Wow - that guy had no idea what he was getting himself in to hitting up Jimmy Akin!  :-)

I think we don’t do it because, as you said, it’s scary and uncomfortable, and we don’t have anybody encouraging us to overcome that and do it anyway. And we don’t have anybody reminding us of its importance or showing us an example of it.

On the other hand, I think also that many of us, including myself, suspect it may not be ultimately that effective at bringing about real, lasting conversion. And that a more effective tool, albeit a less immediately satisfying one from an evangelical perspective, is to start out by truly building a relationship with the person first and then moving on to real conversion by our own example and making the most of the opportunities that the Holy Spirit gives us along the way.

But that could just be a convenient excuse for avoiding the discomfort.

I look forward to hearing your followup post!

I don’t think it’s a matter of courage or fear. I really think that Catholic teaching expresses a personal relationship that is life altering, both interiorly and exteriorly. We witness by the way we believe, the things we will and will not do, our behavior toward others and the signs and symbols we wear that indicate our Catholicism. When we are asked about our faith, we have “reason for the hope that it is in us.” (Cf. 1 Peter 3:15)

The “accept Jesus as Lord and Savior or you’re going to hell” approach is often off putting. But, living a Christian life that encourages others to ask, “How do you do that, suffer that, live with such joy?” is the door that opens the conversation with others about Catholicism and sharing the love of Christ.

As am member of the Legion of Mary that is one of the things we do….evangleize, and yes, it is scary! Going out in twos helps. We visit those who have been away from the Church, people who need marriages validated, families who’s children have not been baptized. We bring Christ to the lonley, forgotten, aged. It is a humbling and blessed experience.
It is something we are all called to do, all the laity,to bring Christ to our neighbors.

Hmmm…

I am a chicken, but I think it’s more than that.  I teach theology and don’t have a problem evangelizing (i.e. witnessing :-p) to a group, as you said, but when it comes to individuals…

I fear their rejection.  I know that’s silly; being rejected just means I’m presenting Christ, who was also rejected.

I fear being a poor evangelist and driving people further away.

I fear reading something into this or that person’s situation which isn’t true and might offend them.

I fear offending people in general.

Why is that?  I’m not sure.  I suppose it’s possible that the Catholic Church in America has not focused on personal evangelization for a few reasons: until relatively recently, most lay people were relatively uneducated and many were even illiterate; they were living in the Catholic ghettos; they felt the need to be assimilated into the broader community.

At the core of it, though, I think the real reason is that many Catholics don’t have the Christian joy that propels one outside of one’s own comfort zone.  Those who do have joy might hesitate because they don’t know how to engage in that conversation (sometimes, in a very small window of time).  Pgs. 54-55 of Pope Benedict XVI’s new book are helpful: “Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity - in which we are all separated from one another and ultimately impenetrable to one another - into an infinite otherness.  ‘Love to the end’ is what brings about the seemingly impossible metabasis: stepping outside the limits of one’s closed individuality, which is what agape is - breaking through into the divine.”

How little agape do I have?  How little joy?  How much lukewarmness?

I don’t know ... is walking up to someone and asking them if they’re saved really evangelizing?  Is that what Benedict did in the UK?  My slant on this is that Benedict spent several days as a representative of the Church, of the Faith.  He made the Sacraments available to the people, he educated, he beatified, he declared who he was: Peter’s successor, in Westminster Hall.  He did the things of the Church.

My impression is that Catholic missionaries spread the Faith throughout the centuries by building churches, building hospitals, building schools and universities, healing the sick, preaching, giving the Sacraments.  They didn’t convert whole nations by confronting them with the “Do you know Jesus” question.

Sorry if this offends anyone.  I was a lifelong Protestant and am a recent Catholic convert.  I have enormous respect for the work of the Catholic Church.

I also am a former evangelical who used to canvas the neighborhood looking for souls to win. Since I have become Catholic four years ago, I no longer do this. My reason for not doing it is the same reason that I think most Catholics don’t. I don’t feel that I am ready.

Catholics often are well-versed in theology, but I know 8 year old Baptist kids who know more of the Bible than a lot of Catholics. And to witness in this way to an evangelical requires you to have a lot of Bible knowledge.

As Catholics we don’t do it because we don’t believe that one is saved forever by making a split second decision to say the “Sinner’s Prayer.”

Evangelical Joe Carter listed the “Do you know Jesus as…” approach as a “Deadly Trapping of Evangelism.” (http://silouanthompson.net/2010/06/ten-deadly-trappings-of-evangelism/)

“This is one question that needs never be asked for it shows (a) you do not know the person well enough, (b) the answer is yes and the person is a lousy Christian, or (c) the answer is no in which case you just activated their Fundie-alert system and caused them to switch their brains into ignore mode. Instead of asking about a “personal savior” you might want to simply try to get to know the person.”

I agree with Joe. We do need to get to know people and be holy examples for them. The problem there is that is intimidating, right?

We do need to do more to spread the gospel though. People are seeking. We should be where they are. For example, I see other groups who have booths at local festivals to be available for people. Their presence alone prompts conversations. I don’t see Catholics there though. We should be.

Interesting article and interesting comments.

My comment is a bit off topic, but I just wanted to say how thrilled I was to read the views of several Evangelicals or other Protestants who have converted to the Holy Catholic Church. I was reasied Evangelical and my father was a pastor. I attended Hillsong Church in Australia for many years before converting to Catholicism. I actually haven’t ever met any others so it was nice to hear from you guys.

May the peace of G-D be with you all.

While we don’t believe in Once Saved Always Saved by a Sinner’s Prayer at One Moment in My Otherwise Sinful and Hedonistic Life theology, we still need to evangelize those around us, but while evangelicals do that through going up to strangers and trying to get them to say the sinner’s prayer and welcome Jesus into their hearts, we do it by a long, personal relationship with those around us, wherein we build up devotion to Christ in our own circles.  While this might mean that it might not be wise to approach the guy on the corner, tell him the shortest explanation of the Gospel known to man, and ask him to pray with you, it also doesn’t mean that we should avoid making friends out of strangers and drawing them closer to Christ through a prolonged friendship.

We’ve had some fascinating conversations on this topic recently over at Intentional
Disciples.  Through that and our national work in evangelization, we are learning that the subtle but powerful pressure of Catholic lay culture against speaking up is a major factor (this took me by surprise!)  When Catholics start hanging around the evangelical world, all of a sudden the communal culture around them changes and strongly encourages them to share their faith with others.  And of a sudden, the very same person who a couple years earlier was mute, is now able to talk about it freely.  Here’s the classic reasons we’ve heard over the years.

“Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep him for themselves, they must proclaim him.” Novo Millennio Ineunte, 40

Sherry’s question:  Does this statement of Pope John Paul II mean that if we have no desire to proclaim Christ, that we haven’t yet experienced “genuine contact”?  Or are there other dynamics at work?

Answer 1:  Silence runs deep
Many lay Catholics have a profound but hidden and almost completely non-verbal spiritual life.  (And a common corollary, people who talk easily and a lot about their faith are shallow, e.g. like Protestants)

Answer 2: St. Francis said “Preach the Gospel always.  If necessary, use words.”
Lay Catholics preach effectively without words through their lives of faithfulness, honesty, and acts of compassion and justice.

Answer 3:  Nobody here but us Carmelites.
Some of us are gifted to pray, not talk.  It is just as powerful a witness (and really more profound) to pray in a hidden place where no one sees you.

Answer 4:  The English made us do it.
The Irish experience of oppression by the English Protestants made Irish immigrants to the US reluctant to talk about their faith.  And the prejudice they experienced as immigrants just reinforced that.  Our history is our destiny.

Answer 5:  We are powerless to do anything because of resistance and lack of support by priests
Everytime I try to start something, Father shuts it down or refuses to support it.  What can a lay person do?

And something new that has emerged out of our conversation:
Answer 6:  I’m afraid of the reactions of other Catholics.  Other Catholics will get uncomfortable or mad if I talk about my faith.

“I know Catholics with hidden spiritual lives. Some of them I knew for 5 or 10 years and it wasn’t until after I converted that I found out they had any personal spiritual lives.

When I ask, why don’t you talk about this with anyone, they don’t say anything about priests shutting them down.  They say they are worried about looking weird in front of Catholic family and friends, or worried about bad reactions from other lay people who are involved in parish ministries. Adults in their early 30s, raised Catholic, tell me that their parents would not understand. I think their fears are well founded in some cases.”

“Preach the Gospel always, and sometimes use words.” Having been an Evangelical myself, I think it was understood that unless you were going out and doing something like what this gentleman did, you’re not actually evangelizing. There was a bit of a disconnect between preaching the good news of the Gospel simply living the Gospel in your own life and then maintaining an awareness of when it is the right timing to share the faith verbally. At least, that is what I gather from my own experience.

“Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words if necessary.”  This quote, while not specifically spoken by St. Francis though, in spirit, attributed to him, is precisely the reason why I personally don’t do “one-on-one” evangelization like you describe.  Like a previous poster, I have little belief that a session of “sidewalk counseling” to a total stranger will have a permanent, lasting, positive effect on someone’s relationship with Jesus.  I do believe, however, that how I *live* is an infinitely more effective witness than my ability to engage in apologetics (which is lacking, at best).  But this also means that I have the responsibility (as we all do) to *know* our faith, and to *grow* in faith, and, as such, *live* our faith as manifested in our treatment of our neighbors and our enemies.  Those who have the light of Christ within them will shine like a beacon, attracting those who are desperately searching for the “peace which the world cannot give.”  Then, when someone asks for “the reason for our hope,” we can joyfully provide it—and that, I believe, will carry a much more profound weight with the seeker in question.

Thank you, St. Bart, for that wonderful demonstration on how not to evangelize! I very much enjoyed your use of parody and satire. :)

Just wondering if you initiate evangelism to total strangers, Jimmy. I know that you evangelize through Catholic Answers, but isn’t it people coming to you most of the time? Did you use to initiate and evangelize total strangers when you were a Protestant? Thanks. Wish I had your knowledge of the Catholic faith!

Here’s a corollary question: do Evangelicals do this everywhere, or is it a Southern thing? Southerners, at least traditionally, tend to be gregarious, as well as somewhat nosy, and so a willingness to go talk to people about God could merely be part of a general willingness to go talk to people about anything. Thus, it could be that if the South had been populated by Catholics—-as in all fairness it should have been—-perhaps this sort of thing would be more common.

Of course, one can think of countervailing arguments particular to Evangelical protestants, such as :

1. Insistence on a particularly “personal relationship” with Christ;
2. The belief of once-saved-always-saved: if you can convince your neighbor just once to accept God into his heart, well that’s it. So that one-off conversation can be wildly efficacious in their view.

Urban legend alert!

“Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words if necessary.”

Not only did St. Francis NEVER say it, it is not in his spirit at all or in the spirit of his order.  The Franciscans were the great mendicant preachers and missionaries (along with the Dominicans) of their day.  To portray them as only talking when absolutely necessary is completely ahistorical.

It seems to be a bizarre morphing of historical memory.  The 1221 Franciscan constitution urged friars to ALSO witness by their lives WHILE they were out preaching.  Somehow that evolved into the mantra above which seems to be the only thing that most Catholics have ever heard about evangelization. 

The cliche has no basis in historical fact and the spirit is entirely contrary to the spirit and mission of St. Francis and the teaching of the Church.  What is the true spirit of St. Francis and the Church?

“Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep him for themselves, they must proclaim him.” Novo Millennio Ineunte, 40

A couple of things come to mind:

While I have, at various times, been approached by Evangelicals trying to save my soul, I have at other times been a sitting duck…manning my Catholic book table at various public events, where there are also tables manned by various evangelical groups…and they aren’t manning alone, as I usually am.  Not one of them ever came by my table to critique my offerings or my spirituality.  Maybe we overestimate their courage?

Also, we are called to different things.  I can and will, willingly, stand up in front of a crowd and talk about a great number of “Catholic” topics.  I don’t go door to door.  If someone comes to my book table and asks questions about Catholicism, I will do my best to engage the person.  But I don’t circulate a crowd and pull them in.

It’s not my job.  At least I haven’t been informed, if it IS my job.  My job is to be a good wife and mother.  That keeps me busy evangelizing my family.

I want to start doing this. More precisely, I am convinced that I am being called to start doing this! But I don’t know how. I’m working on that. Sherry gave some GREAT reasons why you don’t see Catholics doing this. She hit the points that I intuitively believe are obstacles. But let me put these points in my own words:
.
**ONE, we are not encouraged by our spiritual leaders to do this. At ALL. I cannot recall ever having been urged by a priest, instructor, etc. to develop a “30-second testimony” or to learn how to work the gospel into a conversation. I also have not been able to find (so far) an apostolate for this kind of work, with the exception of the Catholic Evidence Guild, whose nearest chapter is thousands of miles away from me.
.
**TWO, Catholic lay culture subtly discourages this kind of evangelization. I think it’s because we fear looking like Evangelical Protestants, just as most Protestants avoid talking about the Virgin Mary for fear of looking like Catholics.
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**THREE, secular culture isn’t helping either; the “proselytizer” seems to be considered a species of scum roughly equivalent to the homeless beggar and the unabashed racist. It’s referred to as “pushing your beliefs on others” and is a capital cultural crime. Without encouragement from other members of the Body of Christ, this situation is a lot to overcome.
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**FOUR, particularly in the U.S., anti-Catholicism. People sometimes sort of shut down or get frosty if you admit to being a Catholic on purpose. It’s okay to call yourself raised Catholic, a lapsed Catholic, a “recovering” Catholic, and at a stretch, even a cafeteria Catholic, but the practicing Catholic—especially the *enthusiastic* practicing Cathoic—can be seen as some sort of unholy combination of extreme fundamentalist and mindless pope-a-tron who wants to take away everyone’s freedom from the oppression of the papacy.
.
**FIVE, that confounded aphorism about preaching the gospel always, but using words only if necessary. Many Catholics latch onto it as an excuse to keep silent—after all, they’re nice people, so they’re preaching without words! Good enough, right!? The second part of the quote gets overlooked. Living the gospel is indispensible in evangelization, but words are necessary a whole lot more often than many Catholics think.
~ ~ ~
Also… I am not at all sure that this is a practice *common* among Evangelicals. Or that those who do it, do it very often. There are some who are committed to it, who indeed may have been called to it, but others who quail for many of the same reasons Catholics do.

Titus:

Evangelicals tend to do it everywhere cause actively looking to share one’s faith verbally with others is a deep part of the overall culture.  I’ve lived in Mississippi and Seattle and Colorado Springs and Indiana and the same impulse is everywhere.

It’s tougher going in places like Seattle where the non-Christian culture is openly hostile and more easily done in places like the deep south where faith is welcomed in the public sphere.  But the intra-evangelical culture supports and encourages your to do verbal witnessing in whatever place you find yourself.

It has already been said by others, but there is a fundamental difference between protestant and Catholic missiology. Catholic evangelization is a life-long process grounded in individual relationships, not a momentary encounter where you leave the newly made “convert” to fend for himself. Even Nostra Aetate is conservative in terms of the timeline it might take to make meaningful conversions. This runs counter to the sort of “instant gratification,” feel good approach of evangelicals. Furthermore, Catholic missiology emphasizes conversion to a person—- Jesus Christ—not a proposition (Sinner’s Prayer) or a text (the idiosyncratic evangelical Scriptural hermeneutic).

PS.  The Pew Forum has done some huge recent studies that included how frequently people of various faith traditions were likely to talk about their faith with others.  (Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.)  Not surprisingly evangelicals were at least 20 points ahead of us in this area.

In fact, American Catholics are less likely to talk about God or faith with others than US atheists!

I think that Faith on the HighWire hit it right on the nail.  I believe we as Catholics should “preach by practice”, or as Saint Francis of Assisi said:  “Preach the gospel at all times—If necessary, use words.”

I am a cradle and confirmed Catholic with 12 years of Catholic education and always A+ in religion class but it wasn’t until I was a freshman in College and two evangelical students “shared the good news” that I asked Jesus to come into my heart so that I might know him personally and be the Lord of all aspects of my life. Even with 12 years of Catholic schooling I knew the Cathechism and Church rules but I didn’t know Jesus wanted to have a daily, minute by minute relationship with me. I didn’t realize that to experience forgiveness for my mistakes and sins was only a prayer away rather than having to wait for the 30 minutes on a Saturday afternoon when the Church decided to be open. And for the first time all the teachings I’d received for 12 years of my life helped me understand that it’s faith in Jesus and his atoning work on the cross is the source of my “salvation” not faith in a Church.

So unlike many Catholic kids of my generation (this was the mid 70’s) I didn’t fall by the wayside and be drawn away from the beauty, joy and love that is found only in the Lord. I became an evangelical Christian sharing my faith aggressively just like the author’s neighbor’s father-in-law. I shared the Gospel because it IS the Good News of liberty, forgiveness and new life. But I soon became very uneasy about the aggressiveness in many evangelical churches. Why? Because I know that many Catholic’s are truly Christian, converted, and in love with Jesus also even though they may not explain their faith beliefs in the same way. BTW I love the way the author translates from evangelicaleze to Catholiceze. AND I felt what I was doing was a bit un-natural in that Jesus’ own evangelical style was “friendship evangelism”.  He developed friendships of trust; he listened FIRST to those he befriended; and his friendship didn’t end with them praying a “prayer of salvation.” In other words he discipled those he brought salvatin to and the Apostles did the same. And although I wait with very joyful hope of Jesus imminent return and I say along with every other Holy Spirit filled Christian- Maranantha! Come Lord Jesus come! But I realize that the concept of rapture and pre-millenial, post-millenial etc… are as manmade and unimportant as medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The scriptures are clear that we are to live as those wise virgins in the parable with our lamps always full of oil and actively waiting for the return of the bridegroom. And we are to expect trials and tribulations in this life. If the early Christians had to go through times of intense persecution and so do so many Christians all over the world i.e., Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, China then we certainly should expect that in the “end times” we cushy, fat and complacent Christians will also have a time of intense persecution too - not some easy bake oven rapture.

As you can infer, I returned to the Catholic Church and learned that there were actually evangelical Catholics who actively shared their faith, invited non-Catholic to spiritual events and witnessed of their living relationships with Jesus. And young adults in the Catholic Church don’t have to feel lost or disconnected as I did- they have young adult Catholic groups, World Youth Day and its surrounding activities, college evangelical groups, orthodox Catholic TV and Catgholic youtube sites.  The new evangelism and time of spiritual outpouring that Blessed John Paul II prophetically described is blooming even now.

In other words I don’t at all think Catholics are chicken about our faith. But we are not pushy or bruising or breaking the reed. True evangelism also includes acts of charity, loving kindness, friendship, listening to others especially if their faith beliefs are different.

Most of all what what drew me back to my Catholic roots was not not dogma, or a rejection of evangelical beliefs (I love evangelical believers)or a cultural identification (as an African-American in a European dominant Catholic Church in the USA it’s difficult to identify culturally) but what drew me was the absolute truth of the Holy Eucharist. The real presence of Jesus in the Liturgy of the Eucharist is absolutely necessary to live and walk a truly Christian life.  I can not live without the Eucharist. As St. Peter said to Jesus, “you alone have the words of life;” the Holy Eucharist alone gives me the bread of life- the grace and Holy Spirit indwelling to be bold in the joy of salvation.

Any boldness or power to evangelize outside of eating His Body and drinking His Blood and living a life of sacrificial love for those whom He loves is nothing to envy.

