It Came From The Roman Church: Catholic horror stories told by Evangelicals & how to respond

This Rock/ Catholic Answers via Petersnet ^ | David Mills

[sitetest]

Dear Starwind,

Yes.

sitetest

[Polycarp]

But to conclude that the Catholics I know left Catholicism for the reasons you stated is presumptuous.

From my Catholic perspective, the vast majority of Catholics who leave do so because 1)they never really knew the faith, and 2)thus they were easily deceived by others regarding the faith, or 3)left the faith for an easy or 4)more emotionalism-filled experience, or were 5)divorced or in some other irregularity regarding the faith.

Few leave Catholicism knowing the faith well but purely because they think the doctrines of Catholicism are wrong, but 1 through 5 above will generally insist this to be the case none-the-less to rationalize or assuage guilt.

Just IMHO.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Thank you for the very nice response. I was actually just warding off all the arguments that I get hurled at me. You and one other poster that I have dealt with, and it has been quite a few, are the only two that have come out and said plain that the catholic schools are pitiful at teaching their own faith. If more of the catholics recognized that fact it might be able to be fixed. Good Luck.

Becky

[Salvation]

I am a trained RCIA facilitator, and I know how easily and frequently RCIA classes can be derailed into liberal and deconstructionist paths.

Wow! I am in awe of all of you who lead those wanting to learn about the Catholic Church through RCIA. God bless you!

[drstevej]

***Few leave Catholicism knowing the faith well but purely because they think the doctrines of Catholicism are wrong***

I could come up with six names fairly easily. And the people I am thinking about do not feel guilt over their decision -- there is peace, joy and dedicated service to the Lord.

Our perspectives are vastly different -- conflicting humble opinions. I do appreciate your responses.

drj

[Evangelium Vitae]

Thank you for the very nice response. I was actually just warding off all the arguments that I get hurled at me. You and one other poster that I have dealt with, and it has been quite a few, are the only two that have come out and said plain that the catholic schools are pitiful at teaching their own faith. If more of the catholics recognized that fact it might be able to be fixed. Good Luck.

The catechetical intellegensia, which has left nearly two generations of Catholic uneducated, is dug in pretty deep. They are the root of the problem. With the intoduction of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church in the early 90's, orthodoxy shall prevail in the end. It will still take a while to uproot the freakshows.

[Polycarp]

Our perspectives are vastly different -- conflicting humble opinions. I do appreciate your responses.

You too, DrSteve. God Bless you. (And who you trying to kid? We both know my opinions are rarely really humble ;-)

--Still Proud2bRC

[drstevej]

Around our house we have a term "UTB" which stands for Universal Taste Bud. A UTB believes everyone ought to agree with his tastes, preferences and ideas.

1-UTB-2-Another :-)

[redhead]

"Thank you for the very nice response. I was actually just warding off all the arguments that I get hurled at me. You and one other poster that I have dealt with, and it has been quite a few, are the only two that have come out and said plain that the catholic schools are pitiful at teaching their own faith. If more of the catholics recognized that fact it might be able to be fixed. Good Luck.
Becky"

LOL! Thanks, but I know the truth about the sorry state of "Catholic" education. The little town I live in has a "Catholic" school with grades up to 8th. They have to have an EVENING catechism class because faith formation is not taught in their "Catholic" school. In place of SCIENCE, they are taught to venerate the earth.

In my own parish in a different town, the catechism classes are just pitiful. The teachers are sweet women and good men, but they are all products of their own failed Catholic educations, and can't be expected to pass on a Faith they scarcely understand. This wouldn't be TOO much of a problem if it was just a parish here and a parish there that was weak. But the modernizers have been undermining the faith for the last 30 years at least, and the first place these inroads appear is in the books that are pushed on the children in the CCD classes (CCD means "Continuing Christian Development" Talk about buzzwords...!). Glossy pages covered with color photos take the place of books filled with questions and answers.

