Christian Coalition head (in Ala.) becomes Catholic

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- As president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, John Giles is no stranger to a pew. Yet he remembers well the time he got lost in a Roman Catholic church.

"I couldn't even follow the order of service, it was so foreign to me," Giles says of that day some six years ago.

Since then he's found his way and a new home in the Roman Catholic church — a home that might seem foreign to the overwhelmingly Protestant church population of Alabama.

"I have to admit to you that the whole time that I was in that church service, I was reduced to tears, and I couldn't explain it," Giles said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.

"In fact," he jokes, "you would have thought I had been spending the whole weekend down at the House of the Rising Sun down in New Orleans, that I had all this sin in my life that I had to get out."

In any case, Giles and his wife, Deborah, were received into the Catholic Church at St. Peter's Parish in Montgomery on Easter Sunday.

Such a decision normally wouldn't be a matter of public interest, but Giles says he anticipated the questions that have followed his conversion from the Protestant faith.

"It would be nice if my private, Christian walk could be my private, Christian walk, but it's very difficult in my job for that to be the case," he says.

Giles says he knew the questions would come because as a Protestant he, too, had mistaken notions about Catholics. And the most frequent question he gets from his friends is "why?"

With that in mind he wrote an eight-page letter explaining his reasoning. In it, he explains that he had attended a variety of Protestant churches in Montgomery, including Christian Life Church and River of Life Church.

But once he visited the Roman Catholic church, he found himself in awe of its history and ritual, particularly its use of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in each service.

Trips to Israel and Rome spurred his curiosity. And the deeper he looked into the faith — which is the largest in the United States but lags behind Southern Baptists and other Protestant denominations in the South — the more he says he realized that many of his beliefs about Catholicism had been wrong.

"There is a perception among Protestants — you kind of have this perception that if you're Episcopal or Catholic, you're not even saved, you're not born again, which is totally a myth," he says.

He recalls one example from the New Year's holiday, which he spent in Florida with the chairman of his board. He had told the chairman of his and Deborah's plans to convert, and he says they were well-received.

"But we went to some other friends of theirs' house on one of the nights we were down there," Giles remembers. "And so we're sitting around visiting and this one lady was teaching a Sunday School class on cults. And she began to name off all the cults that she'd be teaching and named Catholic in there."

"We didn't make this change to win friends and influence people and do it from a popularity standpoint, because we knew that in the state of Alabama, this is probably not a popular position to take in the Christian movement," he says. "So it remains to be seen."

"We hope that we could have a small contribution to building bridges where there weren't bridges," he says. "Because Christians are Christians. There's no such thing as Christians and Catholics."

Do you believe in intercessionary prayer? If you do, then you value other's prayers for you, you ask them to help you, please. Are there some folks you'd ask to pray for you above others?

Mary is Jesus's mother and asking her intercession is very special, because she and Jesus have a unique and special relationship.

Here's the bottom line, PM, do Catholics believe Mary is God? The answer is no. Catholics are trinitarian monotheists, and were so long before protestants came on the scene.

If a Catholic, or any Christian, mistakes Mary for God, they are in error. This is idolatry. Idolatry takes many forms, but it is most clearly defined as mistaking the finite for the infinite.

You may not be able to distinguish proper doctrine on Mary from improper; it may seem to you, within your experience, that Catholics are idolatrous. In some cases you would be right. Catholics and other Christians also sometimes slide into magical thinking. However, this is not the correct teaching of our respective churches.

Something completely unknown to most Protestants is the Catholic practice of meditation on Jesus having a human mother. This, if you pursue it but a little, leads you to fuller understanding of the most central event in Christianity: the incarnation. "And the Word became flesh and walked among us..", "for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.." Fully God and fully human.

"God from God, Light from Light,true God from true God, begotten, not made… he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

This Incarnation was through Mary, God had a mother, just like us. He worried about His mother; and his mother watched him tortured and killed.

If you understand only a little of what I'm saying, you may begin to see Catholic religious practices as they include Mary in a more complete light.

To make Mary a diety, gets the significance of the incarnation completely wrong; it goes against the most basic Christology of the Church. To not fully realize that Mary was the human mother of God, results in the opposite, but equally false, teaching.

Idolatry, again, takes many forms. When I hear some Protestants discuss the Bible, it seems to me they have mistaken an object for God, and are practicing idolatry. In some cases, I am likely right; however, this is not the proper teaching of Protestants.

Again, idolatry is mistaking the finite for the infinite. Two people can use a cross and pray "to" it. One can be using it as an icon, to focus beyond it to the infinite God; another can be using it as an idol, as an embodiment of God.

The difference can not be determined by observing their prayer; cannot be determined by whether one is kneeling or not. The difference is in whether they believe the finite object or person is the infinite God.

Catholics are taught that Mary was fully human, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

She is not God.

Thank your for reply and for your prayers.

In closing tonight, I'm going to paste the Nicene Creed. This is an excellent beginning in knowing what Catholics believe (the catechism is organized around it). We say it every Sunday; it is the basic tenets of our faith - written seventeen centuries ago.

If what you believe we believe, or what any Catholic actually believes is contrary to this, it is, by definition, contrary to our creed.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

***I pray you to consider it.***

I went and looked it up immediatley.

"On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine..."

No one prays to Mary - no one asks her anything! She just asks Jesus. In doing so she displays the same power that the lowliest believer when they bring their problems to Jesus. Remember, Jesus promised...

"The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father. Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it!"

Jesus invites us to ask him directly - If there was a need to go through Mary he would have told us so.

***The young couple asked her for help and she used her motherly authority...***

Is that actually in the text, or are you reading it into the text?

***...then face Him and explain it to Him.***

Jesus will not judge us based on what we thought of his mother, but on whether we did the will of his Father. As proof I give you the following...

"While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.

But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"

And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." - Matt 12

***You stand on foolish ground in your fervor to dishonor her.***

Could you please point out where I have said anything to dishonor Mary?

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