I also grew up evangelical. I have heard hundreds of conversion stories of evangelicals. Not one of those stories has been along the lines of, “I was walking down the street and someone asked me if I new Jesus as my personal savior. He convinced me right there so I accepted Jesus.”

It just doesn’t work that way. In an extremely rare case where a street corner preacher elicits a spot conversion, those are generally false conversions, or temporary conversions at best.

I did know people who converted. Those conversions were always a process, not a snap decision.

A couple of thoughts:

Regarding the question in the article, I wonder if another factor may be that, as Catholics, we do not believe that you HAVE to be Catholic in order to get to Heaven, that God can judge someone’s actions according to the Law planted in his heart and allow them into Heaven anyway.  When I was younger, this led to the thought “Why evangelize if they can get to Heaven anyway?”  Since many Protestants think that you MUST accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior (even those who have never heard of Him), there may be a greater sense of urgency.

Also, I think people use “Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words if necessary.” (or however it is paraphrased :-) as an excuse.  This saying does not say to NEVER use words, but that we are to try to live a holy life.  When I was engaged, many people assumed my fiance and I were living together.  So just living my life according to the Gospel did not witness to them.  I had to speak to them about the truth that we were not and our reasons why.  The saying is clever, but many times mis-used.

@St. Bart, do you realize you just used the same argument that atheists use for believers: What 21st century educated person believes in a non-seeable, non-touchable, non-hearable being simply because a book talks about it?  Only a brain-damaged, nit-wit, superstitious, sermon listening Protestant.  You may want to consider praying before you make comments.

Jimmy - the big question in my mind regarding this type of frontal assualt evangilism is its effectivness.  I have tried the blunt approach a time or two and I have to tell ya, I don’t believe it was very effective…...but again maybe thats due to my evangilization skills or lack thereof….

Having seen it in person, I’m not sure that stranger to stranger evangelization really works.  Once upon a time, when the culture was different, street corner preachers were more effective.  People heard messages about hell and damnation and really listened to it.  Nowadays, the “street corner” preachers on my campus mostly just get an audience who wants to rile them up.
I’ve heard it said that the best way to evangelize is to form a relationship with someone.  I really think this is true.  My friends ask me things about the Catholic faith, and as an amateur apologist I’m more than ready and willing to answer.  They know me well enough to know that I’m going to take the question seriously and give a thought-out answer, and I’m not going to condemn them or call them a blasphemer or something like that.
I’ve told God in prayer before to move the hearts of my friends who don’t know Him, and to use me if that’s what He wants to do, but He’d better make it pretty clear that’s what He wants me to do!  And in the past several months, one friend in particular who is a former Catholic has responded to several topics I’ve posted on my facebook, and it’s pretty plain to see that her past experiences with the Church have been very painful.  Is God using me (among other methods) to soften her heart a bit?  Maybe so, it’s intimidating to be used as His tool sometimes!
But I really don’t think door to door evangelizing is the only way to do it.  I’ve met a lot of wonderful people on facebook, for instance, where I do a lot of apologetics.  I’ve been able to talk to a wide range of people - fellow apologists, converts, people thinking about converting, cradle Catholics who need to be evangelized, anti-Catholics, the works.  I recently got to strike up a conversation with a man from Zimbabwe who was looking to explain Church teachings to his Protestant friends.  I even sponsored a girl I met on one of the Catholic groups on facebook through RCIA when she moved to my college campus, and let me tell you, that was an adventure!
For those who are afraid to do things in person, maybe you can consider heeding the call of Pope Benedict XVI to use new social media outlets to spread a new evangelization!  You might be surprised where it can take you!

Would a Catholic in ancient Rome during the persecutions have evangelized on the street? I wouldn’t think so, unless he were ready to gain the red crown.

Catholicism is persecuted in the U.S., but it is now mainly done in a ‘nice’ way. Things were not so nice in various parts of Europe during the 20th century. The Catholic worldview is slowly and surely being marginalized.

For this reason many would not want to stick their neck out.

It has always been my understanding from reading the Scriptures that we are to witness with our lives. As one of the comments stated, going up to a stranger and asking, “Are you saved”, does immediately set off their “fundie alert” and puts them in a defensive mode. I have always found that it is much better to cultivate a friendship and let the person witness Christianity by our example. This often allows the other person to feel at ease in asking us about Christ and the Church, rather than our cramming it down their throats at the drop of a hat. I have had numerous people inquire about the Catholic faith because of my example. A very effective way to encourage dialog is by making the sign of the cross and praying before a meal, or praying the Rosary quietly, even in public. If you aren’t afraid to show your Catholicism, people won’t be afraid to ask you about it. Sure, I’ve had some meatball fundies try to rescue me from my pagan religion after seeing such things, but at least it opens the door, and perhaps even the fundie’s curiosity about the Catholic faith will be piqued enough for them to ask about it with genuine interest.

Great article, Jimmy, and I look forward to part 2.

By the way, my last comment to @St. Bart was just to show how atheists can use the same argument he does.  Those are not my personal thoughts concerning Protestants ;-)

I think many Catholics believe that the average evangelical protestant knows and understands more about the bible, Jesus and how to spread the gospel, more so than the average Catholic. This may or may not be true but one thing that surprises me the most, as a Catholic, is how little many evangelical protestants: first, know about Catholicism, second, know about their own history, and third, know about Scripture! Many evangelicals I’ve come across base the whole faith on a few number of Scripture passages and never really have dealt with passages that seem to contradict their rule of faith.

I must say before going on that it was an evangelical Christian who brought me back to Christ. I later returned to Christ’s church, so I have love for my evangelical bros and sis; but we Catholics spend so much time on the defensive that we miss opportunities to ask our own questions.

When confronted with challenging passages the average Evangelical will repeat the same answers that they have been told which to Catholics don’t hold much water. This is a good time to ask them “Is this what YOU truly believe?” I cannot say how many times that answering a question with conviction THEN asking one of my own, has led average Evangelicals to request that I speak with their pastor which usually ends most conversations.

Catholics, we need to pray and study more. There are no shortcut but learning more about our evangelical brothers and sisters will make us more comfortable talking with them.
God Bless.

Robyn,  you might want to look up Aimee Milburn Cooper, who, for her thesis project developed a door-to-door Catholic evangelicalization program.  She carried it out in the hostile territory of Boulder, Colorado.  She blogs - or used to, I haven’t checked it lately - at Historical Christian.  If you’re really being called to do this kind of reaching out, she may be able to help you.

Convert them by the sword. It`s the only way to go.

Let’s say I’m having a bad morning, I’m late, some guy I don’t know comes up to me in my driveway and tries to engage me in a spiriutal discussion???  Most likely wouldn’t work for me. I’m not much of a talker, more of a hermity, in my head type. I’m not always ready at every moment to discuss my deep personal faith to a stranger.

All of us are given different gifts. Our job is to let the light of Christ shine through us. We are ALL called in our own way. I’m not called to that type of evangelizing and I don’t make myself feel guilty about it.

Dear Mr. Akin, We Catholic laymen spread the Faith through the Domestic Church, our children and then their children, etc etc. Of course we have the Mendicant Orders ect but The Catholic Faith is not a one or two line formulaic statement that can be said by various individuals which will assure salvation.

Had the guy who approached you approached me, he would have heard that I was a member of The Body of Christ and that every single word of the New Testament was written by a Catholic and that I would be happy to speak with him about what The Church has to teach about the New testament it wrote at a later time and place of his choosing.

P.S. I also think the guy was a jerk. 

He didn’t even try to form a rudimentary friendship but simply acted on his self-righteous Pride that he was saved and you prolly were not

Please ignore St. Bart. Attention is the oxygen that keeps trolls alive. If he receives no attention here he will move on

Seriously. My nation was converted by the sword from pagan practises and was almost completely ridden of paganism by the year 950 AD. It has worked like a charm and we are still a christian nation with a state church.

Unfortunately protestant these days, but given enough swords and effort, we could easily go back to Catholicism. I, ofcourse, have.

So there is no doubt. Convert by the sword. Do not let Post-Modernism influence you.
Talk is cheap. And since Atheists according to themselves have no souls and therefore nothing to loose, why worry?

Alternatively you could let them continue their Atheism, but then they will burn in Hell when they die. So converting them by the sword is a win-win situation for everyone.

Especially the Atheists. Or, you could just let them burn in Hell.
It`s up to you really.

If you think Heaven will be crowded enough as it is,
then don`t worry about it.

My favourite expression through all times, has always been
“Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.”

No other expression captures true faith quite like it.
Against political correctness, it stands the test of time.

I think maybe this same attitude is shared by many Catholics and mainstream Protestants:

The biggest question[Soul Surfer’s] producers were trying to determine was, “How do we have it come off (in a way) that is authentic to the family’s faith and doesn’t push it too far so that it appears to the viewer to be forced in?” he said. “We didn’t want it to appear we were pushing in faith…

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/12/soul-surfer-opens-after-fights-over-depicting-faith/?hpt=C2

I think we’re self conscious about “forcing” our beliefs down people’s throats—which is what we’re accused of doing even when we’re just witnessing to our faith.

St. bart - one simple phrase for you.  “God is outside time and space”.  :-)

“‘And was carried in His Own Hands: ‘how carried in His Own Hands’? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, ‘This is My Body.’” Augustine, On the Psalms, 33:1,10 (A.D. 392-418).

Wow, St. Bart, another great example of how not to evangelize! Terrific job!

Personally, when talking with Evangelicals about the Eucharist, I like to refer them to “This Is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers The Real Presence” by Mark Shea. Fantastic resource.

http://www.amazon.com/This-My-Body-Evangelical-Discovers/dp/0931888484

I’m glad that you brought this up because it’s something that is never really talked about—luckily we have this great pope that made the same observation and the Office of Evangelization is well underway! I think that we’re not pushed enough as catholics by our priests, parents and godparents to go out and evangelize, even if that is what Jesus called us all to do.
                                             
But as a happy note: times are changing. At my university (KU), the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center has this day called Red Tuesdays. Everyone wears red and shirts that say “ask me why I’m Catholic” while hanging out around the “ask a Catholic a question” table. We aren’t necessarily approaching people, but plenty of students approach us. We even inspired the Society of Open Minded Athiests and Agnostics to have their own “ask an atheist a question” table. They still don’t get as much traffic as we do.

I think it’s because Catholics tend to believe that we should live out our faith and teach by example as opposed to preaching on the street corner or the ever so confrontational approach of one-on-one witnessing.

We don’t do it because we don’t even dare to presume about our own salvation, much less joe blow coming out of the A&P… and we realize a true conversion has less to do with us and convincing arguments than it does with the Holy Spirit actively moving in someone’s life. Us Catholics usually evangelize through our good works.

I don’t know about you, but working with RCIA there is never a loss for new converts so they are hearing it some where.

@St. Albert:

Once again, not Christ-like at all.  Though I can answer your questions, I’m not going to allow you to side-track my point that your arguments are easily adaptable to atheistic viewpoints.  Let’s look (your words with atheists substituted in certain spots):

“People can appreciate abstract ideas, but they can not tolerate smoke and mirrors stuff like the existence of some ‘guy in the sky’ that is supposed to be all good but allows suffering and hate to exist.”

Also, “My religion requires that for salvation one must accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior, because ‘God’ gave me some divine revelation that I have the ability to correctly interpret a 2000 year-old-book that is full of contradictions.”

Further, “Christianity falls flat on its face for claiming the miracle of ‘God’ taking the form of man when there was no miracle.  It is simply a man-made myth.”

Finally, “Brain dead Christians who can’t reason, and have only superstition, are duped into believing ‘God’ nonsense.”

Now, I suggest you read 1 Corinthians 13, and respond when you decide to take Christ’s command to love seriously.

I am wondering what specifically a Catholic would say in his efforts to evangelize.  Given that Catholicism has many complex doctrines and dogmas, it isn’t something that can be easily summed up in a brief conversation with someone.  I wonder too, how many Catholics really know all the fine details of their faith.  In my opinion it requires a superior intellect to grasp much of what Catholicism teaches.

Hey there St.Bart! I agree with you on this:. Christianity in Scandinavia is reduced to a technicality and people pop by church on Christmas if they can find time before eating pig.

So that is in my experience, protestantism for you. Furthermore I like Catholicism for the same reason I like Levis 501, It`s the original and best.

Secondly I never did agree with Luther on this topic: indulgence.
I think people should pay up for their sins. Willingness to depart from silver & gold shows you really are sorry.

Thirdly I think Judaism, Islam and Christianity (both kinds) should join forces military and conquer the world together. Our enemy is not each other, but the atheists and especially the blasphemers.

And we all agree that Our Master The Lord of The Covenant readily put out bans on anyone who worshiped plastic-fantastic or atheists.

So it is true, converting by the sword does not last forever.
But if one were to clean the kitchen once every thousand years or so, that ought to be adequate.

I myself am a simple soul. I keep the covenant and bow down to no one but God.
I personally would like to see the world under a joint government consisting of 3 people.

One representative for Judaism, One for Islam and One for Christianity.
Those three could be the counsel of God, and whenever He wanted something done or changed on earth, He could send them a notice or an e-mail.

It saddens me when you refer to the church as having Satanic ways, by the way.
I must remind you that without Her, there would be nothing for the Son of God to return to. And that alone should surely count for plenty.

In my opinion atheism is Satanism.  The serpent is finding it easier to try to make people believe there is no God, as oposed to spelling out straight that there is ofcourse a God, but then try to make people disobey Him.

I was a Southern Baptist from age 20 to age 40. Ten years ago my wife and I joined the Catholic Church. As a Baptist I did a lot of “witnessing” to strangers. We did “visitation” on Tuesday nights with about ten other folks willing to hit the streets and knock on doors. No new members came of all that. Our church also helped out when Billy Graham came to town in the 1980s. Hundreds were “saved”, not one new member showed up next week. I’m not saying don’t witness to strangers, I’m just saying I haven’t seen great results from a quick spiel. While still a Baptist we took a course based on a book called “Making Friends for Christ” by Wayne McDill (I think that’s the name). It was about relationship evangilism. It works. You have to get to know people and let them know you before you can talk about Jesus or religion with them. Otherwise it’s like knocking on a door and asking a stranger to convert to your political party. Sounds nice in theory, and I’m sure it has worked sometime, but probably not the best way. People want to know a bit about your morals and ethics, are you a hypocrit or liar or self decieved, are you honest and caring, etc. before you can preach to them. St. Francis said preach always, if neccessary use words. Many successful missionaries actually go and live for years among a group of people. In the New Testament Jesus and the 12 were preaching to people who already believed in God and were waiting for the Messiah. Even then John the Baptist prepared the way.

Yeah, I suppose I’m a Catholic chicken, but I also think that truckside evangelization doesn’t work. People grow annoyed and probably just think you’re crazy. If I thought it might work, I’d muster up the courage.

@Sherry Weddell - “Not only did St. Francis NEVER say it, it is not in his spirit at all or in the spirit of his order.”

Au contraire! Having checked several quotation sites, I found all to list that quote attributed to St. Francis. Perhaps Sherry has knowledge those sites don’t have, however, I also found this quote also attributed to St. Francis - “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

Supporting Catholic missionaries, charities, radio, and websites, and your diocese, and living an authentic Catholic life are all great ways of witnessing. I commute by bus and pass out pamphlets about the rosary to anyone who will take one at the bus stops. Still haven’t converted any strangers that I know of, but the Holy Spirit has worked to convert some people I do know who I have been praying for for a long time. Prayer is very important and nothing will happen with your neat apologetics alone.

@Sherry Weddell - “Not only did St. Francis NEVER say it, it is not in his spirit at all or in the spirit of his order.”

Au contraire! Having checked several quotation sites, I found all to list that quote attributed to St. Francis. Perhaps Sherry has knowledge those sites don’t have,

Perhaps that St. Francis did a lot of preaching?  Perhaps that the quote isn’t recorded in any of the earliest records, but only turns up 200 years after hisi death?

(I once read a couple biographies of the saint.)

I think the depth of Catholic Theology doesn’t lend itself to the 8 second soundbites of the radically simple “Accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior” theology.  There’s just a lot more to being a Catholic and actually DOING good (faith in action) than memorizing (while conveniently & self-servingly ignoring) bible sound bites.

I am wondering what specifically a Catholic would say in his efforts to evangelize.

Specifically?  Whatever is proper to the situation.  What is suitable to one situation will not be suitable to another.  For instance, I have been known to end an explication of the doctrine of the Trinity with the comment that if it makes sense, let me know so I can explain it more clearly, and if they want to object that it makes no sense, they should first explain whether light is a wave or a particle.  Which works best on actual physicists. 

And because it is important not to alienate, it is very important to use your best judgment to determine what is proper.

@Gabriel—“Convert them by the sword. It`s the only way to go.”

It sounds good, I guess, if you are a Muslim, but the Church has always condemned this approach. Though, I guess it did work very well for the Church of England in its first few centuries. There are now many Saints and Martyrs in the Church thanks to this approach by the Crown. And this approach was also used by the Calvinists in their early history, but this kind of conversion rarely lasts. I prefer the Church’s approach better: Instruct the people with the Truth of Faith and let them accept it if they choose.

The Catholic Eucharist claims to be a physical representation of Christ, but all one sees is a wafer.  This is not some abstract idea like faith.  People can appreciate abstract ideas, but they can not tolerate smoke and mirrors stuff like the Eucharist.

How true.  “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’. . . As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”—the only time Jesus lost followers on doctrinal grounds.

St. Bart,

It’s simple but profound…

OUTSIDE OF SPACE AND TIME.

I hope this helps.

I am a recent convert from protestantism (I’ll be confirmed at the Easter Vigil in less than two weeks!)  As a Baptist, I was always pushed to talk to people and to hand out tracts (which I always thought were sketchy, “oh yes thank you for handing me a paragraph, I think I’ll be a Christian now!”) but I never felt that I could muster the courage to start such a conversation and I felt like the few I had were fruitless.  Since my conversion, in highly protestant bible belt southern Kentucky, I have had so many people ask me about my conversion.  I feel that simply being a Catholic can be a huge “witness” because when I am asked why I am converting, that leads into explaining the Magisterium, The Eucharist, Apostolic Succession, Veneration of Saints, and so many other faith related issues.  I feel like simply being Catholic has lead to more fruitful conversations than the “are ya saved my brother?” conversations.

Part of it might be due to the fact that when a catholic opens a conversation he/she ends up having to defend a ton of arguments against catholicism. I know when I approached the topic I ended up with a face full of:

‘what about the pope who claimed he was God? Idolatry? How about the fact that the pope endorses gays? What about the inquisition?’

I think what it all gets down to is communication. If you feel comfortable with what it is you will communicate and how, then it is easy to open a conversation.

By the way Saint Bart!

I just read your comment above on the eucarist, and it does appear there are some things the Catholics obviously have missed. The breaking of bread between people was always intended as a way to keep the poor from starving, as well as commemorating The Lord. As in “eat and drink and thirst no more in the name of God.”

If you have bread, share it with your brethren in the name of His Majesty.
Thus Charity itself becomes litterally flesh and blood, as one litterally becomes what he digests.

I just wish the Church would hand out a bit more hearty meal, instead of a biscuit.
And the poor should be able to eat the bread of God until they were hungry no more.

For some, that would be the only time of day or week when they could leave with a full stomach. I think I shall have to write to the congregation of faith and ask if they could give some freshly baked bread. And the poor should be able to get second servings.

Thanks Buddy!