Most of the older posters on these threads remember the old Baltimore Catechism in one form or another. We learned the Faith by rote, but by golly, we LEARNED it!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

And of course the Catholic life is a difficult one to live and some people do not want to try. My wife works a few hours a week in the nursery of a budding megachurch nearby, and several of the other women she works with were once Catholics. They have all told her they left the Church because they "found Jesus" elsewhere. I suggested she look them in the eye and say, "You're using contraception, aren't you?"

The trouble with using this kind of argument on Modern Evangelicals is, you'd likely get no answer but a slap in the face.

Admittedly playing "martyr" for a second... I know from personal experience that -- to offer one example -- if one suggests to the average "Social Gospel" Modern Evangelical that the Government Schooling system is foundationally predicated upon a violation of the Eighth Commandment ("Thou Shalt Not Steal"), the adversarial reaction from the pseduo-christian "brother" or "sister" to whom you present this argument is going to be intensely personal and vitriolic.

(Meanwhile, I am confident that I could suggest to you that maybe just maybe a System which was instituted for the express purpose of De-Catholicizing romanist children, or financially penalizing their parents by forcing them to pay taxes for explicitly anti-romanist "public schools", might in fact be predicated upon Theft -- and you'll at least give my Theonomic ruminations a fair hearing and thoughtful consideration).

If "Social Gospel" Modern Evangelicals would react so violently against simply proposing the direct application of the Ten Commandments to the open courts of their school boardrooms, just how open-minded do you think that they would be towards a confrontational argument to apply an indirect extension of the Ten Commandments (the anti-contraceptive argument) to the privacy of their marital bedrooms?

You might get your teeth knocked out, that's how "open-minded" they would be.

I'll mention as a side-note, before I am accused of "praising Rome", that I rather suspect most Modern Romanists would be every bit as adversarial in their response to the question "You're using contraception, aren't you?" as the Modern Protestant, and the statistics would suggest no difference whatsoever on the actual widespread usage of contraception.

It is almost as if you and I are off in a corner-room somewhere, arguing a heated dispute over the nature of Christian Authority; meanwhile, outside the corner-room, the Anti-Nomists of both "traditions" rage, admitting of no authority at all save their own vain imaginations. Deep down, Anti-Nomist Romanists don't really care if you "win" the point that Rome is the Authority, they have no intention of obeying the Canon Laws of Rome anyway; and deep down, Anti-Nomist Protestants don't really care if I "win" the point that the Bible is the Authority, as they have no intention of obeying the Theonomic Laws of the Bible, either.

If I were sufficiently Graced to be able to "win" my argument by hammering through to you first thing tomorrow morning that James (and not Peter) is clearly recognized in Biblical and Traditional citations as the "Synod President" of the early Church's ruling Jerusalem Council... it would not matter a hill of beans. To the heart of the Anti-Nomist Modern "christian", the proper identification of Christian Authority is almost a silly argument, only of concern to those who are stuck 500 years in the past. They are modern "Christians", and have neither desire nor willingness to submit to Christian Authority at all.

I suggested she look them in the eye and say, "You're using contraception, aren't you?"

(OP snorts derisively) yeah, right. If Jesus Himself employed His own typically-confrontational communication style to rebuke any "modern christian", Roman or Protestant, about their Apostasies against the law of God...

...they'd probably crucify Him.

[Polycarp]

Most of the older posters on these threads remember the old Baltimore Catechism in one form or another. We learned the Faith by rote, but by golly, we LEARNED it!

Count your blessings! Us post-Vatican II brats had to learn it all on our own. I'm 36. Everything I know now I've learned only in the last 11 years.

Of course, we're homeschooling. My kids are going to get the gift that was withheld from me: Real Catechesis!

[sitetest]

Dear OrthodoxPresbyterian,

LOL. That was amusing and to the point.

Thanks,

sitetest

[Matchett-PI]

CG: "...and I've heard every one of them.."

