Testimony of a Former Irish Priest

Born Irish, in a family of eight, my early childhood was fulfilled and happy. My father was a colonel in the Irish Army until he retired when I was about nine. As a family, we loved to play, sing, and act, all within a military camp in Dublin.

We were a typical Irish Roman Catholic family. My father sometimes knelt down to pray at his bedside in a solemn manner. My mother would talk to Jesus while sewing, washing dishes, or even smoking a cigarette. Most evenings we would kneel in the living room to say the Rosary together. No one ever missed Mass on Sundays unless he was seriously ill. By the time I was about five or six years of age, Jesus Christ was a very real person to me, but so also were Mary and the saints. I can identify easily with others in traditional Catholic nations in Europe and with Hispanics and Filipinos who put Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and other saints all in one boiling pot of faith.

The catechism was drilled into me at the Jesuit School of Belvedere, where I had all my elementary and secondary education. Like every boy who studies under the Jesuits, I could recite before the age of ten five reasons why God existed and why the Pope was head of the only true Church. Getting souls out of Purgatory was a serious matter. The often quoted words, "It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from sins," were memorized even though we did not know what these words meant. We were told that the Pope as head of the Church was the most important man on earth. What he said was law, and the Jesuits were his right-hand men. Even though the Mass was in Latin, I tried to attend daily because I was intrigued by the deep sense of mystery which surrounded it. We were told it was the most important way to please God. Praying to saints was encouraged, and we had patron saints for most aspects of life. I did not make a practise of that, with one exception: St. Anthony, the patron of lost objects, since I seemed to lose so many things.

When I was fourteen years old, I sensed a call to be a missionary. This call, however, did not affect the way in which I conducted my life at that time. Age sixteen to eighteen were the most fulfilled and enjoyable years a youth could have. During this time, I did quite well both academically and athletically.

I often had to drive my mother to the hospital for treatments. While waiting for her, I found quoted in a book these verses from Mark 10:29-30, "And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." Not having any idea of the true salvation message, I decided that I truly did have a call to be a missionary.

Trying To Earn Salvation I left my family and friends in 1956 to join the Dominican Order. I spent eight years studying what it is to be a monk, the traditions of the Church, philosophy, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and some of the Bible from a Catholic standpoint. Whatever personal faith I had was institutionalized and ritualized in the Dominican religious system. Obedience to the law, both Church and Dominican, was put before me as the means of sanctification. I often spoke to Ambrose Duffy, our Master of Students, about the law being the means of becoming holy. In addition to becoming "holy," I wanted also to be sure of eternal salvation. I memorized part of the teaching of Pope Pius XII in which he said, "...the salvation of many depends on the prayers and sacrifices of the mystical body of Christ offered for this intention." This idea of gaining salvation through suffering and prayer is also the basic message of Fatima and Lourdes, and I sought to win my own salvation as well as the salvation of others by such suffering and prayer.

In the Dominican monastery in Tallaght, Dublin, I performed many difficult feats to win souls, such as taking cold showers in the middle of winter and beating my back with a small steel chain. The Master of Students knew what I was doing, his own austere life being part of the inspiration that I had received from the Pope's words. With rigor and determination, I studied, prayed, did penance, tried to keep the Ten Commandments and the multitude of Dominican rules and traditions.

Then in 1963 at the age of twenty-five I was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and went on to finish my course of studies of Thomas Aquinas at The Angelicum University in Rome. But there I had difficulty with both the outward pomp and the inner emptiness. Over the years I had formed, from pictures and books, pictures in my mind of the Holy See and the Holy City. Could this be the same city? At the Angelicum University I was also shocked that hundreds of others who poured into our morning classes seemed quite disinterested in theology. I noticed Time and Newsweek magazines being read during classes. Those who were interested in what was being taught seemed only to be looking for either degrees or positions within the Catholic Church in their homelands.

One day I went for a walk in the Colosseum so that my feet might tread the ground where the blood of so many Christians had been poured out. I walked to the arena in the Forum. I tried to picture in my mind those men and women who knew Christ so well that they were joyfully willing to be burned at the stake or devoured alive by beasts because of His overpowering love. The joy of this experience was marred, however, for as I went back in the bus I was insulted by jeering youths shouting words meaning "scum or garbage." I sensed their motivation for such insults was not because I stood for Christ as the early Christians did but because they saw in me the Roman Catholic system. Quickly, I put this contrast out of my mind, yet what I had been taught about the present glories of Rome now seemed very irrelevant and empty.

