the Tenth Commandment really deals with two different things, adultery (coveting your neighbor’s wife) and envy (coveting your neighbor’s goods), so the Catholic Church lists these separately. All this makes good sense, but Alfonso, if he knows the reasoning, keeps it to himself.
Another former Catholic appearing repeatedly is Wilma Sullivan, who joined the Sisters of Mercy of the Union in 1967. Her formal journey out of the Church began in 1973, when she began to be proselytized by a woman she had met in a hospital while undergoing minor surgery. But her disaffection with Catholicism began earlier, and, as in so many cases, it began with the Real Presence. “My faith crisis began at Communion. The priest held the host in front of me and said, ‘The body of Christ.’ Before I could say the expected response, ‘Amen,’ a thought went through my mind for the first time: ‘Is it really?'”
Sullivan unknowingly recapitulates the story given in John 6. After miraculously multiplying loaves and fish, Jesus promised that he would provide his followers, miraculously, not food for their bodies, but food for their souls. He tells them this food will be his own flesh and blood (John 6:51-21). The Jews who are listening on the periphery of the crowd take Jesus literally and ask, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:53). Jesus does not correct them. He does not say they are wrongly taking a symbol in a literalistic sense. He reemphasizes what he has just said, insisting that there can be no spiritual life within his followers unless they eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:54).
Jesus repeats himself, and then some of his disciples revolt. “This is a strange saying. Who can accept it?” (John 6:61), and “they walked with him no more” (John 6:67). This is the only place in the New Testament in which it is recorded that any of his disciples abandoned Jesus for a doctrinal reason. Instead of calling after them, explaining that he was speaking metaphorically, he let them go. There was no need to correct their misinterpretation because they had not misinterpreted him.
In this episode is a telling verse overlooked by many. In verse 64 Judas falls away. Unlike the other disciples who could not accept the Real Presence, he did not have the courage of his convictions. They walked away from Jesus; Judas fell away in his heart and mind, but stayed at Jesus’ side. Later he would become a thief, stealing from the common purse, and a betrayer, but here is his first great betrayal. It is a betrayal copied by millions throughout history, Wilma Sullivan being one of them. For reasons probably unknown even to herself, she discards the key doctrine enunciated in John 6: “Is it really?” From there the road to apostasy is direct and swift.
The newsletter published by Good News for Catholics includes letters. A Protestant pastor in Texas writes, “We showed Catholicism: Crisis of Faith the other night to our whole congregation. Before I showed the film to the congregation, I asked for a show of hands of who had been born and raised Catholic. I was surprised to see at least 50% had been. The response [to the video] was overwhelming. I was especially moved, having been myself born and raised Catholic. I left the Catholic faith about sixteen years ago. . . . I attempted also at first to both serve and change the Catholic Church. . . . I finally realized the effort to be futile.”
Another letter informs us that a one-time Catholic in New York “recently attended a funeral for a member of our church. Though a believer and member of our Evangelical church, her family thought it best for her funeral to take place in the Roman Catholic Church.” Catholicism: Crisis of Faith was used to instruct the members of the writer’s own church on what they could expect to find at the Catholic parish. They took advantage of the situation: “The truth was preached in love to her family. They were very moved, and three members of her family have begun to attend our church.”
Another correspondent explains that his “brother-in-law was saved out of an Italian/Irish Catholic family. . . . I gave them the video, and he showed it to his Catholic parents. This viewing was followed by the best discussions which they have had. His dad borrowed the tape and invited priests from a number of parishes over to see it!”
The response from the priests is not given. Perhaps some of them had devastating rejoinders to the charges made in the video. More likely they pooh-poohed it, as though that would take care of this display of anti-Catholicism. It doesn’t.
If clear thinking and balanced presentations of opposing views were the norm, anti-Catholicism in the form shown in Catholicism: Crisis of Faith would have died out long ago. This video never would have been produced and, if produced, never would have had an impact. But it is having an impact, large or small, because most Catholics remain untrained in the defense of their faith. The video’s power comes not from its arguments but from the lack of any organized opposition to them. When it convinces, it convinces by default. If it were paired with a Catholic video, audiences seeing both at once sitting would move in only one direction, toward Rome. But until such a Catholic video is produced, the home team will be playing catch-up.
From London we received a letter from Rev. Larry Beckler of the International Presbyterian Church. He sent Catholic Answers a copy of an advertisement that appeared in England for Catholicism: Crisis of Truth. “I wonder if you would consider obtaining the video and critiquing it in This Rock. It might also be helpful entering into a dialogue with the producers of this video and correcting whatever erroneous assumptions are made.” Frankly, we are not optimistic about such prospects. We know several of the people who appear in the video, and we know about several others. Not a one has proved open to correction in the past, and we have no reason to suspect attitudes have changed recently.
Rev. Beckler writes, “While not in sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church, I thank you for your magazine and its accompanying articles. I look forward to each issue.” Open-minded, he is a man who does not wish to score a cheap victory through employment of a caricature; he prefers to weigh the merits of the Catholic faith as it really is. That’s the right attitude, but it is one that Catholicism: Crisis of Faith does nothing to advance.