The answer is simple. Catholics generally know a lot less about their faith than Evangelicals. My good friend is a evangelical pastor at a church in my area. We talk frequently about doctrine, theology, church history, etc. We agree on much, disagree on some important elements, but we have great debates. However, I would say 90% of Catholics couldn’t name the four evangelists or even know that there are four. This is a statistic I derived from years of working with many different age groups within the RCC. If you put a church-going Protestant against a church-going Catholic, there is no comparison. The church-going Protestant would wipe the floor with them 9 times out of 10. This is an ongoing failure of bishops, especially in the US. I’ve written many letters regarding this, but have never received a response. As a young adult (not yet 30 years old) I am astounded by the grave lack of knowledge our faithful have.

@Ed - “Having checked several quotation sites, I found all to list that quote attributed to St. Francis.”

The problem is that these quotation sites do not reference reliable sources for much of their material.

I’ve looked for such a source myself (to address this issue in our School of Evangelization) and have talked to others who have done the same, including Franciscans familiar with the “Omnibus of Sources: St Francis of Assisi”

From my experience such searches end with the following conclusion: There is no record of that particular quote in a reliable source (i.e. a primary source or secondary source close to the time of St. Francis).

There certainly are events in the life of St. Francis that emphasize the importance of preaching with our life and actions, and perhaps there are other quotes along those lines, such as the other one Ed mentioned above. But I don’t think those can be equated with the quote “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary use words.”

I think that quote is a bit ambiguous in meaning (How often is it necessary?) and thus open to misinterpretation. Unfortunately, I think some Catholics have misinterpreted the quote to mean they rarely have to proclaim the Gospel. It’s even more unfortunate if St. Francis didn’t in fact say those words.

@ Matt

I agree that many Catholics are ignorant about the details of their faith, but many evangelicals are pretty ignorant too.  What they know, they know well, but they may not know much.

If you start getting into questions like “When did your faith start?” or “Where did the Bible come from?”, they can lose ground pretty fast.  I remember the many people who’ve tried to ‘save my soul’ under their own power over the years.  It often takes only a few pointed questions or well chosen bible verses to get them scratching their heads…as long as they’ll actually listen to you, which they often will not do, because they’ve got a ‘track’ they work from.  If you ask a question they weren’t anticipating, they will just repeat what they’ve already said…which didn’t really address what you’ve asked them.  Because they don’t know the answer.

@ JP

That is true to a certain extent. But at least they know something. Ignorance breeds indifference. Most Catholics, unfortunately, don’t know and don’t care. Quite honestly, I have had more debates and discussions with Protestants than Catholics and I actually know more Catholics. The fact is, many priests are ignorant of Scripture, Tradition and History. I was told a parish priest that a story in his homily reminded me about the plight of Athanasius (being sent to exile 8 or 9 times). He had no idea who I was talking about…one of the greatest church fathers of all time. Not only that, but he seemed genuinely disinterested. And this is actually one of the better/holy priests I’ve met.

Why all this bickering?
Unite and smite the atheists.

Like many other posters I am also a convert.

Something that I find in my life I don’t know how to start someone on the track to conversion. I can live my life, and I am very vocal about my faith; however, I am not sure how to direct people to the process of becoming Catholic. My own conversion was intellectual and fueled by very little face-to-face relationships, so taking classes was the perfect step for me. However, when there is someone that is too busy to read at leisure, my method of handing them a book doesn’t work so well.

Also, how do you quickly express the fullness of Catholicism without becoming bogged down in details of doctrine? Perhaps one could point out that being a Christian is not a minor thing that only requires, “say this prayer and call me in the morning.”

However, when in doubt, give them a Miraculous Medal. I have been doing this for a while, and I have even had Fundamentalists preachers take them. However, you also have to pray for that person afterwards, which I am not so good at.

I think it’s because Catholicism is more complicated. In the Evangelical mind a simple idea about conversion exists that doesn’t really require much in depth info. It’s basically, if you died today, would you go to hell? Accept Jesus into your heart and you’ll go to Heaven. Simple as that! It’s easier to talk about that with a stranger than the dogmas of the Church

The protestant faith is like a bucket of water, easy to carry and show or splash it on anyone by the truckside or in comboxes. But the Catholic faith is like an ocean. You can talk about its beauty and its truths but it remains to be just an invitation to go into the ocean.

My experience of many of the “are you saved” types is not one of personal holiness.  When they approach people the faker radar starts up.  I am more than happy to talk to people about my faith, after they know whether or not I am genuine, including my many faults and failings.  I am not trying to play the hypocrite card.  I am saying it comes off as something very fake too many times.

@stbart- Just to clarify “Scandinavia” is a geographic arean not a country. Scandinavia consists of 5 nations each with their own culture and religious history. And it is the National Lutheran churches (protestant) that are dying in most of those countries not the Catholic church- the Catholic church is growing in several of those countries because just like in the USA more Catholic immigrants are moving there i.e.,the Phillipines, Vietnam, South American and African countries. The only protestant denominations growing in that area are Pentecostal. I believe this is because the Catholic and charismatic churches there are places of fellowship and community life (parish events, bible study, RCIA) whereas the traditional National church have little opportunities for believers to support each other’s spiritual growth.

What a wonderful discussion I found through accessing my Twitter! It is day time here in Australia as I write. A Catholic all my life I went off on a tangent to some Pentecostal churches for some years but missed the Eucharist terribly. I also missed the reverence of the Mass and came back many years ago. However, it has made me a deeper, more committed Christian with a greater witness I believe.
By the way, it is because of people like st.bart that Catholics ‘pull their heads in’ and do not speak out. My Baptist neighbous used to think like him, but since living next door for the last 25 years they have come to see things differently and we share a wonderful faith.

“Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.”
I think that it’s more important to act like a Christian in everything you do, and be a beacon to the world that way. But if many Catholics don’t approach total strangers and start telling them that their way of thinking is wrong and ours is right, it’s probably because doing so is intrusive, aggressive, arrogant, and will most likely make them more resistant to faith in the long run. Is the point to feel good and righteous about yourself, or to help people?

Catholics are not taught to evangalize, as Bible Christains are. We go to CCD untill 12th grade and that is it for you. Our priest are poor apologist,they stay far away from comparing our faith to other’s faith—too contravesial for a sermon.Our faith is more complex than to “accept Jesus ” as Savior too.

Great discussion (well, mostly great)!  Here’s what has worked for me (a cradle Catholic):
1.  First, pray and study often, and live life as holy as one can be.
2.  Know that the Catholic faith is like a lion; you just have to let it out of the cage.  IOW, it doesn’t take great personal talent to evangelize.  Evangelization is simply sharing the truth with others. 
3.  The truth, first and foremost, is Christ himself.  Our first and last act should always be to share the love of Christ with our family, friends, and neighbors.  We don’t need to meet strangers, when we each work in circles of hundreds of people already!  We do need to be prepared, however, for when someone comes to us to ask a question.  Also, it doesn’t hurt striking up a conversation on a bus and inviting someone to church.  I once met a blind man on a bus, invited him to church, and he came with me for months!
4.  Once a Catholic has done step one for even a year or two, the Catholic will be prepared to address 99% of the criticisms thrown at them by non-Catholics.  If you are unsure of an answer, simply say, “that is a GREAT question, and I’d like to write back to you about that since the answer is hard to articulate quickly.”  Then, get their email, do the research, and send them an answer and links to Catholic Answers or another apologetics organization.  Use Google Docs to build a list of the contacts you make, and check back every few months to let them know you are praying for them!
5.  Always watch your words, and try to tone down anything that seems at all harsh or direct by 20% or more.  We want to draw our listeners in, not shove them away.  I like to think that my goal is not to convert them.  My goal is to join them in unity and walk together toward the Lord.  Our job them is to work WITH our non-Catholic brothers and sisters to remove any impediments to us being able to draw closer to Jesus in perfect unity.
6.  The non-Catholic is NEVER the enemy.  Satan and sin are the only enemies we have.  If a non-Catholic lashes out at you, join that suffering with Christ on the cross, and share the love of Christ with them.  Instead of giving them an argument or a defense, tell them “thank you for sharing that with me. I can see that you are in pain, and I want you to know that Jesus loves you.”  Don’t be hokey about it.  The point is to disarm them with love and gentleness.  By the way, this is even MORE effective coming from a man!
7.  Finally - I have found it EXTREMELY rewarding to engage Baptist pastors in dialogue, though I would only recommend this if you have spent many years studying how to defend your faith.
8.  If anyone is interested in forming a loose band of evangelists who can work together, pray for each other, and collectively document our efforts, please email me! (readywithareason@gmail.com)

May the peace of Christ be with you all!

As Catholics, we evangelize more by example.  we show the light of Christ though the way we conduct ourselves daily.  Joyful servitude, forgiveness, even the way we suffer.  It causes others to wonder what it is that makes us tick.  Why we remain cheerful and loving even when we are goig through a “rough patch”.  They will eventually ask us about it and want to learn more.

St. Bart—

Do you perhaps have a blog you could refer us to.  Your comments here are just a bit off topic.  I’d rather encourage you to rant and rave somewhere else, and just let us know how to reach you if we feel so inclined.

God bless you.

Danny

I’m a Catholic Missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.  I think that the difficulty is two fold.  First, we are certainly chicken.  It’s foreign to our way of thinking, and we think “That’s too protestant.”

But, secondarily, our message is harder to condense.  They can ask, “Are you saved?” We have to ask, “Have you been baptized, receive the sacraments faithfully, and encountered the person of Christ in union with His Church?”

They have you pray a sinners prayer.  We have you attend six months of RCIA.

I’m not familiar with many short, effective, and accurate presentations of the full gospel message, so we are somewhat hindered.

In a nutshell, I theorize that Catholics today fail to evangelize because we are paralyzed by our feelings of “Catholic guilt” in regards to those uncomfortable times in our history that were characterized by forced conversions.  As a result, we over-correct in the other direction and become downright timid about our Faith.

St. Bart,  I find your posts to be cruel, offensive, argumentative and INCREDIBLY LACKING in any solid knowledge of the Catholic Faith.  Your comments show an arrogance and meanness that no true Christian would have.  Are you just another anti-Catholic troll?  Do you honestly believe you are representing Jesus to us?

In a recent podcast by Fr. John Riccardo, he asked (during a parish mission) for the parish’s “Evangelization Team” to stand and be recognized.  A handful of people rose.  He gently but forcefully made the point that every single person should have been standing.  At the end of the talk, he asked the question again, and everyone stood.

We have to really imagine ourselves as being part of the Catholic Church’s Evangelization Team (as we are indeed sent to be at the end of every Mass).  And for this team to be successful, we need even more leaders at the parish level taking charge, setting goals, and then working creatively to spread the Gospel, the fullness of which subsists in the Catholic Church alone.

I’ve only recently “liked” NCR; this is only the second article that I’ve read.  Good article.  One thing about both articles though, the writers’ tones seem a bit condescending (read “they’re a bit of a joke”)to non-Catholics.  Being a convert, raised very conservative protestant, and then stops along the way home to the Catholic church everywhere from Zen to Pentecostal, I respect and love the love for Jesus and the formation I received.  In God’s timing we receive the fullness of the faith if we truly desire it, I believe.  If a Calvary Chapel evangelical read this article, I daresay he or she would be too put off to continue and maybe get something out of what you are trying to say. Maybe we could all edit ourselves for charity.  I hope I have.

My simple approach: ask the Lord first!  I am a psychiatrist and daily meet broken people in my practice.  During my clinical interview with my patients, I ask the Lord, silently of course, whether He has brought this patient to my office, specifically for me to suggest that he get closer to God. The answer comes pretty quick, and I have rarely been wrong in the follow through. I have about 1 patient who never came back and told another psychiatrist that he got offended when I asked him to try going back to Church again.

Great Article!!!
“Evangelicals Economist Christians” that the John 3:3 and John 3:5 economics of fundamentalists. I tried to “help” out a guy in 99 degree weather as I had AAA and would use to get into his car. The wife and child were obviously uncomfortable, the father refused, but knew who I was.
The incident coincided with a Foreign Affairs article winch caught my eye with GODS WAR and the statements on this Christian “fellowship” stuff. The article stated Evangelical do not even want to live in the same area of Catholics. I believe Catholics need to stand up to this Community Church is the US. Specifically I received a subsequent documents which was scary.
I see some of these organization are xenophobic and very much propose an “Arian” Further I see a very disturbing mission statement, which mirror the Extrema Protestant divinity. There is a disconnect to the mesh with Government and these groups. I live in a Community which they rule every aspect of local government.Catholics are not standing up to their faiths as the politics need the 12,000 in the divinity of Economic Christianity.as two references to the Bible and that is there goal, the belief in Jesus Christ is being subverted for the politics and appointment to city and County policy, without a clue to the subjects which they volunteer. This exact exhortation is in the mission statements and an further abdication of parental authority.The Economic Christians have ruined the nexus that Vatican II, the reciprocation to others is too extreme. I would think the review of Vatican II should be; as that “fellowship” should be reviewed by an authority to ensure the Christianity they seek is the same we, Catholics see. There is a disconnect between those who ant to chat about Jesus. maybe they should review the entire Bible and act in a Christian manner.
The expression may be different but Catholics do in fact subscribe to John 3:3 absent the exhortation of the high fives. Catholics should review their Catholicism as it is rich with the same concepts of the sanctity of their faith. Catholicism rocks!!!
Sic Transit Gloria

I think I like Catholic evangelizing better than Southern Baptist evangelizing, having done both.

I was taught in my high school and college youth groups, as a Southern Baptist, that if I did NOT tell everyone within conversation range about being saved by Jesus, and if they subsequently went to Hell, that their blood would be on my hands on Judgement Day, according to Ezekiel 3:17-21. ( In the New King James version that we used, it’s this:  “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.  Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.”)

Now when you are 17 and newly baptized after saying the Sinner’s prayer, and hearing all this for the first time, it is quite scary to hear that God would require the sinner’s blood from me!  So I took the need to personally evangelize everyone I met, no matter how casually or briefly, very seriously.  For a few weeks.  [Here’s the web page where I found the exact Ezekiel reference, and it is a good example of the things I was taught about witnessing to strangers in those days:  http://deeptruths.com/bible-basics/witnessing.html ]

I quickly realized that it was not very easy to have a serious religious conversation in a few seconds in the checkout line at the grocery store, or with my teachers at school!  (I was actually chastised by a teacher for evangelizing fellow students on class time.)  That was probably one of the first little inkling I had that somehow, somewhere, someone had interpreted a Bible verse in a way that made compliance with the rules close to impossible for someone who wanted take every verse as applying literally and for all time to every believer.  Also the idea that I could be “once saved, always saved,” but at the same time I could be condemned for failing to witness to one lost sinner, started me thinking that I had to find out how to reconcile the apparent conflict.

Now, as a Catholic, I can see that thinking God’s instructions to Ezekiel personally apply to me every minute of every day no matter what the situation and in a very literal way does not give due regard to the dignity and free will of other persons, and to the gift of faith given by the Holy Spirit.  (I remember feeling as if I were being told that God was calling every believer to be a modern day Ezekiel from the moment of salvation onward, and to give up social conventions and commonly accepted manners and instead harangue people in line with me, or next to me on an airplane, or anywhere at all!  Any conversation that I didn’t turn to talk of accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord was another bloodstain on me.)

It was a relief in RCIA to learn that people will believe when He moves them to believe, because faith is a gift, not when, or solely because, I say the magic words [or leave the cleverly designed pamphlet in a bathroom stall] to convert people on the spot.  I was very touched at the Rite of Election or Enrolling of Names, the first time I’d ever seen a Bishop, to Bishop Sartain say that we were there because God called us, not because of anything we’d done beyond obeying His call. 

The Catholic way of seeing the call to evangelize, by the Domestic Church and by our visible faith and our works of charity and our development of genuine relationships with other people and, when necessary, answering all who ask us to explain our joy, is so much more respectful and sensible and logical and reasonable and effective!  It allows us to be the members of a real Body, with different members having different functions.  We don’t all have to be the mouth (Saint Paul talked about the body not being able to be nothing but an eye, for instance); only those called to that type of evangelization are to be specializing in it, while others are called to other areas of need.

My apologies for the lack of paragraph breaks, which I thought I was putting in to increase readability.  Is there a trick to that which I don’t know?

The commenter calling himself “St.Bart” wrote earlier:

“I can assure you that I am the intellectual equal to anyone on this blog . . . I am also more versed on church history than anyone poster on this blog.  The real issue is that the sports lovers and the theological lightweights on this site have never studied any serious theology.  Consequently, they are stuck in their quagmire . . .”

To other readers, do these words not depart most painfully distinctly from the spirit of the words and deeds exhibited by the Master, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who although He was God, revealed a meekness and humility of heart, which melted the very hearts of His hearers?

The Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity asked, “why do you call me good?” not to deny that He was good, but because He wished to direct His hearers’ devotion to His Heavenly Father. He is good, indeed, but never deemed equality with God something to be grasped at.

“My sheep know My voice,” And we do know His voice as He speaks to us through His true shepherds, whom He promised to leave us.

It is unimaginable that Our Savior would trumpet forth, “I am the intellectual equal . . . I am more knowledgable than you fools . . . Listen to me.” How likely is it, then, that one speaking in this manner, would be speaking in the spirit of Christ Jesus?

That anyone who purports to be His follower would address others in that way . . .  :

Wow.

Just wow.

One of the threshold problems with Catholic evangelization is captured in the old adage “you can’t teach what you don’t know.”  The catechesis of Catholics has been abysmal.  Jimmy has the benefit of being an educated apologist, but most Catholics know very little about the faith they profess they hold. 
Courage is built upon confidence and Catholics are woefully wanting in their confidence in knowledge of our faith.  Regrettably, a lack of knowledge is a very comfortable place for many of us since knowledge of the faith is knowledge of Jesus and He requires our response to His calling, not reticence. 
I commend everyone who seeks to introduce others to Christ, even if it is not with the fullness of the Catholic faith. Half a measure is better than none and a direction that hopefully will lead others to the Church founded by Christ, Himself.

Please do not respond to St Bart. I too have been guilty of responding to him before but our responses are what keeps him here. If we stop responding he will cease posting.

We Catholics wrote every single word of the New Testament and this it what it teaches us re pertinacious heretics

Titus 3:10   A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them.

and the funny thing is is that St Bart, were he to follow the New Testament, would be obliged to ignore us.

So there is no need to respond to his statements because by posting them he is, repeatedly, demonstrating that he does not believe what is taught in the Bible.

I find it is better to be a living example then flap my gums. Somebody will eventually ask a question, and they will then get an answer.

A week ago a man walks into work. He says I just became a Christian two hours ago. The man looks beaten and dirty. He asks me where the Bibles are in the store. I walk him over to them and he picks up one of those New Testament and Psalms Bibles that Ignatius press publishes. (Yes I work in a Catholic Bookstore.) Before he leaves I get a prayer card with the Creed on the back, and tell him it is the basis of Christianity founded to resist and combat the heresies that were spreading during the early period.

He came into work yesterday. He asked to buy a Rosary and some more prayer cards, of which relate to the Rosary. He also wanted a pamphlet that would explain the Rosary prayer. I helped him out, and I even took the time to tell him how to pray the Rosary. (By all means pray for this man.)

I will say he was clean cut and neatly pressed this time. He also had money in the fact he said I am paying in cash and pulled out a nice wad of hundreds. He was bright-eyed and happier. I think it is safe to say he is doing better at this moment.