One night soon after that, I prayed for two hours in front of the main altar in the church of San Clemente. Remembering my earlier youthful call to be a missionary and the hundredfold promise of Mark 10:29-30, I decided not to take the theological degree that had been my ambition since beginning study of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. This was a major decision, but after long prayer I was sure I had decided correctly.

The priest who was to direct my thesis did not want to accept my decision. In order to make the degree easier, he offered me a thesis written several years earlier. He said I could useit as my own if only I would do the oral defense. This turned my stomach. It was similar to what I had seen a few weeks earlier in a city park: elegant prostitutes parading themselves in their black leather boots. What he was offering was equally sinful. I held to my decision, finishing at the University at the ordinary academic level, without the degree.

On returning from Rome, I received official word that I had been assigned to do a three year course at Cork University. I prayed earnestly about my missionary call. To my surprise, I received orders in late August 1964 to go to Trinidad, West Indies, as a missionary.

On October 1, 1964, I arrived in Trinidad, and for seven years I was a successful priest, in Roman Catholic terms, doing all my duties and getting many people to come to Mass. By 1972 I had become quite involved in the Catholic Charismatic Movement. Then, at a prayer meeting on March 16th of that year, I thanked the Lord that I was such a good priest and requested that if it were His will, He humble me that I might be even better. Later that same evening I had a freak accident, splitting the back of my head and hurting my spine in many places. Without thus coming close to death, I doubt that I would ever have gotten out of my self- satisfied state. Rote, set prayer showed its emptiness as I cried out to God in my pain.

In the suffering that I went through in the weeks after the accident, I began to find some comfort in direct personal prayer. I stopped saying the Breviary (the Roman Catholic Church's official prayer for clergy) and the Rosary and began to pray using parts of the Bible itself. This was a very slow process. I did not know my way through the Bible and the little I had learned over the years had taught me more to distrust it rather than to trust it. My training in philosophy and in the theology of Thomas Aquinas left me helpless, so that coming into the Bible now to find the Lord was like going into a huge dark woods without a map.

When assigned to a new parish later that year, I found that I was to work side-by-side with a Dominican priest who had been a brother to me over the years. For more than two years we were to work together, fully seeking God as best we knew in the parish of Pointe-a-Pierre. We read, studied, prayed, and put into practise what we had been taught in Church teaching. We built up communities in Gasparillo, Claxton Bay, and Marabella, just to mention the main villages. In a Catholic religious sense we were very successful. Many people attended Mass. The Catechism was taught in many schools, including government schools. I continued my personal search into the Bible, but it did not much affect the work we were doing; rather it showed me how little I really knew about the Lord and His Word. It was at this time that Philippians 3:10 became the cry of my heart, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection...."

About this time the Catholic Charismatic movement was growing, and we introduced it into most of our villages. Because of this movement, some Canadian Christians came to Trinidad to share with us. I learned much from their messages, especially about praying for healing. The whole impact of what they said was very experience-oriented but was truly a blessing, insofar, as it got me deeply into the Bible as an authority source. I began to compare scripture with scripture and even to quote chapter and verse! One of the texts the Canadians used was Isaiah 53:5, "...and with his stripes we are healed." Yet in studying Isaiah 53, I discovered that the Bible deals with the problem of sin by means of substitution. Christ died in my place. It was wrong for me to try to expidite or try to cooperate in paying the price of my sin.

"If by grace, it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace.." Romans 11:6. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

One particular sin of mine was getting annoyed with people, sometimes even angry. Although I asked forgiveness for my sins, I still did not realize that I was a sinner by the nature which we all inherit from Adam. The scriptural truth is, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10), and "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). The Catholic Church, however, had taught me that the depravity of man, which is called "original sin," had been washed away by my infant baptism. I still held this belief in my head, but in my heart I knew that my depraved nature had not yet been conquered by Christ.

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection..." (Philippians 3:10) continued to be the cry of my heart. I knew that it could be only through His power that I could live the Christian life. I posted this text on the dashboard of my car and in other places. It became the plea that motivated me, and the Lord who is Faithful began to answer.

First, I discovered that God's Word in the Bible is absolute and without error. I had been taught that the Word is relative and that its truthfulness in many areas was to be questioned. Now I began to understand that the Bible could, in fact, be trusted. With the aid of Strong's Concordance, I began to study the Bible to see what it says about itself. I discovered that the Bible teaches clearly that it is from God and is absolute in what it says. It is true in its history, in the promises God has made, in its prophecies, in the moral commands it gives, and in how to live the Christian life. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (II Timothy 3:16-17).

