Posted on 05/29/2008 10:50:48 AM PDT by NYer
One of the most amazing works of the Holy Spirit over the past couple of decades or so has been the wave of Protestant converts coming into the Catholic Church. Notable among them have been the Protestant ministers — the tip of the iceberg of whom have been the names that have become well-known in apologetics circles. Though what they have been given by the Church surely dwarfs anything they have brought to her, it is also true that they have enlivened the faith of many a cradle Catholic with their enthusiasm and evident joy at discovering the truths of the faith.
Teaching Protestants who come into the Church is a challenge that any well-managed RCIA program should be able to meet. What has proved more difficult however has been finding ways to make use of the gifts and training that Protestant ministers bring with them and assisting them with their very special circumstance — that their conversion has met the end of their career. The Coming Home Network, founded by Marcus Grodi, has served a very valuable role in helping these men (they are mostly men) make the difficult double transition into a new faith community and career at the same time.
What Marcus Grodi has found, as those who watch his show, The Journey Home, may have noticed, is that sprinkled among the converts from Protestant denominations have been here and there, converts, not merely from among our separated brethren, but from religious groups that deny nearly everything that we and the Protestants have in common. At first it was rare and notable to see a former Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon being interviewed on his show. That has begun to change as converts from these groups become more common. Within recent weeks both a former Jehovah’s Witness and a deacon who was in The Way International appeared in separate episodes of The Journey Home.
These conversions from such high-control groups are often very dramatic and the choices these converts face may go well beyond the Protestant minister’s career upheavals to encompass cruel ostracism by close family members, shattering self-doubt, and difficult navigation through a socially alien terrain.
More and more, we are seeing converts whose backgrounds are much stranger, theologically and socially, than any former Baptist or Episcopalian. Have we noticed that they are coming in? Are we ready for them?
One way we can get ready is by understanding more about what life in cult does to a person, the wounds that may be left from years of spiritual and emotional abuse, from years of living in existential terror of violating dehumanizing and arbitrary — and constantly changing — rules. The people most equipped to convey this understanding to us are the people who have lived the experience of being in a cult, coming out, and coming into the Catholic Church. The richness of their experience cannot be overstated any more than can the depth of their gratitude. The one who has been forgiven much, loves much, and the one in whom the light itself has been darkness finds special joy in the true light.
So come and learn from these people whose amazing journey will inspire and educate you. Come to the Welcome Home! Catholic Conference in Weirton, WV from August 1-3. The conference is sponsored by the Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Speakers include our own Mark Shea, Tom Cabeen, a former overseer at the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses and yours truly. I will be giving an extended talk on the subject of cults on Friday evening. It is called “Hijacked Lives” and will cover how people get recruited into cults, what happens to them while they are in the group and what kind of help they need when they get out.
I especially urge Catholic social workers, counselors, and other mental health providers to come and learn how to effectively help people with this history. Priests, DREs, and catechists will benefit from understanding how to
meet the unique needs of this population as they enter the Catholic Church in increasing numbers — because whether we are ready or not, God is bringing them to us.
This conference will also be invaluable for anyone with a family member in this group — or in any similar group that wrecks havoc with family life. Come meet others who understand the deep sense of loss, the holiday turmoil, the walking on eggshells.
Weirton, WV is about 20 minutes from the Pittsburgh International Airport and 30 minutes from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Special early-registration rates are available now through June 30th. To see the agenda and to register for the conference click here or follow the link on the website of The Catholic Fellowship of Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, www.catholicxjw.com.
>>Tehran has also given the Iranian Embassy to the Holy See, instructions to ask for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, said a report in Italian daily La Repubblica.<<
Shhhh, don’t point out the facts, he’s on a roll.
From what I've heard and seen, if any one group can claim explosive growth in Africa and other parts of the 3rd world, it would be the Pentecostals and like-minded non-denominational Charismatic groups. Baptists and like-minded baptistic groups are making huge inroads in Brazil, Guatemale, and other Latin American countries (there are some districts in Oaxaca and Guatemala where Baptists and Protestants now make up large minorities (say, above 30%), which is leading to quite a lot of persecution at the hands of the local Catholic establishments.
The Anglicans (who are jokingly referred to as "like Catholics, except without the congregation"), Lutherans, United Methodists, and other liberal-infested denominations are bleeding congregants like mad, mostly to more conservative bodies with lower standards of dress, music, etc., like the megachurches and the non-denominational churches. The Southern Baptists have picked up quite a number of disaffected mainliners, but have themselves lost quite a number to the Independent and Fundamental Baptists.
There's a lot of mixing and turning out there in the religious world of Christendom, but the general trends seem to be people moving from liberal to conservative bodies, and from formalistic, hierarchical bodies towards independent and "non-denominational" groups.
