You didn’t really respond to my post at all.
It is my FATHER IN LAW, my husbands father who was Catholic (not uncle).
Did you respond at all to the charge that there were NO Catholics of any kind doing ANY kind of service AT ALL in Panguitch Utah during the years leading up to the mid 1970’s, and then there was only a traveling circuit priest who covered hundreds of miles per week.
I’m sure Catholics do a lot, but without the Bible they wouldn’t have expanded into the world the way that they have. That was my point.
“I’m sure Catholics do a lot, but without the Bible they wouldn’t have expanded into the world the way that they have.”
I cannot answer the question of what to do about your relative. I don’t have the authority to do so, and I don’t know anything about those sort of specifics. Ask a priest.
Peter, Paul and the 12 Apostles had no Bible when they converted many to the Faith.
There was no Bible when the Council of Nicaea was held and the whole Roman Empire converted to Catholicism.
Not one native person in the entire continent of North or South America could read a single letter when this half of the world was converted to Chrsitianity. Nor could anybody in the Philippines.
Without the Bible, they DID expand to embrace all of Europe and all of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, and millions in Asia.
The key to the Church’s expansion has always been the power of the Sacraments, not the Bible. The Bible is a useful tool, but it is not the center of the Church - the Sacraments are - and it is not the engine that has driven the Church. It’s the engine that drove Protestant missionary zeal and expansion, not Catholic.
As far as this: “Did you respond at all to the charge that there were NO Catholics of any kind doing ANY kind of service AT ALL in Panguitch Utah during the years leading up to the mid 1970’s, and then there was only a traveling circuit priest who covered hundreds of miles per week.”
I would answer with a question:
Did any Catholics live there? The role of priests is to consecrate the Sacraments so that Catholics can take them. There is always a shortage of priests. The faithful need the Sacraments. America is a severely Protestant country. Just how many Catholics were out thre in Panguitch, Utah, in the 1970s? Ten? One? Any? What, then, would a Church DO there, exactly? Sit open and waste the efforts of a priest and the financial resources of the Church whiling away the time waiting for someone to come in?
The Indians of the area were converted centuries ago by the Catholics, that’s why most American Indian people are Catholic, or at least their parents and grandparents were.
Your asking me about Panguitch, Utah’s lack of priests is like me asking why there are no Protestant missionaries in the Ostrovny Oblast on the Ussuri River in far Eastern Siberia. There are not enough laborers to harvest the whole crop. Decisions have to be made about where to put resources. Individual Catholics are not ordained, and should not be out there knocking on doors trying to teach fine points of doctrine. They’re not ordained, how do they even KNOW the fine points of doctrine? WERE there any Catholics in Panguitch?
America is a Protestant country. In the 1970s, it was a much more severely Protestant country than it is today. Catholics have not always been welcome or well-treated in this country. Until the Mexican laborer influx, you did not find very many Catholics in the rural areas of the deep South, where KKK and certain brands of Fundamentalist have violently HATED Catholics. Priests are where there are Catholics. Yes, there is missionary work, but it is devoted to places that desperately need the help, especially Africa and Asia and the inner cities (where, incidentally, there are a lot of Catholics).
You mentioned the itinerant priest who served a wide area in the 1970s. That was all the infrastructure that the local Catholic Church would bear. There weren’t many Catholics.
But look at Panguitch, Utah today. Is there a Catholic Church TODAY? Is there one nearby? Are there a lot more Catholics than there were? Probably yes. Catholicism is one of the very fastest growing religions in America. In absolute numbers, it is the fastest-growing religion.
What drove that growth is what always drove Catholic growth: there is a Catholic way of expanding. It is evidently working. The Church does not send missionaries into already Christian areas to strive with the local preachers “for the souls” of the baptized Christians in the area. It would be spending manpower and resources that could much better be spent serving people who need a lot more help than the people of Panguitch needed at any time.