This discovery was made while visiting in Vancouver, B.C., and in Seattle. When I was asked to talk to the prayer group in St. Stephen's Catholic Church, I took as my subject the absolute authority of God's Word. It was the first time that I had understood such a truth or talked about it. I returned to Vancouver, B.C. and in a large parish Church, before about 400 people, I preached the same message. Bible in hand, I proclaimed that "the absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and morals is the Bible, God's own Word."

Three days later, the archbishop of Vancouver, B.C., James Carney, called me to his office. I was then officially silenced and forbidden to preach in his archdiocese. I was told that my punishment would have been more severe, were it not for the letter of recommendation I had received from my own archbishop, Anthony Pantin. Soon afterwards I returned to Trinidad.

While I was still parish priest of Point-a-Pierre, Ambrose Duffy, the man who had so strictly taught me while he was Student Master, was asked to assist me. The tide had turned. After some initial difficulties, we became close friends. I shared with him what I was discovering. He listened and commented with great interest and wanted to find out what was motivating me. I saw in him a channel to my Dominican brothers and even to those in the Archbishop's house.

When he died suddenly of a heart attack, I was stricken with grief. In my mind, I had seen Ambrose as the one who could make sense out of the Church-Bible dilemma with which I so struggled. I had hoped that he would have been able to explain to me and then to my Dominican brothers the truths with which I wrestled. I preached at his funeral and my despair was very deep.

I continued to pray Philippians 3:10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection...." But to learn more about Him, I had first to learn about myself as a sinner. I saw from the Bible (I Timothy 2:5) that the role I was playing as a priestly mediator -- exactly what the Catholic Church teaches but exactly opposite to what the Bible teaches -- was wrong. I really enjoyed being looked up to by the people and, in a certain sense, being idolized by them. I rationalized my sin by saying that after all, if this is what the biggest Church in the world teaches, who am I to question it? Still, I struggled with the conflict within. I began to see the worship of Mary, the saints, and the priests for the sin that it is. But while I was willing to renounce Mary and the saints as mediators, I could not renounce the priesthood, for in that I had invested my whole life.

Mary, the saints, and the priesthood were just a small part of the huge struggle with which I was working. Who was Lord of my life, Jesus Christ in His Word or the Roman Church? This ultimate question raged inside me especially during my last six years as parish priest of Sangre Grande (1979-1985). That the Catholic Church was supreme in all matters of faith and morals had been dyed into my brain since I was a child. It looked impossible ever to change.

Rome was not only supreme but always called "Holy Mother." How could I ever go against "Holy Mother," all the more so since I had an official part in dispensing her sacraments and keeping people faithful to her? In 1981, I actually rededicated myself to serving the Roman Catholic Church while attending a parish renewal seminar in New Orleans. Yet when I returned to Trinidad and again became involved in real life problems, I began to return to the authority of God's Word. Finally the tension became like a tug-of-war inside me. Sometimes I looked to the Roman Church as being absolute, sometimes to the authority of the Bible as being final. My stomach suffered much during those years; my emotions were being torn. I ought to have known the simple truth that one cannot serve two masters. My working position was to place the absolute authority of the Word of God under the supreme authority of the Roman Church.

This contradiction was symbolized in what I did with the four statues in the Sangre Grande Church. I removed and broke the statues of St. Francis and St. Martin because the second commandment of God's Law declares in Exodus 20:4, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...." But when some of the people objected to my removal of the statues of the Sacred Heart and of Mary, I left them standing because the higher authority, i.e., the Roman Catholic Church, said in its law Canon 1188: "The practise of displaying sacred images in the churches for the veneration of the faithful is to remain in force."

I did not see that what I was trying to do was to make God's Word subject to man's word. My Own Fault While I had learned earlier that God's Word is absolute, I still went through this agony of trying to maintain the Roman Catholic Church as holding more authority than God's Word, even in issues where the Church of Rome was saying the exact opposite to what was in the Bible.

How could this be? First of all, it was my own fault. If I had accepted the authority of the Bible as supreme, I would have been convicted by God's Word to give up my priestly role as mediator, but that was too precious to me. Second, no one ever questioned what I did as a priest.

Christians from overseas came to Mass, saw our sacred oils, holy water, medals, statues, vestments, rituals, and never said a word! The marvelous style, symbolism, music, and artistic taste of the Roman Church was all very captivating. Incense not only smells pungent, but to the mind it spells mystery.

