[OLD REGGIE]

Well, once again, someone writes about his past in the Catholic Church as if to validate that he truly knows Catholicism, yet he acknowledges he left the Church in the state of woeful disobedience. Contrast that to the converts to Catholicism, who study history and the bible so thoroughly and zestfully that they can no longer remain Protestant.

Do I understand you to say that those who have left the RCC, including Priests and Nuns, have all done so for the wrong reasons and those who have converted to Catholicism are all well educated, saintly, and have done so for all the "right" reasons?

Do you claim any kind of objectivity for yourself?

[dangus]

>> Do I understand you to say that those who have left the RCC, including Priests and Nuns, have all done so for the wrong reasons and those who have converted to Catholicism are all well educated, saintly, and have done so for all the “right” reasons? Do you claim any kind of objectivity for yourself? <<

I put this challenge to FReepers a couple of years ago: Name ONE contemporary prominent Protestant theologian or leader who converted FROM Catholicism. The thread was far from one of the undead threads, but it did get a lot of traffic and commentary... but no-one answered that challenge well. THere were several wrong answers (people who had never been Catholic but were thought to be Catholic because of their last names, such as McArthur and Kennedy), a few famous for reasons other than religious work (Rudy Giuliani, Hugh Hewitt), a couple non-famous people (”this guy in my parish”), and one or two I’d hardly count (Jack Chick’s “source,” and a guy who worked for a preacher with a website for ex-Catholics). No-one came up with a single prominent ex-Catholic spiritual leader.

As for formerly Catholic priests and nuns: Yes there are many who left the priesthood, and the Catholic Church. Several I’ve known of joined the Episcopal Church. While it’s unfair to lump these in with alcoholics who professed to never have known Christ, I’d also say that these hardly qualify as true conversions away from Catholicsm.

Some FReepers did post links to a book filled with testimonies of 50 former priests. Since none of them are prominent, that didn’t directly address my challenge, and it’s hardly an impressive number. But many were even anonymous, and the book was published by a preacher related to Jack Chick, so the testimonies seem highly dubious.

If a priest leaves the Catholic Church to join a church which explicitly permits gay and pre-marital sex, promotes abortion “rights,” and is more statist than all but the worst of the officially suppressed, liberation-theology statists, do you really consider such conversions to be victories for Christ? Do you think they are a credit to your own religious convictions?