Yes, There’s a Conspiracy
Years ago, while seeking truth through personal transformation (I admit to having been fascinated by facets of the New Age movement), I experienced what might best be described as a personal revelation from God, letting me know that the Catholic Church was the one, true faith.
Since that day I have sought in vain to comprehend the modern Church. I have visited hundreds of churches, large and small. I have read everything I could get my hands on, and I have talked with innumerable people. Yet I have been unable to arrive at anything like a coherent understanding of what Catholics believe and the basis for their beliefs.
I saw the beauty in Catholic faith and worship and the dedication to Christian life, yet it seemed there was a vast conspiracy to obfuscate and mislead on the part of everyone I encountered.
I realize now, of course, that there is in fact a vast conspiracy to undermine Christ’s Church. I have seen Matthew Fox with his retinue of witches and perverts on stage at a (conservative) Catholic college, pointing to his tooth radio, defiantly boasting that “we are a worldwide network.”
I have seen Jesuit priests leading occult practices disguised as spiritual exercises at their retreat centers. I have heard a Trappist monk boast of his connection to the anti-Christ conspiracy, mocking traditional Catholic teaching while extolling Buddhist philosophies. I have seen nuns and their deluded lay associates advocating feminism, abortion, and witchcraft, worshiping “the goddess within,” yet using the Catholic Church as a front for their New Age programs.
I see a church in crisis. It looks to me like the Father of Lies has been successful in sowing discord and confusion. The faithful are denied the truth even from the one trustworthy authority, the Catholic Church. Thank God for your organization. If it weren’t for your dedication and efforts, there would be nowhere to turn for Catholic Answers.
Charles H. Sulka
Charles Town, West Virginia
How About Radio, Folks?
Thank you for a wonderfully enlightening seminar! You are to be commended for strengthening the faith of so many in search of answers. What a blessing! There is a desperate need for Catholic radio programming, and I would encourage you to pursue this if possible. There is also a desperate need for seminars that target junior high and high school kids who are being sucked in by Evangelical Christian youth groups.
Giovanna DeSanti Medina
El Cajon, California
Hope and Hopelessness
I am a missioner working full time conducting parish missions, in Spanish, all over the U.S. and here in Panama. I came across your magazine while visiting homes in California. One of the parishioners we visited was a subscriber, and she showed me This Rock, which treated of subjects we had been talking about on the mission. I saw your publication to be exactly what so many fallen-away Roman Catholics need.
After working for 30 years down here in Panama, my community, the Vincentian Fathers, assigned me to work on evangelization missions with Hispanics in the U.S. I’ve been at it six years now. Our schedule is full, and we’re going constantly. It’s rewarding work. For me it is satisfying to bring sheep back to the fold. At the same time it is heartbreaking to see so many good, simple Hispanics who were fervent, practicing Catholics in their native countries joining fanatical evangelistic sects.
In spite of this leakage we have found that a visit to their homes usually brings Hispanic Catholics back to their own Catholic Church. Once they realize there is a church near them that has Mass in Spanish and a Spanish-speaking community, they return. Not all of them, however. How terrible I feel when I visit a former Catholic family and hear them talking against Mary or the Pope–completely brainwashed! I wish we had a magazine like yours in Spanish.
Rev. John Kennedy, C.M.
Balboa, Panama
Madison Avenue Quality
A new issue arrived tonight, and I looked through it for art and format. I was pleasantly surprised to find the peach-colored page on “The Jungle” and its fellow in front. The ad is first class, almost on a par with Madison Avenue things, and I congratulate you on its tone.
Mary Flynn
Redmond, Washington
To Arms, to Arms!
I am a seminarian studying theology at the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission, British Columbia. I wish to thank you for all the great work you are doing in providing a “practical apologetic” for Catholics today.
As one who had left the Church and has now returned, I realize the importance of such work in providing clear yet concise answers to those attacking, debating, or just inquiring into the Catholic faith. Your apologetical materials make excellent catechetical tools to deepen the faith of Catholics themselves and equip them with basic provisions to evangelize others.
I also wish to commend you for your generosity in supplying so many less-fortunate subscribers with your magazine. Keeping your “option for the poor” in mind, I would like to take up your offer of a complimentary seminarian’s subscription.