One day, a woman challenged me (the only Christian ever to challenge me in all my 22 years as a priest), "You Roman Catholics have a form of godliness, but you deny its power." Those words bothered me for some time because the lights, banners, folk music, guitars, and drums were dear to me. Probably no priest on the whole island of Trinidad had as colorful robes, banners, and vestments as I had. Clearly I did not apply what was before my eyes.

In October 1985, God's grace was greater than the lie that I was trying to live. I went to Barbados to pray over the compromise that I was forcing myself to live. I felt truly trapped. The Word of God is absolute indeed. I ought to obey it alone; yet to the very same God I had vowed obedience to the supreme authority of the Catholic Church. In Barbados I read a book in which was explained the Biblical meaning of Church as "the fellowship of believers." In the New Testament there is no hint of a hierarchy; "Clergy" lording it over the "laity" is unknown. Rather, it is as the Lord Himself declared "...one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren" (Matthew 23:8).

Now to see and to understand the meaning of church as "fellowship" left me free to let go of the Roman Catholic Church as supreme authority and depend on Jesus Christ as Lord. It began to dawn on me that in Biblical terms, the Bishops I knew in the Catholic Church were not Biblical believers. They were for the most part pious men taken up with devotion to Mary and the Rosary and loyal to Rome, but not one had any idea of the finished work of salvation, that Christ's work is done, that salvation is personal and complete. They all preached penance for sin, human suffering, religious deeds, "the way of man" rather than the Gospel of grace. But by God's grace I saw that it was not through the Roman Church nor by any kind of works that one is saved, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

I left the Roman Catholic Church when I saw that life in Jesus Christ was not possible while remaining true to Roman Catholic doctrine. In leaving Trinidad in November 1985, I only reached neighboring Barbados. Staying with an elderly couple, I prayed to the Lord for a suit and necessary money to reach Canada, for I had only tropical clothing and a few hundred dollars to my name. Both prayers were answered without making my needs known to anyone except the Lord.

From a tropical temperature of 90 degrees, I landed in snow and ice in Canada. After one month in Vancouver, I came to the United States of America. I now trusted that He would take care of my many needs, since I was beginning life anew at 48 years of age, practically penniless, without an alien resident card, without a driver's license, without a recommendation of any kind, having only the Lord and His Word.

I spent six months with a Christian couple on a farm in Washington State. I explained to my hosts that I had left the Roman Catholic Church and that I had accepted Jesus Christ and His Word in the Bible as all-sufficient. I had done this, I said, "absolutely, finally, definitively, and resolutely." Yet far from being impressed by these four adverbs, they wanted to know if there was any bitterness or hurt inside me. In prayer and in great compassion, they ministered to me, for they themselves had made the transition and knew how easily one can become embittered. Four days after I arrived in their home, by God's grace I began to see in repentance the fruit of salvation. This meant being able not only to ask the Lord's pardon for my many years of compromising but also to accept His healing where I had been so deeply hurt. Finally, at age 48, on the authority of God's Word alone, by grace alone, I accepted Christ's substitutionary death on the Cross alone. To Him alone be the glory.

Having been refurbished both physically and spiritually by this Christian couple together with their family, I was provided a wife by the Lord, Lynn, born-again in faith, lovely in manner, intelligent in mind. Together we set out for Atlanta, Georgia, where we both got jobs.

In September 1988, we left Atlanta to go as missionaries to Asia. It was a year of deep fruitfulness in the Lord that once I would never have thought was possible. Men and women came to know the authority of the Bible and the power of Christ's death and resurrection. I was amazed at how easy it is for the Lord's grace to be effective when only the Bible is used to present Jesus Christ. This contrasted with the cobwebs of church tradition that had so clouded my 21 years in missionary garments in Trinidad, 21 years without the real message.

To explain the abundant life of which Jesus spoke and which I now enjoy, no better words could be used than those of Romans 8:1-2: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." It is not just that I have been freed from the Roman Catholic system, but that I have become a new creature in Christ. It is by the grace of God, and nothing but His grace, that I have gone from dead works into new life.

Back in 1972, when some Christians had taught me about the Lord healing our bodies, how much more helpful it would have been had they explained to me on what authority our sinful nature is made right with God. The Bible clearly shows that Jesus substituted for us on the cross. I cannot express it better than Isaiah 53:5: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." (This means that Christ took on himself what I ought to suffer for my sins. Before the Father, I trust in Jesus as my substitute.)