GOOD.. then you are condemned to be a member of the Roman Catholic sheep pen.. and according to me.. thats exactly where you are supposed to be.,, We are all exactely where we are supposed to be at a given time.. WHAT A PLAN... God is awesome in his ways..
"The FLOCK" was in reference to John ch 10.... thats what those that come OUT of the sheep pens are.. "the flock".. You know... according to the metaphor..
Hopefully, these 'waves' of converts are not liberals coming into the church to try to get it to change it's positions.
Fifty years ago, America was about 70% Protestant and 20% Catholic. Today, it’s about 25% Protestant and 25% Catholic. By “Protestant,” I mean to include all Christians who are members of churches founded during and after the Reformation, including Baptists, Anglicans, Non-denominationalists, and Restorationists. By “Catholic,” I mean only those who have maintained current enrollment in their church; contrary to presumption, this does not mean all baptized Catholics, but it does include significant numbers of “A&P” (”Ashes and Palms”) Catholics.
I’ve seen many Protestants claim that their churches have such vast proportions of Catholics among them. If so, that only means that the apostasy rate among Protestant churches is o-so-much higher.
So you're saying these Catholics didn't have a clue what their church taught? That indicates this has less to do with the Protestants aggressively proselytizing and more to do with the individual not being engaged in the Catholic church in the first place.
It seems to me that the Catholic Church in Costa Rica is hemorrhaging members and they are joining the Mormon church ( especially), Seventh Day Adventists, and other fundamentalist Pentecostal and evangelical churches.
These people would all claim to have been moved by the Holy Spirit.
If the deliberate, vicious, and malicious anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon misrepresentations found here on Free Republic are any example, then I believe this is likely happening.
Gee! What motivates people to do that?
My point was the the original question was just plain stupid.
Besides... the article was mainly referring to Protestant preachers and theologians converting. Very few priests, and to my recollection zero bishops, have swun the Tiber the other way. And most of those priests were simply opting for less moral rigor (such as found in the Episcopalian church), not acting from a greater faith.
As for Richard Bennett’s books, they are pure rubbish. The videotape about the Inquisition claiming 50 million Protestants killed by the Inquisition should be your first tip off. (There were less than 3,000.) If his “witnesses” are real, why are so few unidentified? For complete impeachment of Bennett, consider his book claims 100,000 priests left the Catholic Church... which means that TWO hundred percent of them left. I guess they all left, came back, and left again?
Well, I don’t think the Holy Spirit is the author of confusion, so at one level, I would say it is not the will of God to move people away from the fullness of the Catholic faith. In other words, those who are in Full communion with the Catholic Church. Now, if someone had already fallen away into atheism or agnosticism, and by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, a person finds himself in a Protestant confession, that is a different matter.
So again, if the question is it better for someone to leave the Catholic Church, the answer is no. The best thing for them is to embrace Catholic orthodoxy. If someone has fallen away completely, then yes, it is better for them to be practing the Christian faith in a Protestant Church, and I would add, one that holds to historic Creeds (e.g. Traditional Anglicans, Lutheran or Reformed), would be the best ones, IMO.
So, there is only One Church, as Christ has only One Body and One Bride. So, all that who are Baptized, whehter they no it or not, are in some way related, to the “One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”.
It is Catholic ecclessiology that Christ’s grace if most fully present in the Catholic Church by virture of Apostolic Succession. For as St. Paul stated, the Church and the Apostles and their co-workers were the “stewardships of God’s grace” (c.f. Eph 3:2) and “stewards of the mysteries of God” (c.f. 1 Cor 4:1). The Greek word mysterion (mystery) was translated into Sacrament by St. Jerome, and is thus the normative means through which God’s gives us Grace.
Thus, the Catholic Church (and Eastern Orthdox, for that matter), by virture of Apostolic Succession and valid priesthood, has valid 7 sacraments, so that Christ, through his body, the Church and the sacraments, sanctifies humanity. Accordingly, the fullness of Grace is present in the Catholic Church.
Does that at least get at what you are asking.
Read the article you posted. Ahmadinejab is SEEKING an audience with the pope. That doesn’t mean he’ll get it.
>> Fair statement, I believe it’s all just traditional ... unless the Holy spirit intervenes. Now Pope Benedict were to lay the Cat-of-Nine-Tails unto the bare backs of certain Southern California Bishops and a certain Cardinal or two :^) Perhaps the Tiber would be seen a bit warmer. <<
See, ecumenical agreement!
Yes. We must agreeably disagree.
I did state that Catholic catechesis needs to be improved, which is a “we problem”.
And lets be honest, when it comes down to it, the Catholic Church is not about “what I want”, or how I feel. Catholic worship, to use the Eastern Orthodox terminology of “Divine Liturgy’, is something that we receive, we do not create it on our own. Thus, if one reads the Liturgy as recorded by St. Justin Martyr in 155 AD, one sees a clearly Liturgical worship. The Creeds are part of the Liturgy on Sunday. Again, it is a faith that is received, not one that is created to fit my personal tastes.