Even this one?:

"Daniel Rambaut, of Vilario, the father of a numerous family, was apprehended, and, with several others, committed to prison, in the jail of Paysana. Here he was visited by several priests, who with continual importunities did all they could to persuade him to renounce the Protestant religion and turn papist; but this he peremptorily refused, and the priests finding his resolution, pretended to pity his numerous family, and told him that he might yet have his life, if he would subscribe to the belief of the following articles:

1. The real presence of the host.
2. Transubstantiation.
3. Purgatory.
4. The pope's infallibility.
5. That masses said for the dead will release souls from purgatory.
6. That praying to saints will procure the remission of sins.

M. Rambaut told the priests that neither his religion, his understanding, nor his conscience, would suffer him to subscribe to any of the articles, for the following reasons:

1. That to believe the real presence in the host, is a shocking union of both blasphemy and idolatry.

2. That to fancy the words of consecration perform what the papists call transubstantiation, by converting the wafer and wine into the real and identical body and blood of Christ, which was crucified, and which afterward ascended into heaven, is too gross an absurdity for even a child to believe, who was come to the least glimmering of reason; and that nothing but the most blind superstition could make the Roman Catholics put a confidence in anything so completely ridiculous.

3. That the doctrine of purgatory was more inconsistent and absurd than a fairy tale.

4. That the pope's being infallible was an impossibility, and the pope arrogantly laid claim to what could belong to God only, as a perfect being.

5. That saying Masses for the dead was ridiculous, and only meant to keep up a belief in the fable of purgatory, as the fate of all is finally decided, on the departure of the soul from the body.

6. That praying to saints for the remission of sins is misplacing adoration; as the saints themselves have occasion for an intercessor in Christ. Therefore, as God only can pardon our errors, we ought to sue to him alone for pardon.

The priests were so highly offended at M. Rambaut's answers to the articles to which they would have had him subscribe, that they determined to shake his resolution by the most cruel method imaginable:

they ordered one joint of his finger to be cut off every day until all his fingers were gone: they then proceeded in the same manner with his toes; afterward they alternately cut off, daily, a hand and a foot; but finding that he bore his sufferings with the most admirable patience, increased both in fortitude and resignation, and maintained his faith with steadfast resolution and unshaken constancy they stabbed him to the heart, and then gave his body to be devoured by the dogs." [end excerpt]

FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS CHAPTER VI
Persecutions Under the Papacy
http://www.webwriterscanada.com/anewyou/fbm/ch6_fbm.htm

Such religious tyranny could easily happen again, since the Roman Church has to this very day never retracted its official denial of religious freedom and its right to use violence to force people to accept its doctrines.

The only thing standing in the way of tyrants in America is our Constitution.

[Lady In Blue]

Why don't you buy or get from your local library books,tapes,videos by authentic Catholic writers who teaches what the Church believes.Start with the Fathers of the Church and "The History of the Church" by Eusebius and also "The Didache-Teaching of Jesus Through the Apostles." You will find in all of those sources, proof that the Catholic Church is the one founded by Jesus Christ and you won't find a Baptist,Evangelical,Anglican,Presbyterian among them!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Dear OrthodoxPresbyterian, LOL. That was amusing and to the point. Thanks, sitetest

My pleasure. I aim to please... and to offend. ;-)

[Matchett-PI]

"Or Else" Ways to Evangelize

[Polycarp]

This reads like a great paradox! If I read you right, it sounds like, although we stand apart, on either side of a great divide, we really are only separated by a small trickle of a tributary of the mighty river that separates us BOTH from those modernist Christians on the other side of a grand canyon? And the river they will not cross to us is essentially the river of obedience to the foundational authority of our Creator God.

(Of course, its late, and I might not be reading you right. And I have bluntly asked fellow Catholics if they are contracepting. And I have successfully gotten a few of them to come over to the culture of life side of the canyon you and I inhabit.)

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Why don't you just pick up the bible and trust God to teach you instead of man.

Becky

[Polycarp]

Shoot. The rest of us were having fun. I thought you left.

[Polycarp]

By the way, good to hear from you, OP. (Now I actually smile when I see you join the fray.)