On the other hand, I have no idea if he is going to ever get baptized. That is about the only fear I have is that he will spend his life thinking that he can just pray to accept Jesus as his savior. But I found it better to let the Creed do its job that day he first walked in then me explaining to him a simple prayer does not grant salvation. And I am sure the Rosary will also help him along the way much better then me explaining all those theology courses I took during my university days at St. Thomas.

As such this is why I say just be a living example. People will ask. People will get answered. Most people will never ask, but they will observe you.

Catholics Come Home offers business cards with their web address and they are easy to hand out.

Vermont Crank wrote, “Please do not respond . . . ” (to blasphemers against holy religion.) “If we stop responding he will cease posting.”

I agree that it would, indeed, be imprudent to endeavor to enter into disputation with one who blasphemes against the holy faith of Jesus Christ, which would be, as you say, Vermont, only to elicit the utterance of further bombast from one possessed by the spirit of blasphemy, . . . which God forbid.

However, to register one’s objections to encountering mouthings of so deplorable a character, directing these objections not to the perpetrator but, to one’s fellow audiences, (i.e., those not possessed of a spirit of blasphemy), is not, I think, out of order.

Marion - You are correct. St. Bart is just another Protestant evangelical crackpot who twists the interpretation of the Bible to suit his theology rather than forming his theology to fit the Scriptures. That is the great error of “sola scriptura” that Protestants promote. I know this because I have had lots of discussions with this type of Christian, and because I was once this type of Christian. The problem with Protestantism is that everyone is free to interpret the Bible to his own liking. You can take two Baptists, or two Methodists, or two of any denomination, and you will find that they interpret the Scriptures differently, and sometimes even in contradiction of each other, and yet, they are both supposed to be correct because the Holy Spirit is leading them in their interpretation. In the early days of the Protestant Reformation, Luther, Calvin, and other Protestant leaders got together to try to iron out a common theology, but because they each interpreted certain parts of the New Testament differently, they failed; so they agreed to disagree. This failure to be able to agree on a common interpretation of the Scriptures, and therefore form a common unified theology is why there are now over 38,000 denominations, including the so-called “non-denominational” denominations in the world. I have seen this splintering over theology in my own town with a division occurring in the local Baptist church. One group split away and started their own “church”, then there arose a disagreement in that new splinter “church”, and another group splintered off and started their own “church”. And so it goes. This is why I am glad that I am a Catholic now. We have a common unified theology, and there is a common interpretation of the Scriptures that comes from a straightforward reading of them. No twisting and other verbal contortions are needed to arrive at the correct interpretation. Protestants do see that there needs to be someone who has the authority to say, “this interpretation is correct, this one is not”, when disagreements arise. It is the Church, who is guided by the same Holy Spirit that guided the writers of the New Testament books, who is that authentic, authoritative interpreter, and it was Christ who gave that authority to the Apostles, who passed that authority on to the bishops they appointed to the many Churches they established and those who succeeded them—the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church, the Church Christ established upon Peter and the other Apostles. This is something that St Bart will never understand unless we pray for him, that his eyes and mind will be opened to the truth. For it is only the Church who is the pillar and bulwark of the Truth, not the Bible. So, as you said, the best thing to do is to ignore St Bart because, at this point, we will not change his mind, and he is only here to throw stones. May God bless you, and all of the other faithful Catholics who have responded here.

Simply put ... “We don’t put our money where our mouth is”, in other words the root of the problem is ... we really doubt the truth of our faith.  From there, all other explainations flow.

re: “proof” of the Real Presence in the Eucharist—there are numerous examples of miraculous “proofs,” my favorite being Lanciano.  Check out http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/lanciano.html for more info.

Don’t believe it?  Then I ask what kind of “proof” would be adequate? You must have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.”

“Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”

Ed,

It is as you say, but I would stress that to go so far as to utter blasphemies against holy religion is to give evidence of a state far graver than what may be imputed a “holding a difference of religious opinion”, “a lack of religous understanding,” etc.

I suggest the prayer to Saint Michael, the text of which I won’t set down here, as it may provoke further blasphemies from the poor soul in question. But Catholics know it, and I hope, will pray it for that poor soul.  Thank you.

@RMMT We have the authentic words of Christ in the Bible in His “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6, and the words He used when instituting the Holy Eucharist. The early Church Fathers also attest to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. To Protestants Holy Communion can only be symbolic because they lost the power to consecrate the bread and wine effecting the change into the body and blood of our Lord when they split away from the Church. They are a branch that has been broken from the vine, and therefore has withered and dried up, and is now unproductive. Their loss, but we Catholics have the fullness of faith, and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. God bless you.

Marion—I fully agree. God bless you.

I don’t do it because conversion to Christ happens through a friendship and a relationship, not through some random guy talking to you on the street—not that God can’t use it and it can’t happen.

Ed, thank you, and God bless you, tool

May Our Lord Jesus Christ, mercifully and sacramentally present in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, be loved, thanked, and adored, everywhere, in all the tabernacles of the world to the farthest corners of the Earth, even unto the end of time.

To all readers:

Recall, will you, how three times the tempter dared to address Our Lord, quoting Scripture with much knowledge and facility.

But in each case, Our Lord, replied with a text superadducing that of the tempter.

In a similar way our able apologists have already answered the blasphemies presented here, but it would seem that there are poor souls who may be possesed of a spirit of blasphemy that will come out only with prayer and fasting.

Wow! What a lot of comments! And that means a lot of people reflecting on what their faith means to them. I am brand new to this site and just one day of reading leaves me inspired by the evangelization going on. This site is full of thoughtful people who take their faith seriously. The question of why it seems catholics don’t evangelize is a good one, but for now, on my second day entering the site, I feel energized and inspired by the witness going on around me.

I hope St. Bart continues posting. He is an excellent example for all of us on how NOT to evangelize—and perhaps his falsehoods and calumnies against the Faith will cause others to become more strongly versed in what Catholicism actually teaches. God can bring good out of evil!

JoAnna wrote: “God can bring good out of evil!”

He can, and He does! Let us pray that God delivers all poor souls who are possessed by a spirit of blasphemy, and that instead, they may soon know the joy of possessing the spirit of the Lord.

What a wonderful thing that would be. Something, indeed, to pray and to work for.

At the risk of provoking a protracted diatribe, I admit that St. Bart has knowledge of Scripture; then again, so does Satan as evidenced in the temptations in the desert.  What St. Bart has missed is the connection between the Old Testament and the New and the translations of the words as they were actually written. The Gospel writers referred to “Gospel” using the word “euaggelion.”  The usage of the word is significant since common usage of the word referred to the message received at the conclusion of war.  As applied to the four Gospels, and especially writings of St. Paul, it meant that the war against sin and death was over, peace at hand and there are specific terms of life flowing from person Jesus to his followers.
The specific terms of life flowing from the person, Jesus, includes specifically the requirement for the celebration of the Eucharist.  While St. Bart and others may conclude that there is “worship of a wafer”, he skips the specific words of Jesus uttered by priests.  Catholics no more “worship wafers” and “wine” than they do door knobs.  Our worship is of Jesus. 
Of course, like the many who heard the Lord state that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, St. Bart finds this to be a hard thing to embrace.  So did the thousands who left after hearing the words of Jesus.  It is not easy. 
But as Peter observed, where should we go; He has the words of eternal life. 
Perhaps someday, St. Bart will also understand the “context” of the establishment of the Eucharist.  For his and everyone else’s reference, I invite that we all revisit the following;

John 6:35 -71 – Eucharist promised
Matt 26: 26 (Mark 14: 22, Luke 22:17) – Eucharist instituted
1 Cor 10:16 – Eucharist = participation in Christ’s body & blood
1 Cor 11:23-29 – Receiving unworthily = guilty of body & blood
John 1: 29 – Jesus is called the Lamb of God
1 Cor 5:7 – Jesus is called the paschal lamb who has been sacrificed
John 4: 31-34 (Matt 16:5-12) Jesus talked symbolically about food
1 Cor 2: 14-3:4 – explains what “the flesh” means in John 6

I do thank St. Bart for his challenges.  Although I disagree with his conclusions and comments, it is good for us to be privileged to defend the faith.

@ st. bart- Your very words attacking the Holy Eucharist are no different from those “arguments” used by the Jewish establishment against Jesus himself. “We know where he is from..” “He’s the carpenter’s son.” “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” And yet I presume that you do believe that Jesus is God. But why, may I ask??—he didn’t look any different-and certainly didn’t look or act like how they expected a “God” to act. He was born of a woman, just like every other person. He was just another human being right? Or was it what he SAID that mattered??? If you believe he is God because he said so, why not then what he said about the Eucharist? “This IS my body. This IS my blood.” Why is this out of the realm of capability for God? If you believe that God is incapable of existing in the Holy Eucharist, then, I feel sorry for you because you limit God do not believe that for him “NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE”
I am praying for your conversion and also for reparation of the offenses that you have inflicted on Him.

Reading through some of these responses it seems that we have moved to finger pointing an accusations. I think I’ll try to go back to the original question. That was what caught my attention.

Hi, My name is Steve and I was a chicken. I’m a 55 year old cradle Catholic and found myself embarrased several times because the only answer I had to: “Why do you (a Catholic) do that?” was…. “That’s what I was taught”.  After a couple of those situations, I reversed the question and was amazed when the other guy had a perfectly wonderful answer. I think that there are many Catholics like I was. Many of us are spiritually immature and scripturally ignorant. We don’t know the difference between religion and faith and we are Catholic because that’s all we know. We are working with our parent’s religion. We haven’t made it our own. You can’t give what you don’t have and you can’t get excited about what you don’t understand. I started hanging out with non-Catholic Chhristians to see what the heck they were so excited about, I talked to the boys in the suits when they came to my door and I studied some Islam. Some of my friends may argue this point but I feel I’m a better Catholic now because I know why I believe what I believe. And I don’t really think I can make an honest decision to belive something unless I know what I “DON’T” believe. I believe I’ll stay a Catholic but I don’t believe that being a Catholic is what will get me into Heaven. I don’t have to knock on doors to convince anyone that I’m right and they’re wrong. I just have to share the love God gives me. Cursillo has a little mantra that works well. “Make a friend, be a friend, and bring that friend to Christ”.

I simply do not understand some members of The Body of Christ welcoming the commentary of St Bart. He hijacks almost every thread in here and welcoming his bad example makes no more sense than it would for one to invite a vulgar neighbor into one’s house and letting him speak rudely to your other guests as an example of how not to behave.

It makes no sense.

Even back in the day, in England,  in Hyde Park, when The Catholic Evidence Guild used to give public instructions on the truths of The Catholic Faith, they tolerated no public disturbances from the likes of the individual who calls himself, St Bart.

Standards have slipped so far that we now encourage those that hate us to continue posting blasphemous invective.

Well, I see that I have let St Bart continue his thread-jacking simply by exhorting others to ignore him.

So, how about giving-up responding to St Bart for the remainder of Lent?

As Catholics it is our duty to evangelize not only with the example of our lives, but also through our words. Jesus Himself in the Great Commission said “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus sent the Holy Spirit that we might go out and be able to have the courage and wisdom to speak to all nations. I am 19 and I evangelize on my college campus. You don’t necessarily have to immediately talk about Jesus. I often start iwth a poll type question such as “what do think true beauty is?” Then we start a conversation and I find that many times they end up bringing religion into the picture. But even if you don’t speak about Jesus it still plants a seed of thought and it is important to follow up or if you see them around campus just say hi. Evangelizing is difficult and uncomfortable, but isn’t heaven worth the discomfort? There is a parish in Scottsdale Arizona that does dorr to door evangelization, they knock on every door of their parish districts to let people know there is a church close by and talk to them about Jesus. I think as Catholics we have become lazy and let our fears take over, but when there are souls at stake there should be no question. I know I probably sound like a crazy evangelist, but St. Catherine of Siena said “if you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire.” Jesus is coming back to set the world on fire for Him, what would it be if it were already on fire!
Get excited people! When you love Christ there is no way you can keep Him hidden. Don’t fear rejection, rejection is a gift! God be with you!

Maybe for Lent, St. Bart should fast?  So we should stop feeding the troll?

Bart- you’re not depressed yourself are you? Why with all the negativity coming from you, I think you should be concerned!

Also, excellent example of NOT evangelizing.

My prayers are with you, Bart.

Addressed to: St Bart,
Mr. Bart, I believe you’re generalizing, We don’t all freak out. Do me a favor and respond to this.  I’m going to write something that I maean and I’d like to see if you can do the same.

Jesus the Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Thanks.

Dear st. bart,
I will be the first to say yes, Catholics are cowards. Even from the very beginning when the Apostles locked themselves inside for fear after Jesus was crucified, we have been cowards. Secondly, we are ignorant, especially in America. I personally do not have a great knowledge of the scriptures or of the catechism as you do. It is a part of me that I wish to work on as they say that ignorance of scriptures is ignorance of Christ. I do know that I love Christ and that I beleive that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Persuading me otherwise would be a futile effort. The Eucharist is the physical form of God, yet it looks like bread, tastes like it and feels like it. We only know it is Jesus because we know Truth, and we can hear Truth. I am not trying to attack what you have said, but if it was not true then why have so many people willingly gone through torture and died for something that is fake? Why would they die merely to protect a lie? After 2000 years wouldn’t you think people would get tired of trying to come up with explanations and excuses? I think its something worth considering.
Thank you st. bart for your input, I appreciate your honesty and what you have to say is not silly trash. What you believe is important, it defines who you are and is not meant to be belittled. You have cahllenged me to be a better Catholic and I sincerely hope that your personal relationship with God strengthens with each passing day and that you find what you are searching for.

That is so pleasing! I bet that Jesus was at his side instructing him on what to say and how to say it. How wonderful that you were an intentive listener. Maybe the two of you could go fishing together and catch more than smelt. I was raised as a Catholic and I evangilize all the time-but I am sure-not as much as what Jesus would like. Catholics have a tendency to wait until the lost come to them and request Jesus information AND Catholics also tend to wait until Jesus runs out of patience with the tough and stubborn bunch (guypenrodCDbreathdeep@amazon.com) stricking with a calamity of some sort, which may push the non-believer into faith, maybe. Because my evangelizing is more spontaneous than planned, I often am an embarrassment to friends who do not like this method, so I am often by myself when out and about. Surprizinly I am not suffering from social loneliness, although I do miss my family and David my loving husband and our children.

st. bart,
I never meant to say that other religions don’t have truth in which people would die for, I was merely stating that many Catholics die for the Eucharist, so there must be some truth in it, it must be more than simply a symbolic representation of Christ. I do however disagree with your points on Christ’s natures. We cannot necessarily put human limits on Him because He is also God. Many times throughout His life we see Him surpassing human limits, therefore I believe it to be possible for Him to be everywhere yet still in heaven. Plus we are not begging for the Holy Spirit to come down and transform the bread into the Body. The priest is in persona christi and offers His body and Blood as a scrifice, we are doing it in remembrance of Him. Also, In ingesting the Body of Christ he comes into us and we become physically a part of Him, we become the the Body of Christ known as the Church, we are one. We are not worthy of Christ and will never be unless He makes us worthy and this is a way in which He makes us worthy.
I also agree that ignorance is inexcusable, and many of us can be condemned of slothfulness for not learning the Word.

st. bart,
You are obviously well read. May I suggest to you The Diary of Sr. Faustina?

I am a revert back to the Catholic Church (thank God), but when I was in an evangelical, charismatic,Methodist church…..we were taught, instructed on how to evangelize and went out to witness with others….come to protestants on common ground…specify your personal relationship with Jesus Christ…so intimate that we believe the teaching of Jesus in John 6:52…and read and study and pray scripture…let the written Word penetrate your mind and heart.

Hi Ann,
This type of evanligizing is fine, especially for groups. But when one has a spontaneous desire to speak of the Word, which is still Holy, the Word seems to become more personalized to the person in spiritual need. For example, we just had a tornado in our area. When out in public afterwards, I memtioned that there was one in the Old Testament who was taken up by God in the whirlwind. (Which is something I wondered about myself during this ordeal.) I could not remember his name but much to my dismay my statement was met in silence. So sad.
Janet

Evangelicals believe in a “personal relationship” with Jesus, where as a Catholic, belief is in a “Communal relationship” with the Lord Jesus in Unity and Community (thus we have Holy Communion to unite us in faith and in Christ.) Evangelizing for an Evangelical may differ from one person to the next because Christ is “personal” and therefore it is a scattered form of Christianity. As a Catholic, evangelizing is the domain of the church as a community so that we may honor our Savior’s prayer that “we may be one” as Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. I think that this is the reason and not that Catholic’s are chicken or something.

There are many reasons.

1) Most Catholics don’t behave like Catholics or evne believe most of their own religion so they don’t bother. They actually tow some sort of Protestant belief that everyone who knows Christ is somehow saved so they don’t bother evangelizing protestants.

2) Most Catholics who might be willing to are not confident in themselves. One thing should be to rely on God and the Holy Spirit first and let them speak through you to the person. But of course this is hard, and many Catholics don’t understand their own faith nor how to tackle all those common but tough questions about the faith. From logical, to the issues of death and suffering, to even the scientific. So they are intimidated by the idea and feel it’s better to not say anything at all than to be a bad representative and perhaps only make the other’s stance worse off than they were prior to speaking to them.

3) I take this approach, I don’t just broach the topic. I honestly don’t think it’ll do anything good. But if a door opens and an opportunity presents itself I would try and steer the conversation so that we could actually get down to discussing the topic itself. I will also pray for such opportunities to occur with people I meet and that God makes the ground fertile before we plant the seeds he’s given us, and also it takes patience to wait for the time of harvest.

4) It is also true that Catholicism is far mroe cimplicated than the simplistic tenets of Protestantism, so even before we tak to another we’d probably have to dig deep enough to discover what the person actually thinks and their misconceptions about Christianity or Catholicism etc.

5) Most Catholics are born into their faith and just hang around. Most Portestants though are usually converts from Catholicism, or switching from some other Protestant group to another and therefore these kinds of people take an active interest in their faith which makes them feel more confident about talking about it and discussing it. The ones who are usually the best evangelizers in either case are always adult converts.

Anyway, I think the primary reason is that most Catholics feel un-confident and even at times unworthy to be suitable enough to do a good job and fear doing damage to drive the person away due to their perceived lack of ability and lack of complete knowledge in apologetics and other areas.

The solution is to properly cathecize Catholics of all ages groups. Familiarity with the Bible, familiarity with science and especially the topics of evolution and creationism and the problem of death and suffering. As well as familiarity with other religions (including secular humanism) so they can get a good idea of who they are speaking to and can intuitively know how to approach any given person.

If Catholics can feel more confident about their faith from actually studying it, something that ‘Catholic’ Schools are notorious for never actually doing, then you will see more Catholics going out there and evangelizing.

While I agree that few Catholics do go up to strangers and “witness”. Many Catholics; like myself, will seldom miss the opportuntiy to bring our faith into a conversation. It does take a special courage to talk one on one to someone cold like that. We also need to remember that we will see the person again, that we can say,“I don’t know, but I will look that up and get back to you”.

st. bart as usual with his lunacy is another example of why some may not bother. Because hard headed proud protestants like him simply will not yield no matter how absurd their position or how many times they are refuted. Here he is again banging the same drum that he’s been called out for on numerous occasions. Keep talking with him and soon he’ll throw away any pretence of his wanting to ‘save you’ and then he’ll be slandering you while thinking himself to be very Christlike.

