[The_Reader_David]

It might be more useful to ask the Blessed Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary to interceed for the illumination of the soul and spirit of the protestants you are contending with on this thread than to argue with them.

Until someone realizes that the Scriptures are not trustworthy if the Church which canonized them is not trustworthy, arguing with them to uphold the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, the utility of prayers for the dead, the reality of the Eucharist, the customs of making the sign of the Cross and facing East in prayer, or a variety of other points Christians had always accepted until the rationalism of the 'Reformation' set the stage for modern disbelief, is quite fruitless.

So long as they hold that the canon of Scripture, divorced from the interpretive context of the Church, is a complete axiom system for all truths about God and Christ, that what can be proved from its text (as shortened by Luther in accordance with the Christ-denying rabbis of Jamnia) by discursive human reason, and only what can be so proved is true, there is no opening by which with mere words their heart and reason can be prised open to the truth. They will deny the authority and teachings of the Holy Ecumenical Councils, the judgement of the Church that the Proto-Evangelium of James is trustworthy on many points of Our Lord's family history, and anything else you present them because they have supplement a wholesome and pious regard for the truth of Scripture with the unwarranted and ultimately heretical assumption of its completeness (despite the closing passage of the Gospel of St. John).

[adiaireton8]

I appreciate your advice, and I completely agree with the body of your post. But I was a Protestant all my life. And some dear Catholics were very patient with me, not only in prayer, but also in answering my questions and responding to my objections. The least I can do is be no less patient in extended discourse with my fellow Protestants, now my separated brethren, but still for me, brothers and sisters with whom I deeply desire to be in full communion.

-A8

[bornacatholic]

Excellent advice, brother. Well said and indisputable and it describes exactly the point I have arrived at.

Heretofor, my efforts betray a too close kinsmanship with Pelagius :)

[Antoninus]

It might be more useful to ask the Blessed Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary to interceed for the illumination of the soul and spirit of the protestants you are contending with on this thread than to argue with them.

Based on some of the tasteless and vulgar responses on this thread, I think you might be correct.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.