That was written 750 years before the crucifixion of our Lord. A short time after the sacrifice of the cross, the Bible states in I Peter 2:24: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed."

Because we inherited our sin nature from Adam, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. How can we stand before a Holy God -- except in Christ -- and acknowledge that He died where we ought to have died? God gives us the faith to be born again, making it possible for us to acknowledge Christ as our substitute. It was Christ who paid the price for our sins: sinless, yet He was crucified. This is the true Gospel message. Is faith enough? Yes, born-again faith is enough. That faith, born of God, will result in good works including repentance: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

In repenting, we put aside, through God's strength, our former way of life and our former sins. It does not mean that we cannot sin again, but it does mean that our position before God has changed. We are called children of God, for so indeed we are. If we do sin, it is a relationship problem with the Father which can be resolved, not a problem of losing our position as a child of God in Christ, for this position is irrevocable. In Hebrews 10:10, the Bible says it so wonderfully: "...we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

The finished work of Christ Jesus on the Cross is sufficient and complete. As you trust solely in this finished work, a new life which is born of the Spirit will be yours -- you will be born again.

My present task: the good work that the Lord has prepared for me to do is as an evangelist situated in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A. What Paul said about his fellow Jews I say about my dearly loved Catholic brothers: my heart's desire and prayer to God for Catholics is that they may be saved. I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based in God's Word but in their church tradition. If you understand the devotion and agony that some of our brothers and sisters in the Philippines and South America have put into their religion, you may understand my heart's cry: "Lord, give us a compassion to understand the pain and torment of the search our brothers and sisters have made to please You. In understanding pain inside the Catholic hearts, we will have the desire to show them the Good News of Christ's finished work on the Cross."

My testimony shows how difficult it was for me as a Catholic to give up Church tradition, but when the Lord demands it in His Word, we must do it. The "form of godliness" that the Roman Catholic Church has makes it most difficult for a Catholic to see where the real problem lies. Everyone must determine by what authority we know truth. Rome claims that it is only by her own authority that truth is known. In her own words, Cannon 212, Section 1, "The Christian faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound by Christian obedience to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or determine as leaders of the Church." (Vatican Council II based, Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John-Paul II, 1983).

Yet according to the Bible, it is God's Word itself which is the authority by which truth is known. It was man-made traditions which caused the Reformers to demand "the Bible only, faith only, grace only, in Christ only, and to God only be the glory."

I share these truths with you now so that you can know God's way of salvation. Our basic fault as Catholics is that we believe that somehow we can of ourselves respond to the help God gives us to be right in His sight. This presupposition that many of us have carried for years is aptly defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) #2021, "Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons...."

With that mindset, we were unknowingly holding to a teaching that the Bible continually condemns. Such a definition of grace is man's careful fabrication, for the Bible consistently declares that the believer's right standing with God is "without works" (Romans 4:6), "without the deeds of the Law" (Romans 3:28), "not of works" (Ephesians 2:9), "It is the gift of God," (Ephesians 2:8). To attempt to make the believer's response part of his salvation and to look upon grace as "a help" is to flatly deny Biblical truth,

"...if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace..." (Romans 11:6). The simple Biblical message is that "the gift of righteousness" in Christ Jesus is a gift, resting on His all-sufficient sacrifice on the cross, "For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:17).

So it is as Christ Jesus Himself said, He died in place of the believer, the One for many (Mark 10:45), His life a ransom for many. As He declared, ...this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). This is also what Peter proclaimed, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God..." (I Peter 3:18).

Paul's preaching is summarized at the end of II Corinthians 5:21, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.." (II Cor. 5:21).

This fact, dear reader, is presented clearly to you in the Bible. Acceptance of it is now commanded by God, "...Repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15).

The most difficult repentance for us dyed-in-the-wool Catholics is changing our mind from thoughts of "meriting," "earning," "being good enough," simply to accepting with empty hands the gift of righteousness in Christ Jesus. To refuse to accept what God commands is the same sin as that of the religious Jews of Paul's time, "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." (Romans 10:3)

A native of Ireland he returned there in 1996 on an evangelistic tour. He now lives in Portland Oregon U.S.A. He teaches a workshop at Multnomah Bible College on "Catholicism in the Light of Biblical Truth." His greatest joy is door-to-door witnessing . He has produced three series of radio broadcasts. A fourth series is about to begin in the Philippines on D.W.T.I. and D.V. R .O. radio stations. He is co-editor of this book and founder of the ministry named "Berean Beacon."