As his posts clearly display he’s one of those illogical thinkers that believe that everything we ought to believe in must be recorded in Scripture, the sola-scriptura view of the heretic Luther, oddly (or perhaps not so oddly) enough he subscribes to conspiratorial ideas of the Church and theological falsities that are nowhere found in the Bible but also Biblically refuted. I wonder if he even reads and reflects on his own posted diatribes?

It was people like bart that Elijah fought against. False prophets and proud arrogant Jezebels who sort to eradicate the instituted faith of the Temple and undermine the authority of Moses with a Protestant vision of their own making that wants to compliment their own vain man made beliefs and pagan practices. Bart spits in Christ’s face when he denies the Eucharist and disobeys Christ’s command that if one wants to be saved they must eat His body and drink His blood, and like those who left Christ, so too Bart has left Him and continues to persecute Christ by persecuting His Church. bart accuses Catholics here of not being able to answer his statements when in numerous threads here many already have, yet he comes back posting the same things from which he probably keeps a set of copy/pasted notes for just such occasions; and rather it is he who does not reply to Catholics calling him out on his faulty logic and false beliefs and non-Biblical heretical ideas. Instead all he has are appeals to his own emotions and circular reasoning accoridng to his own diabolical baises. And he comes back saying the same things over and over expecting different results, a definition of madness.

There are those who are open to discussion, and there are others like bart for whom you will simply have to leave alone and pray that God Himself will look after him and his troubled mind and that eventually bart will cease mocking Christ and His Church and abusing the Scriptures and will not lose his soul due to his arrogance and spiritual blindness.

Perhaps that’s why such occasions can also be intimidating, it’s the idea that you could come face to face with one who is so lost, so angry and so caught up in their own vain pride, that it becomes disturbing and even pitiful to witness one such as him and others. Though to give bart some credit, he’s not as worse off as many many others one can encounter.

Dear Rachel - 1:02 p.m.

Of course protestant communities have retained some of the truths they learned from the Catholic Church Jesus established (Matt 16:18,19) but, nevertheless, they are not a Church; not one protestant community is because they abandoned Apostolic Succession, The Priesthood, and the Eucharist and so they worship in vain, frankly.

Only The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass is acceptable worship and it is only in The Catholic Church and The Orthodox Church (which calls the Mass, The Divine Liturgy) such worship can be found.

One of the purposes of The Incarnation was to teach us how God Himself desires He be worshipped and Jesus Commanded his Apostles to worship Him in the Mass he instituted at the Last Supper.

Of course, there are many who will not hear the Church and so we ignore them and we let them follow great heretics like Luther who taught that Jesus was a fornicator:

“Christ committed adultery first of all with the women at the well about whom St. John tell’s us. Was not everybody about Him saying: ‘Whatever has He been doing with her?’ Secondly, with Mary Magdalen, and thirdly with the women taken in adultery whom He dismissed so lightly. Thus even, Christ who was so righteous, must have been guilty of fornication before He died.” (Trishreden, Weimer Edition, Vol. 2, Pg. 107)

Please always keep in mind that it is absolutely clear by now the Pope is committed to dialogue and cooperation. There is no comfort in this papacy for the closed-minded Catholic or persons of any other faith tradition.  No matter how spirited his articulation of Christian truth may be, our apprehension of truth must not be distorted into a platform from which we look down on people of other faiths or worse, yet, condemn them.  Catholics cannot simply pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves about how much better our religion is than other religions.  The Pope wants to us to work together with people of other faith traditions on issues that concern all of us. And for that, we must learn about those other traditions and from their believing members.  Enough of the vitriolic exhortations of those who do not believe as we do.

Dear Catholic Lawyer. Authentic Dialogue presupposes that all participants in it are aware of the truth and the plain and simple truth is The Catholic Church is the sole true Religion established as it was by Jesus The Christ.  All other religions are false in varying degrees.

We Catholics do not congratulate ourselves about our religion because we did not establish it, Jesus did.

We Catholics ought be neither boastful nor engage in false humility as though the religion to which we belong is not superior to all other religions. It is.

And now, hear from Luther:

The Jews

Christ taught: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Luther teaches: “My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire… Second, that all their books—their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible—be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted…Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country…Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it…

He who hears this name [God] from a Jew must inform the authorities, or else throw sow dung at him when he sees him and chase him away”.

“Burn their synagogues.  Forbid them all that I have mentioned above. Force them to work and treat them with every kind of severity, as Moses did in the desert and slew three thousand… If that is no use, we must drive them away like mad dogs, in order that we may not be partakers of their abominable blasphemy and of all their vices, and in order that we may not deserve the anger of God and be damned with them.  I have done my duty.  Let everyone see how he does his.  I am excused.”[35] 

“ If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words I baptize thee in the name of Abraham”[36]

“

Dear Catholic Lawyer. Dominus Iesus, after warning about relativism when it comes to the question of different religions, teaches: ...17.  Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.58 The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches.59 Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.60

On the other hand, the ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery,61 are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.62 Baptism in fact tends per se toward the full development of life in Christ, through the integral profession of faith, the Eucharist, and full communion in the Church.63

My experience with Catholics since converting from evangelicalism to the Catholic Church is: 1) Faith is very private among Catholics, 2) Some don’t know how to discuss their faith, 3) Many have been told that there really isn’t any difference between Christians, so don’t bother, or 4) They don’t believe in Hell.

Catholics, by and large, don’t know what Protestant churches believe, let alone Mormons, JW’s, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics, etc.  When we entered the Church we had a number of well-meaning Catholics congratulate us while saying, “But, you know, as long as we love Jesus, that’s all that matters.”  No wonder they’re confused when an evangelical tries to witness to them!

Please do not respond to St Bart. I too have been guilty of responding to him before but our responses are what keeps him here. If we stop responding he will cease posting.

Will he?  I have my doubts.  But the question is about innocent bystanders who may think he’s irrefutable.  A ban might be wise to prevent his leading them astray.

The reason Catholics are kept stupid by the clergy is so they can exert their Satanic rituals.  Anyone versed in Scripture see that Catholicism is a fraud.

Anyone versed in the Satanic books that Catholics propagated?  There’s no use claiming

History disproves the Catholic claim that they gave the world the complete Bible at the Council of Hippo in 390.  This is false because we had the complete Bible early in the second century, before the existence of the Catholic Church.

Because even if you don’t admit that the Church existed then, you must admit that the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, and many other heretical works.  Having all of Scripture in a slew of works and a nickel will buy you a cup of coffee unless you have an authority who can tell you which are scripture and which are not.

  Let me summarize Church history for you.
- 1. Catholics say the church went off the rails around 1500 AD.

Nonsense.  Part of the flock went charging off under their own misguidance, but the church stayed firmly on the rails.

Vermont crank:  All that you say about the fullness of the truth residing in the Catholic Church is, of course, correct.  Perhaps I have not been clear on my point.  To begin, the message of the Pope is to invite dialogue.  We are called to engage in that dialogue in order to make clear the message of Christ.  The problem is that the bombastic approach that many have taken is foreign to the way that Jesus taught. Creation is wounded and requires a power greater than our own to heal the wound.  Teaching what we believe and why should be the mission of Catholic evangilization.  We fall short on the compassion and patience of our Lord in that respect.  Jesus did not prevail over death and sin by condemning sinners but instead by healing them.  While we may believe that some people are simply lost causes, Jesus never did and does not.  After all, just look at us; aren’t we all callled to experience a true metanoia every Ash Wednesday?

My church is filled with ex-Catholics.

How tragic.  “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.”

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.  I wish I had the courage to do this.  Even when I was wandering around in the Evangelical world, though, I had trouble with it.  Besides being chicken, I can see a few other reasons why I don’t:

I just plumb don’t know what to say.  For some, the Holy Spirit tells them what to say, but despite being a charismatic, this has never consistently worked for me.

Evangelicals have it easy—you can have someone saved in the blink of an eye. “Do you accept Jesus who died on the Cross as Lord and Savior? Yes?  Hallelujah, you’re in!  Nice talking to you, see you in heaven!”  No, with Catholicism it’s like, “Ok, you believe in God?  [lengthy conversation follows]  Good, that’s settled.  Oh you want to know about the Crusades?  And the Inquisition?  [3 hours later ...]  Now there is Original Sin, plus Actual Sin, which means we need a savior.  Got that?  Good.  Ok, let me go through the church’s teaching on contraception, premarital sex, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, masturbation, divorce, etc…. [2 hours later] Ok, you’ve got that. Here’s a Catechism.  [months later ...]  Are you ready to be baptized?  Good!  That’s 18 months of RCIA.  Are you remarried?  Oops, you need an annulment. [2 years later]  Whoops!  You missed the Easter Vigil deadline!  Wait 11 more months.  Of course you don’t have to go through the whole process with everyone I suppose, there is always a piecemeal approach, but it is different.

Sometimes I wish we could produce an off-label version of Catholicism.  The beliefs would be the same and it’d be in communion with the pope but we’d give it another name so that people would be actually open to what we had to say instead of throwing up a dozen shields.  However, it probably wouldn’t work because it wouldn’t take long to figure it out.  Also you’d have problems convincing Catholics you were in communion with them.

Catholicism just isn’t as simple as Protestantism.  Doesn’t prevent us from evangelizing but it does present a challenge.

Also I’m embarrassed to bring anyone to church.  Protestants can love-bomb inquirers.  All I have to offer is a bunch of sinners barely distinguishable from anyone else.  There isn’t the support network there that the Protestants have.

Dear Catholic Lawyer.  Jesus absolutely did consider some folks lost causes, Judas, for example, and the Pharisees he called a brood of vipers, etc.

Compassion does not mean a feminised approach to truth.

The new “dialogue” must be questioned simply because it is new. Anything new is open to question especially if it does not appear to be in continuity with ecclesiastical tradition

I get your point but I also like the words of St. Francis,
“Preach the gospel always, If necessary use words.” Sometimes the best witness we can give is to be like Christ.

The 16th century LUZR’s, (Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and other Revolutionaries),
dethroned Jesus and chased Him out of the Sanctuary.

Now, I have nothing against the progeny of the protestant progenitors. They are
doing their level best to study Scripture and attend Sunday services and they
try and follow Jesus.

However, not one in one million know the truth about the 16th century LUZR’s.

Malachias 1 prophesies ...

“For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among
the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my
name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord
of hosts.”

But, the protestant revolutionaries falsified Scripture substituting “incense “
for” Sacrifice” and “pure offering” for “oblation” (and also heathen for gentile)

It is clear they absolutely had no love for Scripture when it came to a
Prophesy their ideology rejected. They simply falsified Scripture to cement
their revolution which abandoned the Commands of Jesus vis a vis Worship.. Now,
is there one in one hundred million well-intended protestant who knows this? NO.
We must preach it to them.

We must preach this truth to them because they have been denied their birthright
as Baptised Christians. As Baptised Christians, they ARE related,imperfectly, to
the Church.

However, their worship is sans Sacrifice.

For Catholic and Orthodox, our Churches are permeated with the Odor of Sanctity
because ours is not only the Worship Prophesied by Malachias, it is the Worship
Malachias Prophesied and Perfected by Jesus and He Commanded His Apostles to
Worship this way as The Way until the end of time.

At a Catholic Mass/Orthodox Divine Liturgy, it is the action of Jesus, as
Priest, Victim, Meal, which is the focus and essence of Worship.

In a protestant service, it is solely the action of man - reading and commenting
upon scripture and singing hymns and praising God. Now, there is nothing wrong
with that. HOWEVER, there IS something wrong in that Our Lord and Saviour has
been excised from the exercise. Protestants tells us the works of man are bloody
rags. By their own words they are condemned. Their service is solely about the
work of man (bloody rags)as the protestant progenitors jettisoned the Sacrifice,
Priesthood, Eucharist and rejected Apostolic Succession, Eucharist, Mass etc.

What IS acceptable to God as Worship? Bloody Rags or the PluPerfect Sacrifice of
the New Covenant?

They need to hear the truth. And I will preach it to them

I will now make nice and quote Luther. Even he got it right, sometimes:

To speak of symbolically about “eating my body and drinking my blood” would mean ‘WHOEVER PERSECUTES ME AND ASSAULTS ME WILL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.”
See the following for the symbolism of eating and drinking another’s blood.
Ps 27:2
Isaias 9:18-20
Micah 3:3:2
Sam 23:15-17
Rev 17:6,16
to symbolically eat someone’s flesh and blood is to persecute and assault them.

Even Luther got it right about the Eucharist. “of all the early fathers, as many as you can name, not one has ever spoken about the sacraments as these fanatics do. None of them uses such an expressions as “It is simply bread and wine,” or “Christ’s body and blood are not present.” Yet this subject is so frequently discussed by them, it is impossible that they should not at some time have let slip such an expression as “It is simply bread” or “Not that the body of Christ is physically present” or the like; since they are greatly concerned not to mislead the people; actually, they simply proceed to speak as if no one doubted that Christ’s body and blod are present. Certainly among so many fathers and so many writings a negative arguement should have turned up at least once, as it happens in other articles; but actually they all stand uniformly and consistently on the affirmative side.” (Luther’s Works)

Luther gets another thing right:

“We concede—as we must—that so much of what they [the Catholic Church] say is true: that the papacy has God’s word and the office of the apostles, and that we have received Holy Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would we know of these if it were not for them?”
Sermon on the gospel of St. John, chaps. 14 - 16 (1537), in vol. 24 of LUTHER’S WORKS, St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1961, 304

And that’ll be it for awhile

Vermont: Respectfully, you couldn’t be more wrong.  First, there is no person known to God who is a “lost cause.”  That is why the Church has never said that anyone is in hell and why salvation has no exceptions.  Please recall that Peter was once rebuked by Jesus as being “Satan” yet he was the rock upon which Jesus built His Church.  It is a perculiar arrogance of humans to believe that anyone of us can sin ourselves out of the love of God.  Jesus didn’t come to save some, or most, or even a few (as some denominations believe).  Your views are very close to that of a “double Calvinist” form of predestination.  Keep in mind that the word “Basileia” was used to describe the Kingdom of God (Heaven in Matthew).  This is a way of living that we are called to that does not allow for the surrendering of a single soul to the evil one.

Dear Catholic Lawyer. I think you could profit from reading Catena Aurea, The Biblical Commentary of Cornelius A Lapide, and The Biblical Commentary of Haydock when it comes to Mark 14 and the teaching that it were better that he (judas) had not been born.

And of course there is Matt 25, etc etc.

While it is true the Catholic Church has not infallibly proclaimed that so and so is in Hell, it beggars credultiy to think that no one is in Hell.

To deny universal salvation is not “arrogant” but to think universal salvation is probable is arrogant. It goes against Bible, Magisterium, and Tradition.

Other than that, it is an attractive heresy :)

Dear Catholic Lawyer. Consider a law suit against whomever it was who taught you the heretical beliefs of the “universalists” (See catholic Encyclopedia at “new advent”).  They clearly subjected you to a form of theological abuse.

His Holiness Benedict XVI celebrates Mass
during his visit to the church of
Santa Felicita e Figli Martiri on the outskirts of Rome.

Visita pastoral alla Parrocchia Romana di Santa Felicita e Figli Martiri
“Cari fratelli e sorelle della Parrocchia di santa Felicita e figli martiri!
“…E’ venuto Gesù per dirci che ci vuole tutti in Paradiso e che l’inferno, del quale poco si parla in questo nostro tempo, esiste ed è eterno per quanti chiudono il cuore al suo amore…”—Omelia del Santo Padre

Pastoral visit to the Roman Parish of Saint Felicity and Martyr Sons

“Dear brothers and sisters of the Parish of Saint Felicity and Martyr Sons!
“…Jesus came to say that he wishes all [to be] in Heaven and that hell, which is barely spoken of in our age, exists and is eternal for all those who close their hearts to His love…”—Pope Benedict’s Homily

As a practicing lawyer, I am very used to argument and replys to questions that miss the point.  My reply was directed to the suggestion that there are individauls who are irrevocably “lost causes.”  That is Calvinism.  And to suggest that some are predestined to go to heaven and some to hell is double Calvinism.  I did not suggest or imply that everyone goes to heaven or that there is no hell. Our role as Catholics is to never give up on anyone.  To suggest that we know the heart of anyone is the very heresy that you condemn.  As far as the irrevocable, unconditional nature of God’s love, I remain firm.  God loves us without conditions and he is continually calling us to conversion.  We make the choice of whether to answer, or not.  Perhaps the theology courses taught at Saint Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, in its diaconate program, need to retool if they have missed the mark that badly.

Dear Catholic Lawyer. You slyly added qualifying adjectives to words I wrote in what can only be thought to be, at best, an ungracious and gratuitous attempt to change the meaning of what I wrote.. There is nothing in what I wrote to suggest that I have come within even a galactic distance of tip-toeing through the TULIP.

Whatever it was you took from your education you certainly did not learn the Catholic conception of Predestination. You can find a good summary of it in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Read it and maybe you can begin to correct your errors about it. (While you read it, note what is written abut Judas). After He refused the time of his visitation and decided to become a traitor and sell Jesus for the price of a slave he was a lost cause; and of course he realised that and hung himself.

Now,maybe you think Judas is saved. If you do, just write that and make a plausible case he was.

St Augustine taught that while we were created without our consent we will not be saved without our cooperation.

And God does not continuously call us to conversion if ‘God hardened his heart’ has any meaning at all. And, of course, at Fatima, Mary spoke about souls falling into Hell in numbers resembling snowflakes.

Again, I think you have a rational basis for a law suit to recover part of the cost of your theological education.

Catholic Encyclopedia entry on “Predestination”

“In order to emphasize how mysterious and unapproachable is Divine election, the Council of Trent calls predestination “hidden mystery”. That predestination is indeed a sublime mystery appears not only from the fact that the depths of the eternal counsel cannot be fathomed, it is even externally visible in the inequality of the Divine choice. The unequal standard by which baptismal grace is distributed among infants and efficacious graces among adults is hidden from our view by an impenetrable veil. Could we gain a glimpse at the reasons of this inequality, we should at once hold the key to the solution of the mystery itself. Why is it that this child is baptized, but not the child of the neighbour? Why is it that Peter the Apostle rose again after his fall and persevered till his death, while Judas Iscariot, his fellow-Apostle, hanged himself and thus frustrated his salvation? Though correct, the answer that Judas went to perdition of his own free will, while Peter faithfully co-operated with the grace of conversion offered him, does not clear up the enigma. For the question recurs: Why did not God give to Judas the same efficacious, infallibly successful grace of conversion as to St. Peter, whose blasphemous denial of the Lord was a sin no less grievous than that of the traitor Judas? To all these and similar questions the only reasonable reply is the word of St. Augustine (loc. cit., 21): “Inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei” (the judgments of God are inscrutable).”

St. Bart, what about those of us who were born and raised (and in my case, married) in Protestant churches but then converted to Catholicism as adults?  For my part, I left the ELCA when I realized what a pro-abortion church it was becoming: http://catholicphoenix.com/2011/01/04/the-elca-and-abortion/

The Holy Spirit led me to the Catholic Church. Are you telling me that I should disobey the Holy Spirit?