Many Catholics have been impacted by two forces, secularism, which elevates the individual, and Protestantism that in many ways is also “radically individualistic”, so that one then chooses a religion based on preaching style, music style, what doctrines are stressed, which ones are not, etc, and then finds the church that suits “me”.
To be blunt, this is a form of “idolatry” and nothing more than “worshipping the mirror”, i.e. ones own ideas, etc.
Catholicism is rooted in the Apostolic Tradition, as attested to in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition as recorded in early Liturgy, the Church Fathers, and the teachings and Creeds from the early Councils (Nicea 325 AD, Constantinopile 381 AD, Ephesus 431 AD, and Chalcedon 451 AD).
The Catholic faith that is, is the faith that was, and is the faith that will be as the Creeds bind us to orthodoxy whereas Protestantism, and there are some faithful orthodox Christians in the Protestant Churches, don’t have the authority to deal with the challenges as each group can use the “Bible alone” to justify what “they believe” is what the Holy Spirit is telling them.
Now, with respect to the Mormons and Jehovas Witnesses, I will never pass judgment on anyone in terms of ones eternal destiny, but from the Catholic Church’ view, both of those groups are not within orthodox Christianity in terms of Trinitarian and Christological doctrines. Thus, if Catholics leave for those groups, one has to question whether they have put there salvation in jeopardy. The Historic Protestant Churches (Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians), at least the Traditional expressions of those Churchs, still hold to orthodox doctrines with respect to the Holy Trinity and Christ and thus while it would be leaving the fullness of the Catholic Church, it would not be a rejection of orthodox Christianity, per se.
Regards
Gee! Catholic families don't shun? Well, some do.
Some Catholics who have converted to my religion have testified that their families have given them a very hard time about it. One young man was disinherited, and thrown out of the house. ( Literally!)
By the way, the author mentions Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and then in the next breath talks about shunning.
To my knowledge neither Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses preach or teach shunning. It is not part of their doctrine. It isn't part of Catholic doctrine either but some Catholics do it. If Catholics, as individuals can do it, I suppose Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses, as individuals, may be found doing it too. It bet all leaders ( Catholic, Mormon, and Jehovah Witness) would counsel their members that this is highly uncharitable behavior.
I have **personal** experience with Catholic shunning.
My brother married a Methodist girl in a Methodist church in 1959. My mother's entire family refused to attend the wedding, claimed that they were not married and were living in sin, and refused to speak to my brother and his wife, or step foot in their house for many years. They also shunned my mother and her children ( me) for many years because we attended the wedding. Nice folks there. ( sarc)
My mother never went back to church, although she insisted that we go to Mass. As soon as I left home, I left the Catholic church too. Today, I do not blame the Catholic Church for the cruel behavior of my mother's family.
Basically, I support the Catholic Church, although I am not a member, and I disagree with them on some doctrinal points, however, I would like to see the Catholic Church grow. For those who are Catholic I would be pleased if they practice their religion ( ALL of it). Our nation would be stronger, more peaceful, more prosperous, families and children happier if we had **more** believing Catholics ( and Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses.)
For the most part it is better to focus in on all the commonalities between religions than make mountains out of molehill doctrinal issues.
A bit thin-skinned. A stupid question is a stupid question regardless of who asks it.
It isn't in Costa Rica. The loss of members by the Catholic Church is at hemorrhage levels. As for the rest, most Costa Ricans who claim to be Catholic are Catholic in name only.
>> Is it within your world views to see people leaving RCC, EO and protestant denominations to a member of THE FLOCK?.. <<
Frankly, Protestant churches sometimes seem useful to me as training wheels for fallen-away Catholics to draw closer to the Catholic Church while they aren’t yet ready to make the plunge. I’ve known so many Catholics who fell away from the faith, dabbled in Protestantism, and eventually came home to Catholicism, it’s funny.
Naturally, Protestant preachers don’t see their mission as serving as training wheels for a better faith, which is probably why so many of their sermons are subtly preoccupied with attacking Catholicism. When I moved to Virginia, I found I could turn on any given Christian radio station, and hear them endlessly talk against worshipping false idols, to the point I might have suspected Paganism was more common in Virginia than in 1st-century Greece. Of course, the much quieter, private follow-up was that “worshipping” Mary was this sort of idolatry. But someone could listen to these preachers to hours and never suppose they had spoken one word against Catholicism.
And so therein lies the tightrope every Protestant ministry to ex-Catholics must make: be anti-Catholic enough to keep people from going Catholic, but not so blatant as to come off as a bigot, or make the falsehood obvious.
non denominational ping
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