Disgruntling a Humanist
Yesterday in the Oval (the main center of Ohio State), nationally known preacher Jed Smock was preaching. I stopped to listen (good apologetics background), and, when a secular humanist interrupted him, I watched for a while. When the humanist attacked the Inquisition and the Holocaust as examples of the Catholic Church’s standard M.O., I could be silent no more. If it weren’t for you and Cardinal Gibbons (Faith of Our Fathers) I could not have responded with the charity and clarity that I responded with.
After about ten minutes of my simple witness the humanist was so disgruntled by truth that he moved his show on the road.
Brother Jed was so pleased (I suppose I was one of those Catholics who might really be saved, in his mind), he gave me a copy of his book Who Will Rise Up: A Call to Confrontational Evangelism. If you don’t have this in your Catholic Answers library as a Fundamentalist resource, l would be willing to send it to you. It is the least I could do for to show my appreciation for the opportunities you and This Rock have given me to share and defend my faith!
Joseph Nixon
Columbus, Ohio
Swordplay
Thank you for your online service. I just recently was able to get online, and my first stop was the home page for Catholic Answers.
In the last week alone I received questions from three different persons on what Catholics believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary, Seventh Day Adventists’ history and beliefs, and what the early Church Fathers really believed and taught. With the information from your 100 tracts I was able quickly to answer these questions . Without your service it might have taken me weeks to reply.
I highly recommend this service for all online Catholics. It is a great sword of Catholic truth.
Robert Lozano
Woodstock, Georgia
Suicide Solution
Shocking and disastrous. Our parents would have done something at once. Today people just continue to gaze at the boob tube. If this trend continues it will ruin our nation; it is already ruining thousands of young lives. Teen suicides have gone up nearly 100 times in a generation, teen drug use has doubled in four years, teen violent crime is at an all-time high. Experts say that youth with religion are not likely to do these things. Parents then have to do more than entertain themselves. We must redouble our efforts to see that youth are taught the faith. Our faith is Christ. To know Christ is to follow him. We must introduce the young to Christ.
One good way is Gospel reading. We meet Christ in the Gospel. If one truly knows Christ, he cannot leave him. Urge teens for night prayers to read the Gospel, even if only a paragraph or two a day. And think about it.
Rev. Rawley Myers
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Professional Anti-Catholics
I wanted to take an opportunity to say thank you for the work that you are doing through your Catholic Answers organization. After having been Catholics in name only for the past ten years, both my wife and I returned fully to the faith this past October (coincident with the visit of the Holy Father). It was a very exciting time for us, and we sought to learn everything that we could about the faith. I stumbled across Catholic Answers on the World Wide Web, and I can’t tell you how much it has helped.
In looking for information on the Web, I was shocked at the vicious anti-Catholicism that is rampant everywhere you turn. Given all of the anti-Catholic propaganda that passes itself off as truth, I can see why Catholics who do not have a firm grounding in their faith can be so easily swayed. Thanks to the information provided by your organization, I have been able to identify the multitude of errors that exist in the militant anti-Catholic groups and am growing more confident every day in defending my faith.
I’m sure that you must come under constant attack from the professional anti-Catholic organizations. I want to encourage you to keep fighting the good fight. Be assured that the word is being spread, and you are helping to educate many in the truth of the one true Church of Jesus Christ.
Brian Gillespie
via the Internet
Tertiary Role?
If This Rock—to which I have subscribed for years—is “The Magazine of Catholic Apologetics and Evangelization”—it need not serve as a forum for “liturgical nightmares” (“Dragnet,” September 1996). Many bishops, priests, and lay persons who have been part of the Church in the Western world for thirty years have some whoppers of stories in the domain of doctrine, catechetics, and, of course, liturgy. This Rock, in its raison d’être, does not fulfill even its secondary or tertiary role in chronicling them.
