Francis Beckwith And the Truth

Catholics should celebrate when anyone enters the Church. After all, we have it on good authority that the angels in heaven do. But when a prominent Protestant converts, we might not just feel like celebrating; we might feel like doing a victory dance in the end zone.

Francis Beckwith was president of the Evangelical Theological Society until he quit the post to return to the faith of his childhood. The story of Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism has much to teach us.

The first lesson is this: The human attempt to build a version of Christianity without the sacraments was tragically flawed. Christ didn’t come merely to teach us all a lesson; he came to give us real channels of grace that incorporate us into his life. To pretend otherwise, as modern evangelical Protestantism does, is to strip his mission of its power and life. The more Christians of all stripes we can bring back to the sacraments, the better.

But the second lesson is this: Despite the tragic decision of Christian denominations to split from the Church, there is still much good in Protestant Christianity, and the biggest conversions come when we treat Protestant believers with respect. A condescending attitude, a tone that suggests that evangelical Protestants know nothing — these are surefire ways to repel the interest of would-be converts.

It’s telling to note the contemporary works that sparked Beckwith’s return to the Catholic Church. He cites the “Joint Declaration on the doctrine of Justification” by Lutheran and Catholic scholars and Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences by Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie. He also refers generally to First Things magazine, the journal of religion, culture, and public life which is edited by Father Richard John Neuhaus, who was a Lutheran pastor before his own conversion.

Each of these works is concerned with promoting mutual understanding between Catholics and Protestants.

After reading these, Beckwith read two works by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI: Introduction to Christianity, originally written decades ago, and Truth and Tolerance, a more recent work. Again, these aren’t works of apologetics per se, but explorations of Catholic truth.

It is ironic but true: Attempts by Catholics to correct Protestant misunderstandings often do much more to strengthen Catholics’ faith than they do to change Protestants’ minds. The attempts by Catholics to understand what Protestants get right are what attracted Beckwith to the faith.

The most obvious is the cliché that honey attracts more flies than vinegar. Yet the deeper truth is that we can’t reach anybody we don’t love. Love and freedom are fundamental to our human dignity. We would never think of joining up with someone who has done nothing but criticize and belittle us. But if someone has respected us and appreciated what we’ve gotten right, then we’re more likely to listen when they offer to show us how to get even more right..

That’s because, ultimately, Catholics don’t convert people — the truth does.

To bring people to the truth, what’s necessary isn’t to expose the error of their ways — but to dispose them to seeing the splendor of the truth.

As he was exploring the Catholic faith, Beckwith called a prominent evangelical philosopher who was a friend of his and read aloud an excerpt from Cardinal Ratzinger’s book. The Washington Post printed the paragraph from the book.

“He reeled off the names of a bunch of evangelical theologians,” Beckwith told the Post. “I said, ‘No, it’s Ratzinger!’ And he said, ‘So he’s one of us!’”

“‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life,’” quoted Cardinal Ratzinger in the excerpt, continuing, “this saying of Jesus from the Gospel of John expresses the basic claim of the Christian faith. The missionary tendency of this faith is based on that claim: Only if the Christian faith is truth does it concern all men; if it is merely a cultural variant of the religious experience of mankind that is locked up in symbols and can never be deciphered, then it has to remain within its own culture and leave others in theirs. That, however, means that the question about the truth is the essential question of the Christian faith as such, and in that sense it inevitably has to do with philosophy.”

With these words, Cardinal Ratzinger points out that Christianity isn’t just a religion, or a group of religions. It is truth itself — the Truth. Truth has all the power to attract it needs without our feeling the need to help it out, because the truth is Christ himself.

Cardinal Ratzinger points out that Christianity isn’t just a religion, or a group of religions. It is truth itself — the Truth.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - following election of Joseph Ratzinger as pope ...

With the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the curtain has fallen on the long-running drama of the myth of "the spirit of Vatican II," in which the revolution mandated by the Council was delayed by the timidity of Paul VI and temporarily derailed for twenty-plus years by the regressive John Paul II, as the Church inexorably moved toward the happy denouement of "the next pope" who would resume the course of progressive accommodation to the wisdom of the modern world. The curtain has fallen and the audience has long since left, except for a few diehards who say they are giving the new management a hundred days to revive the show. Some of them are perhaps thinking of going to another theater. There are worse things than not being a Catholic--when it is made unmistakably clear that being a Catholic is not what one is.

Cardinal Ratzinger points out that Christianity isn’t just a religion, or a group of religions. It is truth itself — the Truth.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - following election of Joseph Ratzinger as pope ...