The observation of a person's inability to percieve another's remarks regarding the Gospel is not an insult or denigration. It is a statement of fact.

Actually, no it isn't. All you observe is that we disagree. That is the 'fact'.

To allege an inability is a CONCLUSION drawn with the 'fact' as one of elements in the argument.

There are other possible explanations for our disagreement. Inability of any kind is not the only explanation. Why, I know this is hard to believe, but our disagrement could conceivably come from our having thought it through and reached a different conclusion.

In that case, to attribute our disagreement to blindness is to disrespect the work we did in reaching our conclusion.

You are saying this to every non-Catholic by saying the Catholic Church is correct, since it says that all others are wrong. We are not "insulted or denigrated". We just vigorously disagree with this claim and note it is not supported by Scripture.

Fine. BUT, I do not attribute your disagreement to some spiritual disability or any characteristic of you. YES, I think you are on the wrong side. But I don't say anything about YOU and your array of abilities and disabilities to explain your being on what I take to be the wrong side.

But when I disagree with you, you make a statement explaining (or 'explaining away') that disagreement by characterizing me as having a disability.

I think that makes the case. I see that you may not have intended it as such, but it was not a fact, it was a comment not about the issue but about those who disagree with you on the issue.

You COULD have said, "In our view the disagreement of Papists result from a Spiritual blindness and deafness." But you didn't say that. You said we were blind and deaf.

I believe what I wrote. And don't forget, we have 'sacred tradition' in our scheme. So Peter might well have thought that whatever was needful would be taken care of through that means.

But this supports one of my conjectures about the entire Sola Scripture weltanschauung.

It just doesn’t seem likely that God would have had all this information that He wanted to give to the Church and not give it to His first pope.

What if the first Pope didn't need it just then, or the Church didn't either?

In more than one place we are told to trust the Spirit to give us what we need to say when we need to say it. It is our daily bread for which we pray, not a Sam's Club's worth.

So the idea has two parts: the first is the idea of the church, complete and fully developed arising sometime before the middle of the 1st century. That SURE isn't our idea, though I think it contribute to misunderstandings. It was there, let's say "in principle" but has been being unfolded and sorted out ever since.

The second idea is that there is a HINT here that the Bible is a repository as much "instead of God" as the Pope and Magisterium are often accused of being "instead of God."

You guys think of the Pope as lording it over people. Some seem wedded to that notion. But I see a guy sort of pottering around doing what comes up, and praying devoutly that if something big comes up God will help him do and say the right stuff.

Well that's not exactly right. But I do not see even J2P2 thinking he had all the ducks in a row and just needed to deploy them.

And our 'faith' in the Pope and the magisterium is similarly a frequent if not constant prayer to God. It prompts us to prayer, it does not stand in its stead.

I have to go do stuff.

THX TONS for your kind reply.

Dear brother Quix, do you really believe the Roman Church has a monopoly on this phenomenon? I've attended Prottie services that seemed to be more concerned with social and political issues than with the salvation of souls. But then, I live in Massachusetts....

OF COURSE I DON'T! As you may recall, I FREQUENTLY note that Proddys have a same or similar problem in many, even most congregations as the RC's do--even about idolatry, blasphemy etc. Of course those wailing about their sacred cow being gored seem to ignore such assertions by me. LOL.

In all fairness, I'd say the same about Catholic services I've attended lately. Though recently I found the National Cathedral of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts to be a magnificently blessed island of peace and sanctity in the maelstrom of the currently chaotic roiling sociopolitical and ideological seas.... All praise and glory be to God!

AMEN TO THAT!

I think I may have mystical tendencies. :^)

Be careful. It's but a short hop, skip and a jump from mystical to Charismania--and we'd love to have you! LOL.

And so I agree with you that our RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD is our first priority as Christians. If He is not first and foremost in my heart and soul and mind and strength, then it doesn't matter what I call myself, I wouldn't be any kind of Christian, let alone a Catholic.

INDEED. GREATLY AGREE.

When GOD is first and foremost, then we see how all things flow from Him, are sustained by Him, proceeding from His Logos, Alpha to Omega. He is the way and the truth and the light and the life, the very ground of our own being. He is justice — and mercy: He subjected His own Son to pay an infinite price to save "worthless rabble" [my term] who, for whatever reason, God loves and wants to save....

INDEED. I thoroughly agree.