In that erstwhile acclaimed apologetical novel The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith (1945), Monsignor O’Duffy, one of Bruce Marshall’s most memorable clerical characters, was capable of saying outrageous things. But the Canons of the Cathedral Chapter, the faithful of the pro-Cathedral, and doubtless the acolytes too knew his devotion and fidelity and genuine sweetness. Lady Ippecacuanha, in that same glorious novel, found a source of scandal even in the church of the hero, Fr. Smith, whom she came to cherish.
Kris Franklin, after relaying in detail her nightmare in Wisconsin, concludes: “My question is, Is there anyone I should tell?” The Catholic way—would you not agree?—is to permit the bishop to oversee. You would have well advised privately this devout convert to direct her observations to the ordinary of the Diocese wherein lies the church in which she got an earful “hearing” that Sunday Mass. His location would be no mystery to anyone like you, with a Kenedy Directory and access to its indexes. Our bishops are our fathers in God, and as you say it month after month: “The Fathers Know Best.”
Rev. John Williams
Clinton, North Carolina
Editor’s reply: We provided Kris Franklin with the ordinary’s address, and she wrote to him; we are confident that he is attending to the matter. As you know, Father, lex orandi, lex credendi. Catholics have a right to the true liturgy, and no priest has the right to alter the Mass to suit his whim. The Mass is the heart of the Catholic faith. If we don’t safeguard it, there will be nothing to explain or defend, nothing to which to evangelize. We therefore see reporting liturgical abuses as well within our mission.
Shocked, Shocked I Say!
I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your tracts. As a former Protestant, now a Catholic, I am always under “attack” by my good Protestant friends. One is a former Catholic, now a “oneness” Pentecostal, is particularly fun to talk to.
Last year he and another friend from his office started asking some strange questions about Catholicism. After the fourth question or so I asked what was going on. They had a copy of the Catholicism: Crisis of Faith tape that you discussed. I spent the next four hours going over the tape a little at a time. I would stop the tape after each point to discuss what was wrong. I was shocked at the lies.
The first question was “Why do Catholics have a different set of ten commandments”? I went to the Internet and looked up the Latin Vulgate and showed them the official Bible. I have to admit I was stumped by the interview with Father Chilson. I am glad to know the truth. But these two points show the deception that the rest of the tape was full of.
One of the points that the tape made was that the Catholic Church had not changed its dogmas or doctrines in two thousand years. This was the only truth in the whole tape. And a point I kept coming back to. I have learned that most Protestants, when confronted with “That is a new idea—the Fathers of the Church did not believe that way” are stumped for an answer. Even my “oneness” friend has trouble, as I am quick to point out that his church (and ideas) were started around 1900. Your tracts help in discussing the faith with him and others.
Ron King
Fort Worth, Texas
Infusion of Zeal
I am renewing my subscription, which I had unfortunately let lapse for two years, but now I find myself not only wanting but needing the infusion of zeal for Christ and his Church which This Rock always provided for me. I have become a pastor for the first time, and my duty to teach the faith leads me right back to your inspirational magazine, which I consider an indispensable resource for sanity and orthodoxy.
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
Indiantown, Florida
Wandering Rock
While strolling through Franklin D. Roosevelt Park, located in Yorktown Heights, New York, during this past September, I happened to pass a park bench on which rested a copy of your June 1996 issue. The mailing label, still attached, bore the name of a member of the clergy at St. Thomas More Church in Manhattan, about forty miles to the south. How it got to where I had found it is anybody’s guess!
As a Lutheran Protestant with many Roman Catholic relatives in Europe, I have read much of that issue. And I would like to comment on the letter from Franklin Pierce Johnston of San Diego on page 5 regarding virgin crosses.
I find that many differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics lie mainly in two areas: emphasis and interpretation. As for crucifixes, I personally, probably due somewhat to my own background, have no problem with them. They are a vivid reminder of a central theme of Christianity—the suffering Christ—and this same theme is most crucial to the Roman Catholic faith. But Protestants, I believe, generally emphasize the risen Christ—the overcoming of the Cross, a symbol of the world—for, if Christ died but did not return to the Father, there is no hope for any of us. It is in his Ascension following Crucifixion that our true salvation lies.
