In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss the reasons behind Anthony’s departure from Catholicism. Tim continues with details about the historical context of the Church and the ongoing presence of corruption in all faiths. Join the conversation as they explore the complexities of faith and the lives of saints.
Transcript:
Caller: I grew up in Catholic school, but I was in a non denominational church. And the corruption over the years to the Catholic Church with indulgences and the graven images of like praying to Mary and you know, the crowning of Mary and all that. Right? It’s just in my mind.
Tim Staples: Yeah, yeah, Anthony, man, I can relate because everything you just said were the reasons why I was not Catholic. But let’s break it down a little bit, Anthony. As far as the corruption goes, honestly, there is going to be corruption, biblically speaking, in every generation until the end of time. That is just a fact. You can’t find a perfect church on this earth because any church you go to, it’s going to be filled with sinners, man, and you’re one of them, Anthony, and so am I. Now what I did, though, Anthony, is looking at Catholicism. I always had, I think, a certain lens. I read Fox’s Book of Martyrs, for example, when I was a Protestant, which I later found out was actually very much historically distorted. But I read books like that. And granted, Anthony, we’ve got a whole lot of cases of grave sin in the Catholic Church over the centuries, and we don’t run away from that. In fact, as you know, Anthony, out of the twelve apostles, even we had one that was a pretty bad dude by the name of Judas, Jesus ordained him. And in the early church, we see right from the beginning, I mean, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, my goodness, he lists the sins that were going on in Corinth. Everything from in 1 Corinthians 5, a man sleeping with his stepmom, to every kind of moral disorder. Now, granted, this was a port city, Corinth, there was a lot of wild stuff going on. But Paul lists the sins there in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 11. You had idolatry going on in 1 Corinthians 8, temple prostitution. I mean, he goes down the list. So there is always going to be corruption, to be sure. But you know what I discovered, Anthony, in my study, I began to read history. I read books like Butler’s Lives of the Saints, which is kind of an answer to Fox’s Book of Martyrs. When you start looking at the lives of the saints historically, I mean, oh, my goodness, all of a sudden you get a little different perspective. All the martyrs and the fact that the Catholic Church evangelized the entire known world long before Luther Co. Came. In fact, what the Protestants basically did was steal sheep. For the first 300 years or so, they were just stealing Catholics. And so I mean, the church I began to see as I began to study. Wow. In fact, I argue, Anthony, you can’t explain. I can explain corruption in churches. You can look at any denomination you want to, you can go anywhere you want. You’ll find lots of sin. But what I couldn’t understand and explain, Anthony, are the saints in the church without divine power. That is the fact that you have, what, some 33 bishops of Rome who were martyrs. You have, I don’t even know what we’re up to now, about 70 or so canonized saints. That’s just among the bishops of Rome, the thousands of martyrs and folks who sacrificed their life for the faith is extraordinary. The fact that in the Catholic Church, in Every generation for 2,000 years, you have miracles, wonder workers, raising the dead. We have almost 400 documented cases of Catholics raising people from the dead. You know, you can’t explain that other than with divine authority. So that was kind of what happened when I began to study. But, Anthony, I think that if you go to sources, you know, from secular sources to some, like I mentioned, you know, Fox’s book of martyrs that are really distorted and only focus on the negatives, well, then, by golly, you’re not going to be in the Catholic Church. And by the way, Si, and I would agree with Anthony, if all you had was corruption in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years, I wouldn’t be Catholic either. Because in order to be the true church, there does need to be that visible sign of holiness. But the bottom line is we do have that sign of holiness. And Anthony, when you look at issues like the sale of indulgences, fascinating. When I read it from, you know, I took it as a given, Anthony, that of course Catholics were selling indulgences, you know, corruption. And granted, there were priests like the famous Johann Tetzel who were preaching, raising money for the Vatican, and they were irresponsible, or he was, especially with the way he was preaching. He was kind of the 16th century version of the television preachers, you know, who was over emphasizing, you know, money. And if you give money, you’re gonna be blessed. And, you know, as the coin clinks in the bottom of the can, a soul springs from purgatory, which of course is a distortion. Now, his theology wasn’t distorted, but the way he was presenting was. And so there issues like that. But the bottom line is, though, Anthony, when you look at indulgences, even Luther himself in his 95 theses says that if we would just listen to Pope Leo, we would have no problem. Because, of course, Leo, I should say Luther still believed in indulgences when he first wrote the 95 theses. It would only be later that he would reject the theology. But he points out in that 95 theses that Leo was already on the case, as was the church in correcting abuses and such. And so that’s just a couple of examples, Anthony. But as I really looked into the history, what I discovered is in the Catholic Church, Anthony, you actually have one Lord, one faith, one baptism that has been proclaimed for 2000 years. The Catholic Church has never contradicted a definitive. That is an infallible teaching. No pope has ever contradicted another pope in an infallible teaching. There is, again, as I said earlier, you can’t explain the sanctity of the church over 2000 years. You also can’t explain the unity of the Catholic Church, the fact that we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And I’ll never forget this, Anthony, I’d like to hear from you. But when I was in the midst of my own study of Catholicism, I was being challenged, as I mentioned at the outset, by a Catholic Marine buddy of mine. I can remember him saying words of effect to me. And I have used this. In fact, I’ve used it many times since then, that basically, you know, it doesn’t make sense to leave Peter because of Judas, right? I mean, if you were around in the first century, Anthony, and you saw Judas stealing from the purse, you saw him handing Jesus over. Treasonous, right? Just, wow, treacherous what he did. It wouldn’t make sense, would it, to leave Jesus and to leave Peter because you have the one bad one. And so that’s something to think about as well. We don’t leave Peter because of Judas. Now, I didn’t get to everything you said, Anthony, but. But how about. What do you think?
Caller: Yeah, I feel like you. You kind of turned on a light in my mind as far as the core is. Will always be. Will be Christ, but there will always be corruption. Correct unintentionally and intention and intentionally throughout each denomination and really every denomination. I never thought of it that way. Amen, brother. I can’t say I’ll. I’ll turn the Catholic, but I’m gonna start going to church now with my wife and actually participating.
Tim Staples: Well, I’ll tell you what, Anthony. You stay in touch, brother, and check out our website@catholic.com. you can check out my website at timstaples.com as well, but we have@catholic.com, i wish I knew the count, but it’s tens of thousands of pages of.