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Good-bye – I’m Leaving!

Good-bye – I’m Leaving!

It is not the lay people that you need to educate–it’s the clergy. Catholics are leaving the Church in droves because the priests are not feeding the sheep. 

In times of trouble or when in need of answers Fundamentalists can go to their Bibles and find the answer or the solace or advice that they are seeking; we have to wait for a priest to find the time to call us back for an appointment to see him. We cannot go to the Bible because we do not know how, and we do not know how to pray either. Take away the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary and we could not pray at all. 

I went to your seminar in Orlando and was told by a priest who was there that the new bishop was taken aback by the large turnout of people, not only from the immediate area, but from miles away. They came by cars and by the busload. This priest stated that the bishop would have to take steps to feed the sheep. 

I have tried to find a church that teaches Bible studies, but there are none in this area. In addition, the Catholic Church in this area is so cold toward any prolife activities that it is very embarrassing to me when I attend various prolife meetings and pray on Saturday mornings in front of an abortion center that there is never a Catholic priest there. 

Several Catholics are there, and all we talk about is leaving the Catholic Church, which I intend to do very soon. Several of my prolife friends, former Catholics, have become Baptists because they are very active in the prolife movement, and they are Bible Christians. 

Elizabeth Kern 
Orlando, Florida 


 

Thanks for Being Here!

 

I enjoyed visiting your staff and seeing your operation. It is most impressive, and it is really great to see your dedication to Catholic truth. Our diocese is blessed by your presence. Many thanks for the various pamphlets and books. I am enjoying them and am confident they will be very useful in the future. 

Fr. Burt J. Boudoin 
San Diego, California 


 

“Heretical” Vatican II 

 

Since I presume that you are of good will, I am giving my side of the story. You work on problems of faith from within the Catholic (Vatican II sect) Church. It is as if members of the Lutheran Church were working for orthodoxy. 

By bringing “fallen away” Catholics (Vatican II) to the Church (Vatican II), you are still not in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church as it was before Heretical Council Vatican II. I have much literature on this problem I could send you. 

Vatican II teaches as a dogma that all religions are true. There is no such thing as God’s one and only true Church in which all must enter by divine command. John Paul II, his cardinals, bishops, and priests are all, one and all, Protestant ministers. I live in the reign of Pope Pius XII, the last true Pope that I know of. Hence, I may not eat meat on all Fridays of the year (except on holy days and legal holidays). 

Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher 
Pittsville, Wisconsin 


 

Rehabilitated in Jail 

 

I am in jail and am due to be released into a drug/alcohol treatment center this month. I am going to Holy Mass again and I am growing again in our beautiful Catholic faith. I would like to receive any good Catholic literature that you could send to me. 

Name Withheld by Request 


 

Three-by-Five Conversion 

 

After becoming a Christian in a general sense, I knew I had to make a choice as to which theology I was to follow. For me the Evangelical-Fundamentalist theology and the Catholic Church were the two major options. I examined history to determine the authenticity of the Catholic Church’s claims. 

After that I proceeded to check the New Testament line by line, comparing Evangelical theology to Catholic theology. I wrote down most of the relevant scriptures on three-by-five cards. I found that there were a few passages that, taken in isolation, seemed to support the Evangelical point of view more than the Catholic view. 

There were, however, many passages that proved difficult to impossible to reconcile with the Evangelical view. After this careful study I was baptized into the church found on “this rock.” 

Richard Bruce 
Davis, California 


 

Immigrant in a Strange Land 

 

It began when I was in deep crisis and picked up a copy of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas á Kempis. A Presbyterian pastor had recommended it. That book was a turning point. I began to wonder what had happened in the Christian world prior to the Reformation. I started to think about the saints I had heard about as a non-Catholic child during the three years I lived in a boarding school operated by the Dominican sisters. 

I have always been a reader, so I began to read: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Fenelon, Nouwen, Merton–on and on. New insights began to come to me, independent of those books, as I prayed and studied Scripture. 

I started to attend Mass and fell in love–the Eucharist drew me, and my longing to receive the body and blood of our Lord was intense. I am now in the catechumen process, but the bishop was kind and admitted me to the Eucharist in September. He decided I was catechized, and he sympathized with my longing to receive the sacrament. I think he was tired of watching me cry during worship. I will go through the RCIA and come in officially at Easter. 