I wonder what Francis Beckwith thinks about these truths:

"The entire structure of the Roman Church is built on forgeries, spurious epistles, spurious sermons, spurious miracles, spurious relics, spurious councils, and spurious papal bulls. The Catholic Encyclopedia admits the existence of thousands of forgeries and divides the works of nearly every Father into (1) genuine, (2) dubious, and (3) spurious. Roman inventions as Peter’s martyrdom at Rome (2nd cent.), Assumption of Mary (6th cent.), Temporal power of the bishop of Rome (8th cent.), Primacy of Rome (11th cent.), Seven Sacraments (13th cent.), etc., can only be proved by forgeries. Example: Cyprian (d. 258), like his predecessor, Tertullian, ridiculed the pagan system of a Supreme Pontiff, a Pope (pater patrum, bishop of bishops), a primacy, etc. Where his oldest MSS read: “The other apostles were indeed what Peter was: endowed with the same share of honor and jurisdiction,” we now have texts which read: “The other apostles were indeed what Peter was, but the Primacy is given to Peter.” The Catholic Encyclopedia comments that this conflated form is, of course, spurious (C. E. 4, 585).

"Catholic theologians claim that with the development of the primacy in the Middle Ages, the papal letters grew enormously in number (C.E. 6, 202). “There can be no doubt that during a great part of the Middle Ages papal and other documents were fabricated in a very unscrupulous fashion” (C.E. 3, 57). Speaking of the thousands of miraculous relics of Rome, the same scholars admit that “the majority of which no doubt were fraudulent,” a “multitude of unquestionably spurious relics” (C.E. 12, 737). The same scholars admit the following Roman frauds: the origin of the Rosary and the apparition of Mary to St. Dominic, the Scapular and the apparition of Mary to Simon Stock, the Santa Scala, the legends and relics of Veronica, the Holy Lance, and St. Longinus, the Robe, the Sabbatine Privilege, etc. Yet these same scholars are bound to confess that the written Word of God is not superior to these Roman traditions. The life stories and writings of the early popes are spurious, as the Catholic Encyclopedia often admits under their names. The earliest Roman rituals (8th cent.) are spurious, falsely attributed to Popes Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory (Migne P.L. 55 & 74 & 78).

"When scholars speak of an authentic work they do not imply that the text has come to us in its original form. Manuscripts were seldom copied for the sake of preservation, but rather for use as textbooks. Obsolete teachings and expressions were altered, while so-called “heretical” teachings were allowed to become extinct.

"As early as the fifth century Augustine accused and convicted Pope Zosiums for having falsified the 5th canon of the Council of Nice (Mansi 4, 515; Migne, P. L. 50, 422). Canon laws of the Roman Church are based on “The Apostolic Constitutions,” a 4th century forgery purported to be a collection of apostolic writings collected by Clement I. When Protestants exposed this fraud, the fallible Church of Rome admitted the errors: “The Apostolic Constitutions were held generally in high esteem and served as the basis for much ecclesiastical legislation . . .As late as 1563. . .it was contended that it was the genuine work of the apostles” (C.E. 1, 636). Framing “divine” laws and falsifying the Word of God is not the work of innocent Christian leaders. Example: “We, the twelve Apostles of the Lord, who are now together, give you in charge these Divine Constitutions concerning every ecclesiastical form, there being present with us Paul, the chosen vessel, our fellow apostle, and James the Bishop and the rest of the Elders and the seven Deacons” (Migne, P.G. 1, 1070).

“The Donation of Constantine was originally an 8th-century forgery which gave the pope temporal power and possessions, and regal honors and privileges. Pope Sylvester (1000 A.D.) declared it a forgery. Pope Leo IV (1054) rewrote the text and used it to prove his primacy. . .As early as the fifteenth century its falsity was known. Yet, the document was further used to authenticate the papacy.

"The Apostolic Constitutions, The Donation of Constantine, The Clementine Forgeries, The Liber Pontificals (Biographical book of the popes), The Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore, and hundreds of other works are either spurious or have been mutilated. It is upon these that the bulk of Roman traditions originated. Catholic scholars admit one forgery after the other, but the Council of Trent upheld these forgeries as genuine “traditions” to which the written Word of God is not superior. Roman Catholic theologians even admit that they themselves falsified the sacred books of other religions in order to win converts. As neither the majority of the people nor the lower clergy could read or write in the early Middle Ages, it is clear that the Roman hierarchy itself corrupted and falsified the true traditions. It is clear that Rome’s traditions did not originate from the lips of Christ or the apostles!"

[by Ex-Jesuit Priest, Peter Doeswyck, author of the following article: Romanism-Built Upon Forgeries adapted from an article entitled Medieval Forgeries.

Hi. Francis Beckwith here. P-Marlowe is mistaken. I resigned my presidency from ETS at the time I publicly announced my entry into the Catholic Church. See here: http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_return_to_th.html

It is certainly true that I do not believe my Catholic faith is inconsistent with my membership or even presidency of ETS. However, my resignation from both was motivated by my desire not to cause either my Catholic or Protestant brothers to stumble. Here’s my blog entry on my resignation from the society as a member: http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_resignation.html

As for the Bible, here is a quote from the first blog link above: “I became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant and that the Catholic view of justification, correctly understood, is biblically and historically defensible.”

I do not mind criticism, if fairly and charitably offered.

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