Or at least so it seems to me, FWIW.

That conviction, believe, is worth eternity, imho.

BTW, as you may know I have great affinity for Roman Catholic theology, but I did not learn it from the catechism of the Church, at least not as a child. Formal religious instruction was forbidden by my deist Dad. He was concerned that his children would be "brainwashed"....

So I wasn't "brainwashed"; I had no contact with the catechism at all until much later in life. Yet I must note that, among other things Roman Catholic, the great saints and doctors of the Church that I fondly call the "Three Big A's" — Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm — have always been enormously appealing to me, intellectually speaking.... The Church has a long and distinguished heritage of fides quarens intellectum, of faith in quest, or in search, of its reason. This search or quest depends on the openness of the human soul in response to God's appeals to it, by His Logos, through His Holy Spirit. The Church, to me, makes a powerful appeal to the human mind and spirit, quite naturally it seems.

I think it CAN--certainly ideally. I think on average, in millions of lives, a LOT gets lost in the translation just as it had between the RELIGIOUS leaders 2000 years ago, and the people.

But it never gives short shrift to the body. The Church has an eminently realist position on this. It knows that human beings are not just minds and souls, but bodies as well — at least in this mortal vale of tears. The Church believes even bodies need sanctification (maybe even especially so). And I believe that is why the Holy Mother is so deeply and reverently cherished by Catholics. She is the bodily locus where the divine and eternal Son of God and His finite earthly body came into conjunction.

Yeah. For 9 months, give or take. I see no HINT in Scripture where we are to erect an altar to that fact--much less an edifice and libraries of theological fantasies related thereto.

She spans two time orders, earthly and heavenly, as the divinely consecrated handmaiden or vessel of the Lord — the mother of God's Truth, His Logos, in our earthly, worldly system. Mary is not a god; she is the devotedly revered Mother of God, of the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ; she is first and finally a human being who has ascended into Heaven and is now and forever united with her Son.

No. She is NOT THE MOTHER OF GOD ALMIGHTY. And for the INSTITUTION TO SHOEHORN that image and vernacular in on her relationship with Jesus is dishonest, disingenuous, dastardly, seductive, horrific. It cultivates a mentality that is blasphemous and idolatrous. No way can I remotely condone that nor wink at it. As you know, it is nothing personal, between you and I. It is my conviction about Biblical, spiritual and total reality.

Plus many other things about the Church really bother some Protties — rituals, art, music — for to them they really smack of idolatry. Well, you can see it that way if you want to. But for me, I'd simply say that these are devices for "sanctifying the body"; for through appeals to the physical senses, they make the presence of God available to the human mind and spirit. A beautiful fresco, or stain-glass window, or musical composition seeks to engage the human person body and soul. Even the pungent olfactory appeal of incense symbolizes the presence of the Holy Spirit. I.e., the incense itself directs our minds to contemplation of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Where and when each individual heart, mind, spirit crosses the line from 'facilitated worship' by such objects into RANK IDOLATRY AND BLASPHEMY is precisely known only to God. However, it is abundantly clear to Proddys and a long line of former RC's including the two priests recent threads have been about--that millions of Roman Catholics cross that line horrifically. PRAISE GOD THAT YOU DO NOT. GOD HAVE MERCY ON THOSE WHO DO.

Betty, humans are naturally idolatrous and blasphemous. As I've stated--Proddys, too. We don't NEED INSTITUTIONAL ASSISTS, ENCOURAGEMENTS, MODELING, RATIONALIZATIONS, JUSTIFICATIONS, EXCUSES, DOGMA, INCENTIVES etc. to be idolatrous and blasphemous. IT SPRINGS NATURALLY FROM THE FLESH--virtually 24/7 unless and until the Blood of Jesus and the fruits of Holy Spririt begin to bring it into check. Pentecostals have to guard against idolatry toward THE GIFTS OF HOLY SPIRIT and the miracles of Holy Spirit instead of worshiping, focusing on the GIVER AND MIRACLE WORKER.

TANGIBLE OBJECTS ARE !!!!CONTROLLABLE!!!! AND partly thereby, FLATTER AND FEED THE FLESH as few other things do. They are GREATLY SEDUCTIVE in a RELIGIOUS framework and context. And they are DEADLY in doing so. And the rationalizations and whitewash are already inculcated, blessed, polished, 'sanctified,' instructed, modeled, published and pontificated on by the RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY just as such were by the RELIGIOUS hierarchy 2000 years ago.