I have been a Christian since age 21. I’m now 48. I have worked for ten years as a pastoral secretary in the education and community life department of an Evangelical Calvinist church. I have been a member of this church for twelve years. 

My decision to join the Catholic Church has met with no resistance, though I think it might have a few years ago. Church membership is not a requirement of my job, and the staff knows me well. There was surprise, and I still get kidded about what it will be like when I come back from “that liturgical church where you’ve been worshiping.” I think they are curious. They wonder what happened.

To be honest, I am astonished to find myself entering Catholicism. It still seems incredible to me. But my decision has not come about primarily from reading. This is just how I began to ask questions. It is motivated by a deep sense of the Spirit’s leading. 

I have read Thomas Howard’s Evangelical is Not Enough and Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism, and today I listened to a tape by Scott Hahn. I decided to write and request your catalogue. Please put me on your mailing list. I have a desire to grow in my understanding of Catholicism. Right now I still feel as if I’m an immigrant in a strange land, so any help is welcome. 

Amy Linde 
Rockford, Michigan 


 

Hahn Got It Wrong 

 

I’m a Protestant reader of This Rock who ordinarily gives the magazine high marks, but I must grade down on Scott Hahn’s article “The Hunt for the Fourth Cup” [September 1991]. Prof. Hahn says Christ, at the Last Supper, omitted the necessary fourth Passover cup, finally accepting it on the cross in a vinegar-filled sponge, thus permitting him to cry out, “It [the Passover ceremony] is finished.” 

The scholarly Roman Catholic New Jerome Biblical Commentary informs me that there were not four but three cups in the first-century Passover, that the Last Supper was probably a pre-Passover seder, not the regular Passover, and that “It is finished” refers to Christ’s earthly mission (see pages 715, 625, 982), all of which is against Hahn’s idea. 

Scriptural proof that Prof. Hahn is wrong is found in Matthew 26:29, where Christ says, “I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father.” That anyone could think this was fulfilled by Christ’s reception of a wine-soaked sponge on the cross is, to say the least, surprising. 

Rob Songer 
Turlock, California 


 

The Right Stuff 

 

Your work is really exciting. I am increasing my donation. Keep up the good work! 

Sue Widemark 
Phoenix, Arizona 


 

Ditto 

 

I like your newsletter, Inside Story. It certainly keeps one informed about what’s going on at Catholic Answers. Keep the faith–no, on second thought, spread it. 

Joe Revelas 
Clarksboro, New Jersey 


 

Educational Malaise 

 

This semester I taught Western Civ to Fresno City College students, including the development of Christianity from Judaism through the Reformation, and found an appalling level of ignorance of the very basics. (Most of my students could not recognize belief in Jesus as divine Son of God as a distinguishing character of Christianity as opposed to Judaism.) 

Catholic students are unable to explain the veneration of saints or purgatory (let alone indulgences). The books you provide as well as the historical-oriented magazine articles are invaluable to me in teaching them the historical background of the Catholic religion. 

Kathie Crawford 
Fresno, California 


 

No Lukewarmness 

 

Some friends of ours, former Evangelicals, are joining the Catholic Church soon. They are a nice couple with four small children. Scott Hahn’s tapes really spoke to their hearts. 

They heard Karl Keating and Mark Brumley at Star of the Sea church in San Francisco and were very impressed by their mildness and knowledge of the faith. They passed out flyers and invited some non-Catholics to come and hear also. Yours is a tremendous and much-needed ministry in our somewhat lukewarm Church. 

Constantine N. Santos 
Oakland, California 


 

Back Again – for Good

 

It’s good to be home! I’ve been outside the Catholic Church for nearly twelve years. I have been back just one year and have much catching up to do. I ordered several books from Catholic Answers last year, and I think it’s time I subscribed to This Rock

Frank DeVito 
Wantagh, New York 


 

Good Ammunition

 

I was overjoyed to read Mark Brumley’s article “Righteousness Done Right” in the August 1991 issue. Right now I am dealing with a minister of a Bible church, one who goes after Catholics but seems to have an open mind. That article would be an excellent one to give him. 

Shirley Snyder 
Hermosa Beach, California


 

Retraction

 

Please forgive me for my previous letter [September 1991], the one in which I claim to be an atheist. I wrote it during the worst part of a clinical depression for which I am now taking medication. Fortunately, that medicine is working quite well. But the best news is that I am now back in the true Church and, with the help of our blessed Lord, I shall remain in it for the rest of my life. 