I went to a Protestant Evangelical school from kindergarten to 12th grade, but I was raised as an orthodox Roman Catholic in my family (my parents thought the so-called Catholic schools in the area weren’t very spectacular—and I’m glad they thought that when I look back on it).  And my parents, siblings, and myself went to Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation.  One thing I noticed, after being in an evangelical school for so many years, is that the teachers and students were very, very open to talking about their faith.  That wasn’t the case at my parish though, where the practice of the faith was viewed as a private affair.  Priests and religious brothers and sisters can’t do all the work of bringing Christ to others—we laypeople obviously have to do our part.  But the question is how…

But I think there is a danger in discussing one’s faith openly that we all have to be careful of: using evangelization to prop up one’s own pride (a cardinal sin).  While there were many evangelicals I know who were striving for holiness, there were (MANY more) others actually using Jesus and their identity as a “Christian” to rationalize their superiority over everyone else who did not have “as much faith” as they do.  And, of course, the lives of these same people didn’t exactly match what they said.  To make matters worse, they don’t even realize that pride.  I’m not saying this out of envy, I’m merely reporting what I’ve seen.  The willingness to talk openly of the faith is worthy of imitation; but the possible prideful aspect of it isn’t.  Maybe the faith being a “private affair,” as a mentioned in the above paragraph, actually has an advantageous aspect to it than we realize (i.e., the strive for holiness in personal prayer).  I’m simply giving my fellow Catholics the benefit of the doubt.

And before clicking on the enticing “submit” button, I want to say something about the calls for dialogue from Pope Benedict: Dialogue assumes that both parties taking part in the dialogue are rational.  And it’s a simple truth about reality that not everyone is rational.  I’m NOT saying anything against Pope Benedict.  I’m saying this against anyone tempted to misinterpret what the Holy Father says.

St. Bart,

The Holy Spirit led me to the Catholic Church. Are you telling me that I should disobey the Holy Spirit?

For the record, I have studied Church history and theology. They are what led me to the Catholic Church. You can read my conversion story here:

http://a-star-of-hope.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-conversion-story.html

St. Paul tells us to speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15) Do you realize that you are going against the Bible when you resort to insults? I thought you knew Scripture.

“So the purpose of the Catholic church is to collect all the dead weight.  It is best to keep the dead weight in one location because it makes it easier for Evangelicals to know where the apostates are.  All very simple!!”

LOL! The Book of Bart!

Ok so, one can quote scriptures,have knowledge, hear voices, see visions but if one does not have LOVE than one is simply a clanging symbol. ‘Love is patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it is not proud or rude, it is not self-seeking….’ Isn’t this the gist of 1 Cor.Ch 13? How do you love one another? Well, Jesus said ‘you will know them by their fruits.’ Good trees bear good fruit. I don’t see any love or good fruit here st. bart. However, I see a lot of good fruit coming out of the Catholic Church.

Let’s look at this another way. What if the Catholic Church is evil, satanic and all the things you say, why is it your private mission to convert us? Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on doing GOOD and promote goodness, LOVE us so called ‘satinic Catholics’ into life!. Is your mission producing good fruit? Jesus said to love those who persecute you. Sorry, I do not see any evidence of LOVE in the words that are coming out of your heart on this page. There are plenty of people in all religions who will be judged harshly on Judgement Day. Each of us needs to examine our own conscience and act accordingly. You are trying to evangelise us by HATE, perhaps you should try a different tack as it is not working…

St. Bart,

“The Bible tells us to test the spirits.”

I have done so.

“It is not possible for the Holy Spirit to lead you to an apostate church.”

Then my only conclusion is that the Catholic Church is not an apostate Church, since the Holy Spirit led me there.

“Regarding insults.  Jesus insulted the Pharisees, the religious leaders, and even His disciples.”

Are you saying St. Paul was a liar when he told us to speak the truth in love?

“Your conversion story is nice, but it only shows that you have been hoodwinked.”

How so?

“Not surprising since you play D&D which is totally Satanic.”

No, it’s a morally neutral activity.

“Jimmy Akin also played D&D and this occult spirits lead you and him to the Catholic church.”

You’re comparing me to Jimmy Akin?! Wow! I’m honored! I’m a big admirer of his.

“Repent for D&D and then God will lead you out of the sewer of Catholicism.”

Being Catholic has made me a better Christian, a better wife, and a better mother.

“Those that were social misfits and dabbled in the occult (D&D) are easily fodder for the Medieval superstitious spirits of the Catholic church.”

Uh huh. I play World of Warcraft and I love the Harry Potter books too, just to further confirm your stereotype. Despite all of that “satanic” activity, I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, and I know He paid the full price for my sins. I am saved by His grace, and His grace alone. I reject Satan and all his evil promises.

Funny how that works, huh?

Well, St. Bart, if you’re ever interested in what Catholics actually believe instead of what you think it believes, check out www.catholic.com!

“I know what Catholics and Lutherans believe.”

Your comments indicate otherwise.

“My experience is that overweight husband and wife teams suffer from serious insecurities and emotional problems.” 

Is it, now?

“Thus spiritually, emotionally, and physically unhealthy people are a perfect fit for an unhealthy church.”

So… by your logic, the majority of people in evangelical churches are healthy, skinny, emotionally healthy people.

Funny, that’s not my experience.

“So you like the Catholic church because it does deal with your real issues.”

No, I’m Catholic because Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior, and I want to follow Him in all things.

“Thus you are just being added to the dead weight of the Catholic church.”

Not dead, friend. Living and vibrant!

“I really doubt that you know anything about theology.”

Funny, I think the same about you.

“If you can not articulate the difference between various hermeneutical frameworks, eschatological views, have a complete understanding of the Minor / Major prophets, Hebrews, doctrine of justification, sanctification, glorification,  and many others you are not a theologian.”

No, I’m not a theologian. I wasn’t aware that was a requirement to be a Christian. Could you please provide a Bible verse that says all Christians must be theologians, and also a Bible verse that states where all Christians must be able to articulate any of the above? Thanks.

“Typically overweight people are typically moody, lazy, and irresponsible.” 

You must not know many overweight people.

“Since such people do not maintain their temple they are not good candidates for being lead by the Holy spirit.”

Fat people can’t be good Christians. Hmmm. I have to admit I’ve never heard that one before. Can you tell me where it says in the Bible that fat people aren’t good Christians?

St. Bart,

Can you tell me where the Bible says that fat people can’t be good Christians? I’d really like to know that before I continue with this discussion.

Also, you may want to read this: http://www.catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

I do have a college degree (B.A. in English, minor in Technical Communication). My husband is currently in college full-time and should, God willing, earn his degree in 2012.

St.bart,

I applaud your knowledge and I truly believe you mean well in your pursuit of truth so I wish you well. I hope that you prosper and that your family prospers, I hope that your children will give you great joy and bless you with grandchildren and good things in life. This is my sincere prayer for you today. Please remember:

DO NOT BE OVERCOME BY EVIL BUT OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD. (Romans 12:21).

Think of the good fruit that will come forth from this.
Also:

BLESS THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU; BLESS AND DO NOT CURSE. (Rom 12:14)

This is the way forward I believe.

Also Jesus said: “But the things that come out of the mouth COME FROM THE HEART and these make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, SLANDER. These are what makes a man unclean.” Matt 15: 16-20.

Judge what comes out of the heart. I like that, don’t you?

St. Bart,

Can you please tell me where the Bible says that fat people are bad Christians? Chapter and verse, please.

I’ve done door-to-door evangelization, too.  Usually people are surprised when it’s a Catholic at their door.

I think it was Steve who mentioned the Cursillo method—a far better approach.

My parish is mostly converts—it’s interesting to here their stories. Living as a joyful and authentic Catholic has magnetic appeal to others.  Christ’s light shines through.  People are looking for that authenticity. Talk is cheap.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the majority of us Catholics were taught a lot of what the Church believes but not why or where those beliefs come from. It’s hard to defend or promote something when you don’t know how to explain it. In my youth we were taught not to question the faith.
I think the Catholic education system has a lot to answer for. It should be teaching students how to defend the truth. I paid good money for my two sons to attend Catholic schools but they learnt more about other religons than Catholicism. I was blessed to find a parish that had a youth group which really taught the faith properly and by God’s grace my sons now have strong faith and know how to defend it or at least where to get the answers.
The bottom line is to “be prepared to give an account of that hope that is inside you” but in a loving way, motivated by love for the truth, not out of pride wanting to win an arguement.
I am in my 50s but up until 2 years ago I had never heard of apologetics. Also I never realised the actual differences between the different Christian groups. Nor did I know much about when each denomination started or anything else about the history of Christianity.

Dear Catholic Lawyer. I woke-up today feeling repentant over my participation in our exchange. I was unnecessarily confrontational and harsh and I apolohgise. Please accept my apologies.

It is clear we two have different approaches to defending the Church but that is no call for me to be personally offensive. Again, sorry.

Pax tecum, brother

Dear Joanna and others who continue to respond to st bart. Why?

I’m just curious. He has made it quite clear he hates you and your Church and he has refused to respond to questions that others have asked which clearly show he has no idea what he is talking about.

So, why?

No offense taken; we are fighting on the same side. Perhaps a formal theological education can be a disability, but our belief in a forgiving God and Jesus imperative to Peter to tend his sheep means that we can never give up on anyone.  After all, Jesus asked the Father to foregive those who crucified Him.  Should we do anything less? 
Our brother, St. Bart is lost and we need to lead him home, in humility and love.  Pax vobiscum.

I was born into the evangelical world of St Bart, and agree about the idolatry at the heart of the Catholic faith! However, I had always found the humanity of Jesus far more relevant than any form of divinity, and at the age of 30, it finally dawned on me that he was after all simply a human being, an apocalyptic Jew preparing to take Judaism into the new era he felt was about to unfold. Which makes St Barts position as idolotrous as the Catholic one - the argument is simply between different varieties of Christolatry - does it really matter which version of that you believe?? All those of us who admire Jesus and wish to follow him should really be looking into the faith he actually held - JUDAISM. To do anything else would be to dishonour his life and death - within Judaism. All varieties of Christianity, (including Messianic Jews!) are woefully ignorant about Judaism! It doesn’t matter which branch of Judaism you look at - they have significant differences but all have important things to say. And most of all, we need to come in humble apology for the terrible things both our communities have done to the Jews (and hence to Jesus as well) - we could perhaps argue whether Catholics or Protestants of the past have been the worst sinners in this regard, that is all! Yes, it is painful to realise when we have misunderstood so many important things for so long, but better late than never!

Another commenter wrote: “All varieties of Christianity, (including Messianic Jews!) are woefully ignorant about Judaism!”

Maybe. Some are; some aren’t. We live not far from an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, and love to go to their kosher pareve cafe and (1) eat their great sandwiches and salads - who needs pastrami when they make such good egg salad? and I also love to ask questions. I admire the Jewish custom of tzninut for both men and women that one observes among the other customers, and I think it’s something many Christian faiths continue to hold, but in quiescence, as it were, and wish we would give this notion of modesty and subdue-edness in our dress and demeanor a greater emphasis.

I also admire the (Orthodox) Jewish emphasis on the gathering of family and friends of all ages, preferring this to sporting activities and television, and especially the Jewish reverence and consideration shown toward the elderly. Even the frailest and a little (sadly) “out-of-it” Oma is very much brought forward, consulted, and made to feel included in the most solicitous and affectionate way. It’s really very touching and impressive to see.

You can take in a lot at our next-neighborhood-over cafe, and I see a lot to admire and to emulate.

When all is said and done, though, we wouldn’t trade anything in the world, though, for Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Dear JoAnna, Here is some commentary on Philippians 3:18-20. I assume you are not an Epicurean, but at the same time Christians are called to “crucify the flesh”(Galatians 5:24, for example). Jesus Christ crucified should be the main focus of Christians, not physical appetites.“if we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit.”(Gal 5:25). Hope this helps!

“Although some commentators feel these wicked men are “Judaizers”, Kenneth
Wuest sums up this section writing that…”The individuals spoken of in these verses are not Judaizers but professed Christian Greeks of Epicurean tendencies.
Epicureans represented a Greek school of philosophy which taught that the
satisfaction of the physical appetites was the highest aim of man. They had allowed their Christian liberty to degenerate into license (Gal. 5:13 = “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”). They did not understand God’s grace and thus thought lightly of continuing in sin. They were engrossed only in self-indulgence . A swing away from legalism would land such a person into anti-nomianism, namely, lawlessness. Paul, acquainted with the Greek classics, writing to
Greeks who knew their own literature speaks of these as having their belly as their God. He probably was thinking of the Cyclops in Euripedes who says, “My flocks which I sacrifice to no one but myself, and not to the gods, and to this my belly, the greatest of the gods: for to eat and drink each day, and to give one’s self no trouble,this is the god of wise men.”

Dear Catholic Lawyer. It is The Holy Spirt who can lead St Bart into the Catholic Church that Jesus established but Bart is rejecting Grace and so there is little you or I can do and so, in humility, we must ignore him and let Our Triune God deal with him.

We can not substitute our will for the will of God. If one is open to listening to an apology of The Catholic Faith then it makes sense to make the attempt but to continue to cast pearls before swine is not only feckless and nettlesome, it is directly contrary to the New Testament which teaches we must ignore men like St Bart whp persist in their heresies.

But, of course, that is just the Bible and Tradition :)

Dear Edl. Reading exegesis by a protestant is likely to result in you imbibing error. And this is just the case in your citation of the gentleman whose exegesis you trust. The New Testament is the exclusive property of the Catholic Church. “She is the absolute Owner, Guardian, Trustee, and Interpreter.” (“The Bible as the Church’s exclusive Possession” - Introduction to “A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture” Dom Orchard, 1954

Philipinans is not concerned with Epicureans. It has to do with The judaisers and “the God is their belly” refers to their insistence on clean and unclean foods (romans 14:14, 16:18)

Trusting a protestant to render a reliable biblical exegesis would be like trusting Goering to explain Judaism.

Vermont Crank - mainly because I find his responses amusing. But also for the benefit of any lurkers, so they can know not to take him seriously.

St. Bart - My response would be the St. Paul’s from a few verses before the one you cited: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

If you’ll read past posts in my blog, you’ll see that I’m currently on a weight loss journey, counting calories and trying to exercise more so I can get to a healthy weight. Although I will have to suspend my efforts for a little while as I found out last week that my husband and I are expecting our sixth child. :) I will have to talk with my doctor about any efforts to lose weight during pregnancy so I won’t endanger my child.

I’m wondering what you think about Robert Robinson, who is an evangelical Protestant gospel singer: http://www.robertrobinsonmusic.com/bio.htm Is he, in your view, not a “real” Christian because of his weight?

“. . . because I find his responses amusing”

Madam, are you a Catholic? He’s *blaspheming.* Are you sure you want to go on record as finding blasphemy “amusing”?

Do we really want to encourage that?

That poor soul may be diabolically obsessed. This is not entertainment. This is somebody who is in real, real trouble.

Please, have pity on that poor soul, and observe Holy Mother Church’s prescriptions as to how they are they are to be treated.

Thank you in advance!

(Sigh)

This poor man.

At exactly 12:30 PM EDST today, would all Catholics sprinkle a little holy water on their screens, and maybe say an Ave?

Maybe that will help.

Vermont,

No, I don’t find blasphemy amusing. I find his interpretation of Scripture amusing, as well as his arrogance and his ego. That being said, I’ve probably wasted more time than is necessary responding to his inane rantings, so I agree that it’s best to let him wallow in his own ignorance.

St. Bart,

Thank you for your concern, but it is misplaced. I believe that Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior. I believe that He paid the price for my sins on the Cross. I am saved by His grace alone. My husband believes as I do and we are teaching our children the same.

If you want Catholics to take you seriously, I recommend learning some theology and Church history, as well as learning what Catholics actually teach instead of what you think it teaches. www.catholic.com is a good start.

I hope you and your family have a blessed Easter!

Hey! Speaking of “how people deserve to be treated”.. . . has anyone reported the commenter calling himself “St. Bart” to Jimmy or to NCR management? I think they’ll delete his posts and ban him, if they get wind of his sustained pattern of blasphemy and abuse.

We don’t need this and don’t have to put up with it.

I’m still working on my taxes and don’t really have time, but I think it might be smart to clean up this mess.

@Mickey Collins. I know what you mean. When I first started listing to the Catholic Answers radio show, I though Jimmy Akin was an extremely condescending blowhard, and I had a hard time with the show whenever he was on.

But after a while when I actually started to get his sense of humor, wit, and intelligence level (about 50 times MY IQ) I started to get it. He’s really not being condescending at all. He’s trying to drive home a point and sometimes to get a nail through hard wood, you need a hammer. Jimmy has a great way of cutting through all the crap and getting to the heart of the matter. That offends some people, but it’s often because he challenges the listener’s/readers’ complacency.

Vermont Crank, Yes, I know Kenneth Wuest was a Baptist and who believed in the heresy of Eternal Security;Bellarmine labeled Eternal Security a recipe for licentiousness and anti-nomianisn, the Philippians serving as a good example of this! But Wuest’s interpretation aligns with Catholic commentary on this scripture. The Philippi were mostly Greek/Gentile with a very small Jewish community, so most likely he was addressing Gentiles, not Judaizers. Scott Hahn wrote that the people being addressed were “unidentified opponents” that
“were slaves of gluttony, shamelessness, and worldly ways of thinking”. These do not sound like Jewish Christians, but Greek Epicureans, nominal Christians possibly.
God Bless and happy Easter!

There’s an excellent article on the Eucharist at Taylor Marshall’s website:
http:/cantaur.blogspot.com/
Here is an excerpt:
“The Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is not merely a meal, but that it is also the one true sacrifice of Christ, re-presented throughout the ages. Martin Luther and subsequent Protestant leaders rejected the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist. Citing Hebrews 10:10, the Protestants held that Christ died “once for all.” They could not perceive how every single Eucharistic celebration could also be that same sacrifice of Christ offered “once for all.” It seemed to them that the Catholic Church taught that Christ was repeatedly slain and sacrificed over and over upon every altar of the Catholic Church. If this were true, it would have indeed been a grave error. However, the Catholic Church, in agreement with the Epistle to the Hebrews, does not teach that Christ dies repeatedly on the altar. Rather, the Church agrees that Christ died “once for all”—once for all time. Christ died once but the application of this sacrifice is for all time and for all people. Christ does not die again but the single offering of His Body and Blood on the cross is re-presented in the Eucharistic sacrifice and applied to those who receive Holy Communion. In other words, the sacrifice on Calvary and the sacrifice on the altar are one and the same, their mode being different.”

Correction!!

http://cantuar.blogspot.com/

PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS?ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ?ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

Holy Scripture and Theology; Interpretation; the Fathers

14. The Professor may now safely pass on to the use of Scripture in matters of Theology. On this head it must be observed that in addition to the usual reasons which make ancient writings more or less difficult to understand, there are some which are peculiar to the Bible. For the language of the Bible is employed to express, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, many things which are beyond the power and scope of the reason of man - that is to say, divine mysteries and all that is related to them. There is sometimes in such passages a fullness and a hidden depth of meaning which the letter hardly expresses and which the laws of interpretation hardly warrant. Moreover, the literal sense itself frequently admits other senses, adapted to illustrate dogma or to confirm morality. Wherefore it must be recognized that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide(32); God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all, that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession.(33) His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in renewing the decree of Trent declares its “mind” to be this - that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church, whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

I stick with Tradition and although many think he is the greatest things since refrigeration, I am not a Mr Hahn enthusiast.  When it comes to the passage in question, the Catholic exegesis has been consistent from St Papias (130 ad) through Haydock, up through Dom Orchard, 1954.