As one good turn deserves another, I would like to take this opportunity to enroll you all as honorary members of The Sons of the Orthodox Sword (isn’t that a great name?), our very unofficial organization for promoting love of the Church and a deeper understanding and defense of her teachings by steeping ourselves in Scripture and Tradition. We hereby raise the Sword to all of you at Catholic Answers and with joy solemnly proclaim you honorary Sons and Daughters of the Orthodox Sword!
Terry Kraychuk
Mission, British Columbia
Judas: Up or Down?
In the January issue a Quick Question asked whether Judas was saved. The answer was that it was possible that “if he repented his sins, even Judas could have been saved.” When Jesus saw Judas had hanged himself, he said, “It is better he were never born,” which leads one to think that if he had entered the glories of heaven at any time, wouldn’t Jesus’ words be inappropriate?
Mary Ann Valicenti
Port St. Lucie, Florida
So It Wasn’t Too Bad
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your seminar on Fundamentalism was tremendous, as is all of your work to bring us home to Rome. We are tired of meekly “apologizing” for Catholic truths and are just beginning to recognize how incredibly fortunate we are to have you in our own back yard. Many young adult groups, rock solid in the Catholic doctrine on which we are founded, are exploding onto the scene.
Special thanks for your Matthew Pinto for his dynamic direction of this phenomenon. Not only has he brought young Catholics in search of answers together in one group, but he has provided leadership and direct access to your resources for many others.
James V. Coffey
San Diego, California
What Are You Up To?
As a new subscriber, I have a question–and a comment. Is the intention of the magazine for the strengthening of our Catholic faith and relationship with Jesus? Do you encourage ecumenism, in the true sense? Also, we have made friends with a broad spectrum of Catholics who are “ultra-Catholic,” pre-Vatican II. Anything outside the Church is considered terrible. If possible, could you respond?
John H. Rolf
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Editor’s reply: Our purpose is to explain and defend the Catholic faith and to illustrate the misconceptions non-Catholics (and Catholics) have about the Church and how those misconceptions can be overcome. We engage in direct ecumenism–that is, we actually talk to folks who oppose the Catholic Church in one degree or another. Sometimes the talks are private, often public, such as debates and open question sessions during our seminars.
Double Thanks
Thanks to Nancy M. Cross for her informative article “Authority in the Family” [January 1992]. She helped me to see a part of God’s design in his creation with more clarity. Also thanks to Karl Keating for his article in the same issue in which he performed a self-analysis of your apostolate. This gave me a better understanding of the workings and requirements of the apostolate of which This Rock is a visible part.
Wayne Hagan
Saint Marys, Pennsylvania
I’d Rather Switch Than Fight
I am a regular watcher of D. James Kennedy. After reading that goofy letter from his staffer in your January issue, I am now a former contributor as well. I’ll send you the money I might have sent them. I’ll still watch and enjoy his sermons, but maybe not take him too seriously anymore!
Robin J. Stojda
Adams, Massachusetts
Joshua = Jesus
Patrick Madrid used “types” to support doctrines concerning Mary [“Ark of the New Covenant,” December 1991]. I liked the article and would like to suggest another type in support of the same idea.
Some Protestants have long recognized, and in fact St. Paul recognized, the Exodus story as a type of Christian salvation. More specifically it has been noted that Moses who represents the Law could not lead Israel into the Promised Land; the privilege fell to Joshua. In the same way we find that it is Jesus, not the law of Moses, who saves.
Note that Joshua is the English version of the original Hebrew name, while Jesus is the Greek version of exactly the same name. So Joshua son of Nun and Jesus Christ had the same name. (“Nun,” by the way, refers to a plant which was a symbol of the eternal, so “Joshua son of Nun” could be roughly translated as “Jesus son of the eternal.”)
Note that only two of the original generation that left Egypt were allowed to pass over into the Promised Land. The fact that the next generation did make it into the Promised Land can be thought of as a type of those who are born again in Christ, thus being in some sense a new generation that makes it into the promised land of Heaven. In the Old Testament only two were found worthy from the first generation, Joshua and Caleb, so two were found worthy in the New Testament world, Jesus and Mary.
As Madrid noted, this type of argument does not “prove” anything, but it can be used to lend support to the idea that Mary was conceived without original sin and remained sinless and a virgin all her life.
Richard Bruce
Davis, California
Just in Time
The January issue couldn’t have come at a better time. Our parish is having a problem with a feminist attitude within. A small group of women have polarized themselves around a particular woman who has become the parish leader of the movements. Your cover story [“Authority in the Family”] hit at the heart of the problem.