Bill McEnaney 
Schenectady, New York


 

A Felonious Appellation

 

I converted to Catholicism from agnosticism here in prison and was received into the Catholic Church on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1989. I teach catechism and evangelize here in a prison that sleeps within the heart of Fundamentalist country. The challenges have been great, but Mary has obtained many special favors for us. 

We need all of the materials we can get our hands on. We need patristics, canon law, the most pertinent papal documents. Perhaps your readers will write to us in care of the Prison Chaplain, P.O. Box 5107, Union Springs, AL 36089. They can send tapes, videos, books, and booklets. (We do not want money!) 

I told Bart Brewer, head of Mission to Catholics International, that I am a Catholic who has never read Loraine Boettner’s Roman Catholicism, so he was true to form and attempted conversion by sending me a free copy with his autograph. (I did not lie or mislead him.) Rather narcissistic, isn’t he? 

If your team is ever in Alabama, a public debate can easily be arranged for the benefit of 900 murderers, rapists, robbers, burglars, and arsonists! 

Russell L. Ford 
Union Springs, Alabama


 

More, More, More!

 

I attended Mark Brumley’s seminar in Jacksonville on September 26 and thoroughly enjoyed it!. We need more seminars like that! 

Mary Reilly 
Jacksonville, Florida


 

I’ll Try Apologetics Homilies

 

It has taken me a long time of reflection and prayer before I decided to write to you. Karl Keating’s article “Apologetics Homilies” [August 1991] is really and fully in my own way of thinking. There is a real need to reevangelize in a direct way, to bring our “Christmas and Easter Catholics” into full and conscious participation. We must help them live a meaningful and good life in the middle of a decadent, materialistic society. 

I am a permanent deacon, married, and a retired metallurgical engineer with 25 years in South America. I teach, counsel, preach, and do many things, wherever I am asked. I see our churches half empty on regular Sundays while overflowing on certain holidays. When talking and working with my people, the ignorance I hear in moral and religious matters is abysmal! Yet, at least the grownups want to listen and find out. 

Apparently those in authority do not seem to care too much. Instruction and class manuals are published where original sin or plain sin is not even mentioned; on the other hand, a big deal is made of RCIA. We try with big fanfare to convert a few non-Catholics while fully and absolutely rejecting a large majority who are already Catholic, at least in name. There is an urgent need for reevangelization. 

There is also an urgent need for apologetics homilies, the only way to reach the people since neither the home nor the Catholic school teaches orthodox Christianity any more. We need homilies as you describe them: substance, drama, motivation, direct and to the essential point, relevant to daily life, given in a language people can listen to and understand. What we get is very often an insipid, flat, flavorless verbalization conducive to dozing off. I want to try what you recommend. 

Emil M. De Bruyne 
Tucson, Arizona


 

Another Astute Priest

 

I wish to thank you for the ministry that you are providing. The handouts that you give are very powerful, concise, and helpful. May God bless you in your work. 

Rev. Bob Wright 
Bolivar, Tennessee


 

Real or Unreal? 

 

Sandra Miesel’s article, “The Unicorn Hunters” [August 1991], is a needed corrective to the growing alarm in too many quarters over what, if any, impact fantasy or the realm of the occult is having in the production of books for children. Her analysis of the fears of the alarmists is quite penetrating. They seem to be the same fears which prompt some Fundamentalists to see the “New World Order” as an occasion for the Whore of Babylon (a.k.a. the Catholic Church) to establish itself as the front man for Antichrist. 

Missing from her analysis, however, is the recognition that books of fantasy are being read in the religious vacuum of American education. Having been a public school librarian, I have seen an ever-expanding plethora of fantasy and occult books being advertised in publishers’ catalogues. Nourished on a steady diet of such literature without a Christian context within the society at large, how will children come to discern the real from the unreal? How can they be prevented from succumbing to the temptation to manipulate reality through the machinations of their fantasy world? 

This is not to suggest that Tolkien or Lewis be banned from our classrooms, but how many public school teachers are courageous enough (or know enough) to instruct a class in the Christian allegorical symbolism of The Chronicles of Narnia? By all means, let our children read of witches and dragons and unicorns, but let them know that the lion is not tame but has a Name beyond that of Aslan. 

Frances Martini 
Milpitas, California 


 

Dickens, Where Are You? 

 

Never would I have guessed so much good could come from the likes of you. Uncle Ebenezer would have been shocked. 

Mom

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