Sacramental rituals can be explained along similar lines. But I've run overlong already.

In any case, these are my own views; I do not speak for the Roman Catholic Church, only what I have come to know of it as an outsider....

Thank you so much for writing, dear brother in Christ!

THANK YOU. I always enjoy reading what you write and am honored that you bother. IIRC, there were some family . . . pseudo dramas or concerns not that long ago. I pray all has been made whole and calmed down. God's best to you and yours.

You don’t believe Mad Dawg, that something as important to The Catholic Church, the holder of the keys of the kingdom, and the Church that holds salvation for everyone, the doctrines and traditions, would not have been inspired to be written down by Peter for inclusion in the Bible? He had time on his hands, he delegated jobs to others, according to your post. It just seems that something as important as basing an ENTIRE religion around would have been uppermost to get down in the Bible. As part of the inspired Word of God. For all to see, in ONE Book. It just doesn’t seem likely that God would have had all this information that He wanted to give to the Church and not give it to His first pope..

St. Peter, when writing his letters was probably not concerned with the Bible. The New testament didn't even exist at this point. We also don't know if there were other letters written by him that did not survive. It is also possible that Peter was not aware of his own destiny or that of the faith he and the other Apostles were preaching. It appears that most of the Apostles and disciples believed that Jesus would return during their lifetimes. How could they have possibly known what the future would bring?

The Catholic church is not based entirely around St. Peter. That is a wrong understanding of the significance of him and the church. Our faith, our religion is based on Jesus as the founder and head of the one body that is the church. It is based upon His life, death and resurrection as the Paschal Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Church is the teacher, defender and keeper of that faith.

As with the doctrine of the Trinity full knowledge comes with time and theology and exegesis. The New Testament was written as two distinct parts. The Gospels and the Epistles. The Gospels are the story of Jesus. The Epistles the story of Christians. The Gospels were written so that we might know Jesus and thus be saved. The Epistles written so that we might know how to live as Christians. Debate was evident from the first (e.g. should the Gospel be preached to gentiles, and if so, should the gentiles have to undergo circumcision? Were all the laws of kosher eating now abolished or were they still to be observed?)

Do you think that knowing that His words would be so misunderstood regarding the Eucharist, Jesus might have thought it important to further explain in the Gospel of John that He did not mean what it seems He meant, but that the partaking of His Body and Blood under the guise of bread and wine was merely symbolic? Didn't He have a few minutes to clarify?

And, if you never knew Rome claimed semi-Pelagian free will (taken up by Jacobus Arminius in the 16th century), it might imply you have been under the impression they thought it was God, all along. They do not. Your perspective would have been more scriptural, but Rome does not agree with you.

They taught me that in Seminary. I found out they were wrong.

You guys have your mysteries; we have ours.
And poverty of theological language and analogy is no virtue. Some are wedded to a zero sum, either/or view. and in SOME respects that is quite right. Others also see a Both/And, shaken down, pressed together, running over universe.

I know I have said here that my Papal motto is going to be, "But wait! There's MORE!" (And when a wag read that he responded, "NOW how much would you pray?")

In my parish our current crop of Dominicans (except my favorite guy who claims no theological ability and says God made him a Dominican as a kind of joke) are all pedal-to-the-metal Aquinas groupies.

I say to each of them, "It's ALL grace! It's ALL from God! My will, by merit (assuming counter-intuitively that I ever have any) ALL from God, right?" They all say, "Yes." So I read Aquinas myself, but that was long ago.

"Free will" is a mystery. EXCEPT that, as Paul saith, "For freedom Christ has made you free!" I take that to mean that Christ calls me INTO freedom, just as the answer to a tricky problem is experienced as what it is, a gift. I still "work" the answer, but every step if a gift.

Maybe writing a poem is a better instance. I suffer in my rare and trashy sonnets. But every line is not a creation as much as a self-disclosing discovery, even when I'm writing bagatelles.

The will and merit we assert is not the polytheistic or Manichean or, at the least worst, Nominalist freedom which your side derogates. The Will, the work, the merit, the reward are all subsumed under the big heading, "Grace."

HE that getteth this not, getteth neither the Gospel, nor what it is to be human, nor the Catholic Church, IMHO.

I'll stipulate the first two are needlessly controversial, but I'll take my stand on the last.

One reason our 'holy people' practice poverty to as an eschatological sign, a prophetic sign, if you will allow it, of radical dependence on God for 'every good gift.'

YES I know a lot of Catholics don't say this right. No matter.

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