For the past two years the last paragraph of the second reading for the Feast of the Holy Family has not been read because it offends this group of women, who happen also to do most of the readings in our parish. This is causing some dissension within the parish.
Fortunately some things are happening which may allow those of us who are looking for a change to take heart. We are getting a new pastor; our former pastor is being reassigned to an inner-city Cincinnati parish befitting his training and experience. I’ve gotten on the parish council and will be vigilant toward the attempts this woman makes to make changes in our Catholic practices here. I am also going to give her the extra copy I received of This Rock to introduce her to an apologetics magazine. I will give it as a kind of peace offering. If nothing else, she will get an understanding of the Catholic position.
Phillip R. Mathes
Dayton, Ohio
Give Me a Break!
I was going to a Catholic inquiry class, but dropped it after the priest conducting it continued to make some incredible errors. The final straw was when he insisted that the Assumption of Mary is in the Bible. I didn’t disagree, but I did ask him to show me where. He got flustered and continued to press the point, while I, having read Catholicism and Fundamentalism, knew that it is the logical consequence of earlier doctrines. He ended that class with a tale about killing toads in Ireland by drawing rings around them with a certain kind of stick, and I decided that, for the time being, I will get my education from the Bible and other books.
Larry Latham
Valencia, California
No More Contributions, Boys!
Nancy M. Cross is the granddaughter of a Baptist preacher, married a Baptist preacher, and follows the Fundamentalist party line [“Authority in the Family,” January 1992]. She thinks the modern age sees marriage as a “loosely-joined conglomerate.”
Her own marriage was a competition between her husband and herself until she realized that she ought to take and carry out her husband’s orders. She believes other wives should do the same. She appears unfamiliar with the concept of marriage as a loving partnership.
Ms. Cross is casual in her appeals to Scripture. She states that Malachi 4:24, which speaks of fathers and sons, applies to husbands and wives as well. She cites 1 Corinthians 15:3 (where Paul says he received from Jesus the gospel by which we are saved) as if she believes her theory of “holding women to obedience” is part of that gospel.
She expands her call for authority by husbands over wives to include universal authority of men over women and vaguely opines that men “are given a kind of authoring and an attendant authority” which is “imaged in the male physiology and psyche,” that “the female responds to this authoring,” and refers to “the order of male and female established in the beginning,” with no substantiation for these peculiar notions.
Not many women authors are published in This Rock. Is it coincidental that on this topic you chose a woman, one who prefers the stance of her Fundamentalist Protestant background to that of the Pope? How otherwise could this vague and rambling piece warrant six pages? Finally, the article is featured on the cover. I infer that Ms. Cross’s opinions correspond to yours, gentlemen.
There will be no more donations from me to Catholic Answers unless you clarify your motives for publishing “Authority in the Family.” Surely, gentlemen, you are not hoping that women will send you their money as well as obey you!
Susan Johnson
Alhambra, California
Editor’s reply: It wasn’t the case “that on this topic [we] chose a woman.” That implies we first decided the topic needed to be covered and then hunted around for a female writer. Mrs. Cross’s article arrived unsolicited, which is how most articles written by people not on our staff arrive. True, not many women writers are published in This Rock –not because of some subterranean plot, but because not many women submit articles for consideration. Nevertheless, of the last seven issues, four contained articles by women, and three of those articles were cover stories–perhaps not the proportion you might desire, but enough to undercut any implication of a mysogynist conspiracy.
The paucity of articles from women parallels the paucity of women engaged in public apologetics. Does this have something to do with the rough and tumble apologetics sometimes becomes? We don’t know. All we know is that in an average sampling of twenty apologists, nineteen will be men. You figure it out.
It should go without saying–but I’ll say it anyway–that opinions expressed are those of the writers, not necessarily those of the editors. (The only opinions I entirely endorse are my own, and even then I have second thoughts.)
Hang ‘Em High!
I remember reading something in This Rock several issues ago about a Catholic from Wales who came over and worked for you last summer. Is this the same Welshman whose conversion I said I’d pray for when he had a letter stating he wasn’t sure whether or not to “pope”? If he is, I’d like to know that it’s so, so I can stop praying for the conversion of the already converted and can spend more time praying for the repose of the souls of all the Welsh pirates who repented at the eleventh hour.
Charlene Bevins
Seattle, Washington
Editor’s reply: Your prayers were answered. One pirate saved, 999 to go. Keep it up!