I also cannot see how one can say that the Crucifixion never ended. It is true that most crosses in Protestant churches are virgin crosses. But to assume from this that we believe the Crucifixion never happened is a serious mistake. In biblical times, many died on crosses in the same manner as Christ died, and all left behind crosses which were similarly marked. But, again, it is in Christ’s Ascension from the Cross that we have the confirmation of his godly nature. He has, in a sense, overcome the nails and bloodstains which marked his human nature. It is not that these are unimportant, but that they have been succeeded by something far greater. Their significance is, again, a matter of emphasis and interpretation.
Finally, the acclamation “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” can be found in service settings contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship, in wide use throughout most Lutheran denominations. It is thus an acclamation with which Lutherans are thoroughly familiar.
In closing, I do not consider myself a theologian—far from it! But I am greatly heartened by the news that, in 1997, bodies from both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches will separately meet to consider the removal of their mutual condemnations. I believe that such actions will represent the most crucial step in “the opening of all our eyes and ears to receive the entire fullness of the truth.” And then, can other Protestants, as well as our brother and sisters of the Orthodox faiths, be far behind?
I suggest to my friend in San Diego that we need not wait for the seemingly inevitable actions of our mutual church bodies. If he can see himself passing through the door of a Lutheran church, I can assure him that I will have no problem passing through the door of a Roman Catholic one! Only then will we both discover the full richness of Christianity, and thus move toward Christ’s wish that his church be one.
Robert I. Maier
White Plains, New York
Editor’s reply: May I make a little distinction? The Catholic Church teaches that Christ’s Church already is one—and always has been—but Christians are not unified. This is why we can say that unity is one of the four marks of the true Church, even though individual Christians are not unified in belief.
Coincidence? You Judge
Is it coincidence that two such complementary articles should appear in the same edition of This Rock, or is it just another example of the continued excellence of your work? The article by Father [Herbert] Thurston (“How History is Miswritten,” June 1996) reveals that there is a method to the anti-Catholic’s madness, while the article by Robert Sungenis (“Where Have All the Opponents Gone?”) further proves that the truth defends itself, else such a dishonest method would need not be employed.
After reading the latter article, there was little doubt as to why these men, who have made it their profession to fight against God, must rant and rave against the Catholic faith in public, while choosing to hide behind excuses when challenged to explain their irrational and un-Christian position. They can offer many excuses to avoid debating, but there is only one reason they refuse to do so. In the words of Carty and Rumble: “They seek an excuse for not believing what they cannot refute.” But what excuse is there for not believing except not to listen?
As Mr. Sungenis points out by mentioning the on-the-spot conversions to Catholicism, faith “comes by hearing,” and to hear the unadulterated truth in all its wisdom is to be enraptured by its beauty. Perhaps these men have realized their lamps do not give off even a hint of light when placed beside the brilliance of the lamp of truth and simply refuse to defend what they know to be false.
Personally, I want to believe there is good in everyone and so try to believe these men are at least sincere, even though they are sincerely mistaken. In light of the evidence of their continued dishonesty and hardness of heart, however, it is easy to believe they would not accept Catholicism even “should One come down from the Cross.”
Since we must warn our brother when we see him going astray, and out of deep concern for the salvation of these men, I would like to send them a letter, hoping they will be able to read it in This Rock and will choose to answer for the sake of charity. If they will not, I hope that as Christians they will at least desist from using dishonest, un-Christian methods in their attempts to lead our Catholic brother and sister astray. In the meantime, let us continue to give their sincerity the benefit of the doubt and not give up the good fight in trying to lead these men to the light.
Martin Petrencik
Susanville, California
Editor’s reply: Persistent anti-Catholic animus, especially when it comes from former Catholics (many of the most sharp-tongued opponents of the Church used to be Catholics), makes one think of the fellow who never misses an opportunity to denigrate the girlfriend he jilted. Why does he complain about her so much? Not because she has only faults and no virtues—after all, at one time he found good reason to like her—but probably because incessant complaints stifle a bad conscience. The most galling thing about anti-Catholics who once belonged to the Church is their ingratitude toward their former faith.