Mr. Hahn has made some serious errors and fabulous claims in his personal exegesis. I think it far better to read Traditional sources. I know that when I am told that what ecclesiastical tradition has always held for 2000 years is suddenly no longer accurate, I am stopped in my tracks.  For Lord’s sake, what Hahn says about Genesis and Lot and his daughters is a flat-out heresy

Dear Edl..Hahn claims that Genesis and Noe (in my haste I wrote LOt) and his drunkeness really meant sexual perversion - incest..here is the reliable Haydock:

Ver. 21. Drunk. Noe by the judgment of the fathers was not guilty of sin, in being overcome by wine; because he knew not the strength of it. (Challoner)—- Wine, Though vines had grown from the beginning, the art of making wine seems not to have been discovered; and hence Noe’s fault is much extenuated, and was at most only a venial sin. (Menochius)—- His nakedness prefigured the desolate condition of Christ upon the cross, which was a scandal to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles. But by this folly we are made wise; we are redeemed, and enjoy the name of Christians. Sem and Japheth represent the multitude of believers, Cham and Chanaan the audacity and impudence of all unbelievers. (St. Augustine, contra Faust. xii. 24; City of God xvi. 2; St. Cyprian, ep. 63. ad Cæcil.) (Worthington)—- Like the Manichees, modern heretics are very free in condemning many innocent actions of the Patriarchs. (Haydock)

Ver. 23. Neither ought we to be so quick-sighted in discovering the faults of any: which we often represent as real, when they are only apparent. (Haydock)

Ver. 25. Cursed be Chanaan. The curses, as well as the blessings, of the patriarchs were prophetical: and this in particular is here recorded by Moses, for the children of Israel, who were to possess the land of Chanaan. But why should Chanaan be cursed for his father’s fault? The Hebrews answer, that he being then a boy was the first that saw his grandfather’s nakedness, and told his father Cham of it; and joined with him in laughing at it: which drew upon him, rather than upon the rest of the children of Cham, this prophetical curse. (Challoner)—- Theodoret, q. 57. The children of Sem executed this sentence, in exterminating many of the Chanaanites under Josue. (Worthington)—- They perished for their own wickedness, which God foresaw, and revealed to Noe. Cham was severely punished by this denunciation of his children’s misery. See Milton, xi. 754. xii. 27; Deuteronomy ix. 4. (Haydock)
+++++++++++++++++++++++

and yet I am to think that Mr. Hahn is reliable? 

Stay with the Early Church Fathers, and The Douay Rheims Notes and the reliable old Catholic Commentary. I do not trust any Commentary after Dom Orchard’s collection. The laxity of the modern Church in the face of wild and novel speculations is only causing confusion and despair and, worse, Indifferentism.

Back in the day, Eve dialogued with evil and the resuts of that rash decision serves as a cautionary example. Do not converse with evil or pertinacious heretics is one lesson to be taken from Tradition but we hunger after novelties, don’t we? We have brothers and sisters in here continuing to imitate Eve.

C’est la vie.

Marion - that was a beautiful and informative post, thank you. For most of the last 2000 years the Jewish people have banned from evangelising - on pain of death. Yet despite this so many Gentiles have converted to Judaism over time that most Jews alive today are the descendents of converts! Talk about masters of evangelism without saying anything! What has drawn these folk to convert? - simply the wonderful family environment you describe. Most folk just have the down to earth need to love and be loved - which ever religious community provides this most satisfactorily will be the one which will ultimately have most impact. However in the case of Judaism I do think this may need to take a new form which is less culturally based than up till now - much as Christianity aimed to be, but unfortunately lost its Jewish soul in the process, as evidenced by Bart’s vicious phrase, “Synagogue of Satan” - the most worrying thing that has so far been said.

Truthseeker, I’m glad you enjoyed my earlier post. Please note that what you pointed out as “Bart’s vicious phrase, ‘Synagogue of Satan’ - the most worrying thing that has so far been said,” would never have come from the pens - or the keyboards - of most here.

That poor man is a troubled, troubled soul, and lets loose with writings that aren’t fit to appear upon any God-fearing site - whether that site is Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, animist, Jain, or any other religious faith you can name. No one here thinks as he does.  I hope not.

We sadly had to go with “discretion is the better part of valor” and to ignore that along with his many other outrages and blasphemies.

The point of this topic being to debate the need for evangelisation, as has been noted - Protestants have very much been in the vanguard of this - and they have particularly targeted Jews. However, never before have Jews have so much opportunity to answer back! I think Catholics should feel free to actively evangelise, but if they wish to do so to those of a Jewish backgroud, they should deeply respect the right of knowledgable Jews to explain why they feel the whole Christian argument is wrong! I think you will find that to do this seriously will entail the most serious challenge to Christian faith you can ever experience! At the same time you will find it one of the most interesting spiritual exercises possible. At the same time if a person doesn’t wish to engage in this challenge - and who knows when one may come up against a person of Jewish background - then perhaps leave the whole evangelising thing to one side?

When we did door to door evangelization, our strategy was to offer a free gift of a picture of Jesus (a contemporary one, he looks right at you, so kind, so loving, half smiling)—and to encourage people in their faith walk, see if they were attending church, encourage them to go back if they had stopped, or to find a new one, we invited to ours and offered to answer any questions or give a quick overview of what happens in Catholic worship.  We wanted to build up positive interactions with other Christians who in this area have been told so many lies about Catholics.  Also, when we were in the poor neighborhoods, we’d give an amazing coupon to our high-quality, really excellent thrift store we run—one quarter to fill up a brown paper grocery bag with anything they wanted in the store.  We would always pray the Lord’s Prayer together (and we would take their cue if they Protestantly added the Catholic doxology at the end LOL).  Well, before we did this outreach, I had a hard time believing that this was one of the most unchurched areas in the country.  We’re in the South, in Appalachia, it’s so aggressively, explicitly Christian.  But the pain and the brokenness we found—oh, my.  The rampant sexual and financial sins of the pastors of these little churches out here—it makes people give up on the church and it’s just me-and-Jesus (although their Bible is very dusty).  The poor people are rejected by the churches because they’re afraid they’re there only to steal charity.  The poor people can’t keep up with the fashion show every Sunday and are openly ridiculed.  The gossip endemic to these little churches has harmed people’s faith, too—often disguised as a prayer chain.  We heard so many stories of people getting churched/shunned unjustly.  These people are today’s anawim, and we welcome them any time they want to come.  Our church is actually open all the time, so they have a place to come pray even if they don’t want to attend services.  So many churches around here are closed and locked all week.  This door to door experience showed me how much we are doing right—we truly have an agape community of faith, open and welcoming to all.  Our charitable work is amazing, too, and a great way we show the love of God in our community.  Around here, people hear incredible lies about Catholics, and then their experience tells them that we are the kind, charitable, giving, welcoming ones.  People actually have great respect for the Catholics they know.  So, amigos, outpray—outlove—outserve, in the name of Jesus.  It works.

My son sent me your comments on Catholics “being chicken”.  As l told him as older catholics we were taught give in the collection and let the priests and nuns do the evangelizing.  Then after Vatican ll, it was to be open to all faiths in the spirit of being ecumenical.  It would be a grand thing to evangelize in this way but one really has to be coached and or given a lot of ideas as to what to say when the first thing will probably be “Abuse”.  Scott Hahn in “Rome Sweet Home” gives some good
ideas what to say to evangelicals as he is a convert. 
I feel you have to know about what others believe.  Calvin taught ‘once saved you are saved forever”  Again in the same book Mr Hahn goes into how he came to realize what was wrong with the things he believed as based on what the early church fathers taught versus what he was taught.

We should really know enough about our faith so as not to state wrong things and to be clear about what the truth is as taught by the magesterium.  Thanks for listening and God Bless.

just wrote a long comment and hit submit; was it that bad?

Dear Marion 3:49. Sadly, you are correct because of the modern church and its dialogue with the Jews and how it has suppressed truth. Of course, Bible, Magisterium, Popes, Saints, Holy Mass, and Tradition teach the truth about the Synagogue of Satan but few Catholics alive are aware of it. Of those who are aware of it, most of them are ashamed of the facts.

Apocalypse 2:9 I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich: and thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan

Apocalypse 3:9 Behold, I will bring of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.

So clearly was the transition then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His soul, the veil of the Temple was rent in two. ~ Pope St. Leo the Great

Since His spouse, the Synagogue, refused to receive Him, Christ answered: “This is a harlot!” And He gave her a bill of divorce, as we read in Isaias (50:1): “Thus says the Lord: Behold, you are sold for your iniquities; and for your evil deeds have I put your mother away. Because I came and there was not a man; I called and there was no one who would hear.” And so the Jews, the sons of the harlot, were repudiated. ~ St. Vincent Ferrer

My people, what have I done to you? Or in what way have I offended you? Answer Me. What more could I have done, and did not do? I led you out of the land of Egypt, and you prepared a cross for Me. I opened the Red Sea before you, and you opened My side with a lance. I gave you a royal scepter, and you have given Me a crown of thorns. With great power I lifted you up, and you have hung Me upon a gibbet. My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? ~ Reproaches of Good Friday

The Jews, whom Holy Church tolerates in diverse parts of the world in testimony to Jesus Christ, wish to persevere in their hardness and blindness rather than acknowledge the words of the prophets and the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures, and to come to the knowledge of the Christian faith and salvation. ~ Pope Martin V

The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they are adversaries to all men, prohibiting us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sin always: for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end. ~ I Thessalonians ii.14-16

The Synagogue is a godless house, a collection of wickedness, and God Himself has damned it. ~ St. Ambrose

The Jewish people fell from the heights because of their faithlessness and condemned their Redeemer to a shameful death. Their godlessness has assumed such forms that, for the salvation of our own people, it becomes necessary to prevent their disease. Besides usury, through which Jews everywhere have sucked dry the property of impoverished Christians, they are accomplices of thieves and robbers; and the most damaging aspect of the matter is that they allure the unsuspecting through magical incantations, superstition, and witchcraft to the Synagogue of Satan and boast of being able to predict the future. We have carefully investigated how this revolting sect abuses the name of Christ and how harmful they are to those whose life is threatened by their deceit. On account of these and other serious matters, and because of the gravity of their crimes which increase day to day more and more, We order that, within 90 days, all Jews in our entire earthly realm of justice—in all towns, districts, and places—must depart these regions. ~ Pope St. Pius V

The Talmud teaches that Jesus was the !@#$% son of Mary who was raped by a Roman Soldier when she was having her period and that Jesus was justly put to death for blasphemy and that Jesus is in Hell submerged in boiling excrement.

The Talmud teaches that Judas urinated on Jesus rendering both of them impure.  That may have been the basis for the evil episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which Larry David splashed urine on a photo of Jesus

In a “Curb your enthusiasm”, episode, Larry David accidentally splashes pee on a photo of Jesus and some Catholics weren’t too pleased.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/10/28/curb-your-enthusiasm-larry-david-urinates-picture-jesus

but I didn’t see one Catholic who linked that “comedy” to the teachings of The Talmud that Judas urinated on Jesus - Page 34 at this link

http://books.google.com/books?id=GZZ6EamCbxcC&dq=talmud&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=JUP-TJG9DMH78Aafw-H_Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&sqi=2&ved=0CIoBEOgBMA0#v=onepage&q&f;=false

It seems to me as though Mr. David is not only aware of Talmudic Hate Theology (or that at least one of his writers is) but he thinks it funny and a thing to exploit and use to mock us; and the fact that he and his buds can revel in the hateful insult knowing that few, if any, Christian Catholics are aware of the Evil, Satanic,Theological source of such “truth” likely makes it even more enjoyable for he and his friends in that they are peeing on ignorant Christians while enjoying a wonderful inside joke at the same time

The point is this. Jews can defile the Divine Person, Jesus, and literally urinate on Him while we Christian Catholics are told they are our elders brothers; and we are told it is a wonderful thing when our Popes go to their Synagogues and apologise to them; and we patiently and silently endure their demands we change Holy Writ or not declare a great and Holy Man, Pope Pius XII, a Saint; and on and on.

But woe betide that Christian foolish enough to, say, develop a comedy sketch where a man urinates on a photo of Moses then mocks Jews who are upset.

What is that you say? You say you cannot even imagine a Christian doing something so foul and hateful?

Me neither.

But, go ahead, keep telling yourselves they are your friends and elder brothers while they think of you and yours as not having human souls.

What I just posted will likely get me banned even though what I wrote has the links that provide the documentation.

Banning happens to any Catholic who is aware of Tradition and comments favorably about it. Of course it is wrong to hate Jews but it is not wrong to be aware of and believe what Great Saints and Great Pope Saints and Ecumenical Councils and The Bible have said about Jews who reject Jesus.

And, of course, it is a tautology to write that the first Christians were Jews but Jews cast out of their places of worship any Jew who accepted Jesus and one can see the change in the word Jew in the Gospel of John. Ir comes to identify one who rejects Jesus.

I suggest Catholics read E. Michael Jones “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirt and its Impact on World History.”  Buy it at Culture Wars where it is cheaper than buying it at Amazon.

Your refutation are the equivalent of you trying to fight my F-16 with a fly-swatter.  I just laugh at your lame attempts at rebuttal.

When Jesus performed a miracle it was visible to both secular and religious sources.  The wafer-god is NOT a miracle, but a clever hoodwink and superstition.

An ad hominem attack, followed by a non sequitor.  None of my arguments were predicated on the visibility.  Nor should any Christian argue that it is our duty to walk by sight and not by faith.  Nor does this address that even in the Gospels, people rejected Jesus by rejecting His teachings on the Eucharist because they are too hard.

Dear Joanna and others who continue to respond to st bart. Why?

To not leave people under the impression that he is irrefutable.  “It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.”  To stand aside and let him use this as a pulpit—it would be best, I suspect, if he were banned, but I don’t make the calls on that, and I’m not sure how to contact anyone to even suggest it.

Mary,
You are exactly the type of Coward that Jimmy is referring to.  Let us look what has been refuted.
1.  Peter ever having set foot in Rome. -11 reasons from the Bible.
2.  Eucharist thoroughly debunked.
3.  Papacy debunked.
4. Athanasius believed in Sola-scriptura( on a different post).
5. The corruption of the Latin Vulgate and deliberate mistranslations of Hebrews by Jerome, so he could promote the sacrifice of the Mass.  The original Greek prevents this conclusion.
6.  Forged documents to show how promote the Papacy, such as the Donation of Constantine, Rosary, and Marian dogmas.

Thus Catholics are left to worship the same god as their Muslim brothers.  I mean seriously, I rather be an Atheist than a Catholic.  It least the Atheist is not worshipping a wafer-idol every Sunday.  It is Catholics and their ignorance that produce the next round of lapsed Catholics, liberals, and Atheists.  Get rid of Catholicism and the culture wars could easily be won.
—-
Evangelicals are coming on full force and are grabbing Catholics by the truckload. In 100 years Catholics will have been only a bad memory that brought us the state religion, Crusades, Inquistions, Wars, anti-Popes, forgeries, fictional hagiography, homosexual clergy, child molestation, bad theology, corruption of the Bible,  Medieval Superstition, and wafer-godism.  I look forward to the next 100 years, because the battle is now gaining momentum, and the Evangelicals have the upperhand.

And nobody has been able to refute the unassailable arguments that I bring up.  The best defense that Catholics can muster is to ignore me.  However the cat is already out of the bag, and banning me will only prove that I was right.  Catholics are in a no-win scenario.

My reasons for rejecting Catholicism (there are probably some that I am forgetting):
-Veneration of idols (relics)
-Mary died sinless
-Mary died a virgin
-Mary as co-mediatrix (mediator) with Christ
-Prayer to other dead people (invoking saints)
-Papacy
-Papal succession
-Pope taking the title, “Vicar of Christ”
-Papal infallibility while speaking ex cathedra
-Transubstantiation
-Purgatory
-Penance (we cannot atone for our own sins in any manner)
-Church has authority to pass judgment on and interpret Scripture for members
-Mass/Eucharist is an actual real propitiatory sacrifice offered on behalf of living and dead people
-Salvation is only found within the Catholic Church
-Sacred Tradition is authoritative in addition to Scripture

According to the Council of Trent, the above must be believed to be a Catholic. These teachings cannot be found explicitly in the 66 books of the Bible, and in some cases are explicitly contrary to the Bible, therefore I reject Catholicism and its dogma.

I just noticed that all of st.bart’s posts were removed from the Atkin article “POPE: Don’t Evangelize the Jews!Really?” st.bart R.I.P.? or will
he emerge under a new name?

While scrolling through the volumes of posts on this subject, I did happen to notice one of st. bart’s rants and thought it needed a few comments to correct his errors.

“Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of RCC theology is that she has the gall to teach that Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice “in the bread and the wine” at the Last Supper . . . BEFORE HE WENT TO THE CROSS!”  Why does the Catholic Church teach this? Because Jesus said it. At the Last Supper he didn’t say this is a symbol of my body and blood. He didn’t even imply that it was a symbol. He said, “This is my body . . . This is my blood”.

As a prelude to this event, we have the “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6 where he said in verse 51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the brad that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Then what happened? The Jews quarreled saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” And what happened next? Verse 53-56, Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” Wow!!! What powerful words!

But his disciples found his words too hard to take, so they walked away saying, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” So Jesus turned to the Twelve Apostles and asked, “Do you also want to leave?”, and in verses 68 & 69, Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

st. bart tells us, “This is simply reprehensible and the Scriptures will not allow such religious quackery. First of all, Christ offered up His body “on the tree” {1 Peter 2:24}——i.e., at the cross, no sooner and no later, and certainly not at the Last Supper before it had even happened yet!” And adds, “If we are to believe the RCC, a “live sacrifice” was going on at the Last Supper “with the blood still in it”. But God strictly forbid the practice of eating a live sacrifice with the blood still in it in Leviticus 17:11-14 . Once again, the RCC ruins the typologies Christ came to fulfill.” But what he forgets is that Jesus is God. How many times did Jesus say “The Scriptures say . . . , but I say . . .” To say that Jesus couldn’t offer his body and blood to the Twelve at the Last Supper is to limit God’s power, and we know that His power is without limit. Jesus fulfilled His “Bread of Life” discourse at the Last Supper, and we believe it because Jesus said it. Is st. bart saying that Jesus lied? He appears to be. But the Church has the words of the Bible, Apostolic Tradition as attested to by the writings of the early Church Fathers, and 2000 years of Church history backing it up. All st. bart has is his very fallible interpretation of the Bible.

Even St. Paul testifies that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus’ body and blood in 1 Corinthians 11:23-32. Let’s look at those words:
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the night in which he was betrayed, took bread,
24 And giving thanks, broke, and said: *Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: do this for the commemoration of me.
25 In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink it for the commemoration of me.
26 For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord until he come.
27 *Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.
28 *But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.
30 Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep.
31 But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
32 But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord; that we may not be condemned with this world.
Now, let’s look at Haydock’s commentary on these verses:
Ver. 23. I have received of the Lord. That is, by revelation from Christ, as well as from others, who were present with him, that which also I delivered to you by word of mouth, &c. Here he speaks of the holy sacrament itself, of the words of consecration, as the evangelists had done, and of the real presence of Christ’s body and blood.—- Which shall be delivered for you. In the common Greek copies, which is broken for you, to wit, on the cross.—- You shall shew the death of the Lord. As often as you receive, it shall be with a devout and grateful remembrance of his sufferings and death for your sake. He puts every one in mind, that whosoever shall eat this bread, (ver. 27.) so called from the outward appearances, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall, by such a sacrilege, be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. And (ver. 29.) that he eateth, and drinketh judgment, or condemnation to himself, not discerning the difference betwixt celestial food and other meats, and not considering it to be truly the body of the Lord. See St. Chrysostom, hom. xxvii. If the words of our Saviour, this is my body, &c. were to be understood in a metaphorical and figurative sense only, is it probable that St. Paul, writing twenty-four years afterwards, to the new converted Gentiles at Corinth, would have used words, which full as clearly express a true and real presence of Christ’s body in the eucharist, without one word to signify that this was to be understood in a figurative sense only? (Witham)
Ver. 24. Juvenius, a native of Spain, and a priest, who flourished under Constantine the Great, about the year 329, has left us the life of Christ in hexameter verse, where speaking of the institution of the eucharist, he says, “Christ taught his disciples, that he delivered to them his own body;” and when he gave them the chalice, “he taught them that he had distributed to them his blood: and said, this blood remits the sins of the people: drink this, it is mine.” (Bibl. Max. P. P. T. iv. p. 74)
Discipulos docuit proprium se tradere corpus,
Edocuitque suum se divisisse cruorem.
Atque ait: Hic sanguis populi delicta remittit:
Hunc potate meum.
Ver. 27. Or drink. Here erroneous translators corrupted the text, by putting and drink (contrary to the original, e pine ) instead of or drink.—- Guilty of the body, &c. not discerning the body, &c. This demonstrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to the unworthy communicant; who otherwise could not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or justly condemned for not discerning the Lord’s body. (Challoner)—- The real presence in the sacrament is also proved by the enormity of the crime, in its profanation. See St. Chrysostom, hom. de non contem. ec. and hom. lx. and lxi. ad pop. Antioch. where he shews that the unworthy receiver imitates the Jews in crucifying Jesus, and trampling under foot his sacred blood. Hence the dreadful punishments we read of in verses 27 and 30.
Ver. 28. Drink of the chalice. This is not said by way of command, but by way of allowance, viz. where and when it is agreeable to the practice and discipline of the Church. (Challoner)
Ver. 30-32. Therefore in punishment of the sin of receiving unworthily, many are infirm, visited with infirmities, even that bring death, which is meant by those words, many sleep. But it is a mercy of God, when he only punishes by sickness, or a corporal death, and does not permit us to perish for ever, or be condemned with this wicked world. To avoid this, let a man prove himself, examine the state of his conscience, especially before he receives the holy sacrament, confess his sins, and be absolved by those to whom Christ left the power of forgiving sins in his name, and by his authority. If we judge ourselves in this manner, we shall not be judged, that is, condemned. (Witham)
Here we see Paul testifying to the fact the Jesus told him that the Holy Eucharist IS HIS BODY AND BLOOD. I think that is pretty conclusive proof no matter what st. bart may think. That is, unless st. bart is again telling us that Jesus lied. Is that what you are telling us, st. bart? If you are telling us that the Holy Eucharist is not Jesus’ body and blood, I guess that is exactly what you are trying to tell us. I tend to believe the Church on this, because the writers of the New Testament were all ordained ministers in the Church, it was the Church who gave us the Bible, and the Church is the only authoritative interpreter of the Bible since the Catholic Church (and only the Catholic Church) is guided by the same Holy Spirit that inspired the writers of the New Testament.

And, as I pointed out previously, Protestants can only receive a symbol of the real thing when they receive Holy Communion because they lost the power and authority to effect the change at the consecration, so I suppose that it is only right that they would deny the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, but in the Catholic Church, it really is Jesus.

@st. bart “My reasons for rejecting Catholicism” Your reasons for rejecting Catholicism show that you really aren’t very smart because, if you were, you WOULD be Catholic. People who convert from Catholicism to Protestantism usually are poorly catechized and are usually not very smart, those who convert from Catholicism on the other hand are usually highly educated. A great many of those educated people who convert to Catholicism usually begin looking into the true teachings of the Church so they can prove her wrong and discover on the way that it is the Catholic Church that is actually the True Church and Protestantism is the fake. I know, I converted. And, your bragging about how intelligent you are just proves how stupid you really are.

Regarding the Holy Eucharist, st. bart says, “This means that when the wafer enters the stomach and the acids immediately attack it, altering its structure {normally within 5 minutes} Jesus then leaves—-“whole and entire”.” What he doesn’t understand is that though Jesus is no longer present in the “wafer” or the “wine”, He is still present in us, to use the words of the Bible, He abides in us. Again, st. bart shows his stupidity because he is speaking from the Protestant view of Catholicism rather than what the Truth really is. Pity the fool. And, no, I don’t plan to refute all of st. barts claims. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does that already, and I don’t intend to print it out here. Suffice it to say, st. bart knows nothing of what the Church really teaches, if he did, he would be Catholic, too.

I wonder where st. bart gets all his misinformation, Jack Chick’s comics?

Ed, you are 100% correct in what you say about those converting from the Catholic Church to Protestantism, and vice versa. I was once an evangelical “non-denominational” Christian. I was raised in the Methodist church, but joined a “non-denominational” church in my 30’s. Actually, I jumped from one non-denominational to another to another, always trying to find that perfect Christian high. I liked being a Protestant because we read the Bible and interpreted it according to what it said to us personally. Gradually, I began to see that the New Testament writers called for a unified understanding of the faith. I looking at the New Testament Scriptures to see what they were saying rather than what they said to me, I looked for a straightforward meaning. What were the writers talking about. What was their intention or reason for writing, because that was what carried the message. I began to see the New Testament in a whole new light. Unfortunately, my “non-denominational” “pastor” thought my interpretations were becoming too Catholic, and eventually I was invited to leave the church. I went back to the Methodist church, but the “pastor’s” words kept working on me. Were my interpretations too Catholic? If so, what does that mean? Is the Catholic Church really the True Church? That started me on about a three year journey that ended up with me embracing the Catholic Church and all of her teachings, the ever Virgin Mary, statues, relics, rosary, candles, and most especially the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is God’s greatest gift to man because Jesus is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, body, blood, soul, and divinity just like the Bible says. You can walk into any Catholic Church and know that Jesus is present there in the Holy Eucharist in the tabernacle. And I love Eucharistic Adoration. I get down on my knees and gaze up at Jesus truly present in the consecrated bread in the monstrance. And you can unburden your soul before him. Before, I talked about jumping from one “non-denominational” church to the next trying to find that perfect Christian high, but there is nothing that compares with the high of actually taking Jesus into your body. I still get teary-eyed at times when I receive him. Jesus promised that He would be with us until the end of the age, and He truly is . . . in the Holy Eucharist. Another great Christian high comes from the Sacrament of Penance. Jesus gave the Apostles the power and authority to forgive sins, but before they could forgive them, they had to know what they were, hence Confession. That power to forgive sins was passed on to the bishops they ordained to lead other churches and to succeed them by the laying on of hands, which is also in the Bible. The bishops, in turn, gave that power to the priests who assist them in the ministry to the people. It isn’t a man we confess our sins to, it is Jesus, and the priest who is “en persona Christi” gives us those beautiful words of absolution, freeing us of our sins, and that is a high like nothing else. Wow! To hear those words and to know that Jesus has forgiven me.

st. bart knows nothing of the Catholic Church, and Ed is correct in saying, “Your reasons for rejecting Catholicism show that you really aren’t very smart because, if you were, you WOULD be Catholic.” Instead, you are on the outside throwing stones instead of on the inside rejoicing and living. You brag about how smart you are, but your bragging just shows how small you really are, because if you were smart and looked at the Catholic Faith with an open mind, you would be Catholic. As it it, you are just a miserable little man trying to look big and important and smart, and failing at it.

Is there anyone who knows Latin and can translate this from Ed’s post?

Discipulos docuit proprium se tradere corpus,
Edocuitque suum se divisisse cruorem.
Atque ait: Hic sanguis populi delicta remittit:
Hunc potate meum.

I realize Google Translate is convenient, but it lives something to be desired in its translation:
Taught his disciples to give himself to his own body,
Edocuitque his himself and divided the gore.
On to say: This is the blood of the people back to the sins of:
This my potato

I think the evangelical pitch is a bit less nuanced and more easily canned in a truckside conversation. Not that the Catholic version can’t be pitched quickly but it’s a bit more complicated than “ask Jesus into your heart” and read your bible.

@SamJohnson - it has been very interesting to hear of yours and others stories of frustration with the Protestant experience, and what brings you to Catholicism. For some it seems to be the need for a more unified approach, others seem most of all to need a visceral experience of the Divine, and feel I can understand both of those as true spiritual longings.

Judging by the most recent topic Jimmy Akin is keen to put forward the evangelising agenda…but reading all the posts regarding his article on the Popes latest book it seems the crucial issue of how the Church should relate to Judaism (the entire basis of Christianity revolves around the break here) has not at all been resolved…

It may be uncomfortable, but I would like to see a full reasoned debate on why and how the Jewish people became so demonised, which should make it much more clear on what a contemporary stance should be.

Surely the push to evangelise is thus still very premature??

Jews “demonised?’ You have GOT to be kidding. Try to imagine, say, Rush, Hannity, or Beck saying one negative thing about Israel. They’d lose their job in one day.  Joe Sobran was right when he noted that antisemitism was a charge indicating the individual hated jews whereas the charge of antisemitism now indicates an individual the Jews hate.

Since 1965, the modern Catholic Church has bent over backwards to befriend them, to change prayers of the Mass , to have Popes visit synagogues without preaching Jesus as saviour…and all of that has resulted in an increase in both the frequency and intensity of Jewish attacks against Holy Mother Church

A useful topic for meditation when considering evangelizing:  Has anyone here found st. bart’s arguments—when he offers them—persuasive?  Especially when compounded with the arrogance that leads him to describe them as “unassailable” and boast that banning his lies and blasphemies will prove that he is right?

(I note that many of his comments here have been deleted but not all—perhaps they did a clean-up but not a ban.)

@Mary In answer to your question, “Has anyone here found st. bart’s arguments—when he offers them—persuasive?” Definitely NO! They are the rantings of an anti-Catholic bigot. At one time I held some of his same preconceived notions of Catholicism, but once I actually looked into them with an open mind, I saw them as they actually are, nothing but distortions and outright lies. Praise Jesus my eyes were opened to the Truth. Praise Jesus and His Church, source of our Salvation.

Do you not get the idea that st. bart gets all of his “proofs” from Jack Chick’s Anti-Catholic Comics? He sure seems to follow the same path.

I actually wish that st. bart would get serious about proving the Church wrong and would start digging deep into Church history, the writings of the early Church Fathers, and true study of the Bible from the ancient texts. This is how people like Jimmy Akin, Scott Hahn, Steve Ray, Francis Beckwith, host of other Catholic apologists found the Truth and came into the Catholic Church. As it is, st. bart is merely satisfied to throw out the usual anti-Catholic lies. Pity the fool. Please pray for him.

Jimmy, I’m a Catholic campus missionary with FOCUS (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students)and we do something called barehanded evangelization.  It is basically street evangelization on a college campus where we speak to randomn students and start by saying “Hey do you have two seconds, can I ask your opinion, can you help me out real quick, etc” then ask a question such as “who do you think Jesus Christ is, if a personal relationship with God were possible would you want it, if God came down to meet you would you show up, is Christianity revelant today, how have your views on religion changed or remained the same since college, etc.”  Honestly, it is challenging to do, especially the initial contact and trying to figure about what to say.  I usually have to force myself to do it with my other teammates.  I have seen some fruit come out of it especially if I am able to get a student’s phone number in order to follow up with, but often we have a short conversation and that is it.  This concept is new to FOCUS and was introduced by Renewal Ministries about two years ago.  I don’t think this skill will be exactly transferable to my life after FOCUS, but it will hopefully make me more bold in introducing myself to new people at a parish or speaking about Christ and the Catholic faith to others.

Dan, I think that is a great approach for evangelizing on a college campus, and I salute you and all those in FOCUS for the great job of evangelizing you do. College campuses are excellent places for evangelization because kids are getting away from Mom and Dad for the first time to live on their own, and a lot of time religion falls by the wayside, or this time can also be a time of looking at something new that is just for the young man or woman. They are looking for a religion or religious experience that they can claim for themselves, something apart from the religion of Mom and Dad. I realize that there are also those who fit somewhere in the middle, where they continue in the religion they are brought up in because they have accepted it as their own, but the vast majority of young people fall into the “lax” religion or the religion of my own categories. This is where evangelization can play an important part; this is where FOCUS can make a tremendous difference in the lives of young Catholics, and those who aren’t afraid to look at it for the first time. I pray often for FOCUS and Renewal Ministries. God bless you for all you are doing for young Catholics.

@Vermont - I can see from your posts that you are a loyal traditionalist.

But if I may be so bold, can you imagine your position had you been born into the Jewish world at any time - supposing even at the time of Jesus?

I think you personally would have held fast to the revelation revered by your forefathers over many generations and rejected this “new interpretation” that came along as invalid, under careful scrutiny by the “Magesterium” of the time.

This would have been your solemn and rightful duty. It would be very interesting to talk about why you would have Scripturally rejected the “new interpretation” as being invalid! But that is another debate.

The fact is that I am sure that you would have NOT felt it justified, that as a result of doing your sacred duty, your descendants would then be brutalized by the holders of the later politically ascendant followers of the “new interpretation” - in perpetuity! Would you not be tempted to believe these people were soulless? And when you saw these people furiously condemning each OTHER to hell over differing variations of “the new interpretation”, would you (at least inwardly) not be inclined to regard the whole thing as incredibly stupid?

As for the contemporary Church, it has been clear that the great task of Christian theologians has had to be to wrestle with the extent to which the traditional Church teachings were responsible for that brutality meted out to the Jewish community.

Would you feel, if your community had suffered so intensely (certainly in terms of longevity, more than any other on earth), simply for sticking to tradition, that a couple of changed prayers and non-evangelical synagogue visits would be enough to set things right?

Would you not feel that to support the attempt to create a safe haven would be a top priority?

Unfortunately, much of the support for Israel comes from people who also desperately want to see a final end to Judaism, and so I wonder if that is really so much help.

I think the only way forward is for those of us from a Christian background to radically examine our relationship with Judaism at a much deeper level than has so far been done, and to ‘take the beam out of our own eye before trying to get the splinter out of anyone else’s’!

Evangelicals are nothing compared to Mormon missionaries.  I live near Salt Lake and they’re still all around us, and still go door to door whether you’re Catholic or not.

I don’t like to open Evangelize people, especially Mormons.  But what I do do, is wear my scapular and medal in the pool where I go for pool therapy.  The other ladies (almost all Mormon) are curious as to what this is and I simply tell them it is to honor Jesus and Mary.  When I casually mention that I went to another Church for Mass (the TLM) they aren’t aware that a Catholic can hear Mass at another parish. 

They’re curious as how long the Mass runs and a few other things too.  I always answer but don’t preach.  When I worked, I did the same thing.  Most of them know my feelings on abortion, divorce, etc. and lots of times we have “common ground”.  I just try to live my faith and don’t try to insult their religion, although I know it’s false.  I think a little charity sometimes and thoughtfulness of others, which I try and do, says more of a Catholic than the anti=stuff they are learning.

Hopefully this hasn’t been said already, but I think a lot of it has to do with being open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit as to when to speak and what to say.  I pray every time I get on an airplane for the person I’ll be sitting next to…sometimes we have an amazing conversation and I’m able to share some aspect of truth and goodness with them…and sometimes they just nod hello and settle into their newspaper. 

But I also know there are many times when I have kept silent in various situations (esp with relatives) when I knew I should speak, and it’s recently really hit home for me that this is almost entirely because of certain lingering doubts and uncertainties on my part.  So I’ve actually started a list of the different questions I have as I think of them, and am steadily working away at finding and writing down the answers.  Already I’ve found myself more willing to stand confidently on what I believe.

Just think about something that you are absolutely, 100% sure is true…the force of gravity, for example.  If you saw someone about to wander off a cliff, b/c they didn’t know or didn’t believe in the effects of gravity, wouldn’t you do whatever you could to stop them?  You wouldn’t even think about whether they or others might think you were foolish - you would KNOW that what you believed was true, and would urgently want to share it with them to save their life!  Just staying away from the cliff yourself wouldn’t necessarily convey the message.  Likewise, if we really, fully, 110% believed in the truth of our faith, would we be so shy about sharing it with others?  This is a question I ask myself often, and pray for grace to understand more fully, believe more firmly, and share more joyfully the great gift the Christ is longing to give to every person around me - and maybe this day, right now, is when He wants to speak through me for their sake!

Dear Truth Seeker I am not going to respond to your speculation other than to observe that all Christian Catholics are traditionalist by their nature. You err wildly and boldly in thinking that the God-Man, Jesus established his universal church and that it could fail like old Israel did.  As for The Jews, it was the Jews who began the antipathy by expelling from their Synagogues any Jew who accepted Jesus as The Messiah. And Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies and so the knowledgable ones had no excuses. Did you now that in the early centuries of Christianity that the Jews slaughtered 20,000 Greek Christians? Prolly not.
As to the Jews and Israel, I am not like so many other Catholics who let myself be led around my the nose by Jews so I can avoid being labeled an antisemite. The Jews clearly stole the land that had been occupied by the Palestinians for well over 1000 years. In a wonderful tidbit of historical irony, the Jews could not have succeeded in their theft of land from the Palestinians without the help of the Nazis. Of course not one in 10 million americans know this having chosen to accept at face-value the relentless Zionist agitprop. But, one could, for instance, go to google and buy “Palestine Diary, 1945-1948” and read that heavily-documented presentation of authentic history but americans aint into history. The majority of Jews in Israel are descendants of Khazars and have no genetic relationship with the Israel of the OldTestament. I have no aniums against Jews qua Jews aas they are commonly understood. But, the word Jew today means one who denies Christ. That is easily shown by the law of return. A son of a Jewsih Mom who converts to Catholicis is not allowed to move to Israel because he has accepted Jesus and, thus,  is no longer a Jew.

When it comes to Judaism there is not one thing a Jew could teach me because the Jews of today have absolutely no connection with the Jews of the NT. What remained of that tenuous connection after Calvary was severed when Titus destroyed the City of Deicide and The Jews made-up their man-made religion. From their own Jewish Encyclopedia you can read they value the Talmud greater than the Pentateuch.
America was formed by Calvinists who had been Judiased when, as Puritans, they fled to the Low Country and were corrupted and you attempt at Judaising will come to not. In fact, your love of Jews and Judaism has been condemned by the Catholic Church just as strongly as has been antisemitism.
There has not been one Doctrinal Teaching that has caused Jews suffering but so deluded by Zionist propaganda have Americans become that it is literally unthinkable that they could have caused trouble for themselves. I mean, surely they could not have done one thing to justify their being expelled from England, Spain, and other countries. No it was the mean old Catholic Church. As to their community suffering more than any other, that is simply Zionist Propaganda being repeated. There was no just cause for 1.5 million Jews (not 6 million, 1.5) to have been murdered duirng WW2 but far more Christians were killed but folks like you are so concerned about Jews that you never speak about the more than 100 million - ONE HUNDRED MILLION - Christian butchered by Commies; which was a grave evil that had a HUGE number of Jews in positions of authority.  Do you know how many Jews were member of the Central Committe? Do you know the name of The Jew who was in charge in Ukraine at the time of Holodomor? Do you even know what that word means?  I know you don’t. Some folks love feeling guilty for things they did not do, so, enjoy your Zionist propaganda but Iwaant no part of it

Hi Jimmy, I’m 22 years old and I work as a Catholic missionary on a university campus. Great article! I’ve definitely randomly gone up to people and asked for their thoughts on Jesus. It can lead to some great conversations. However, I’ve been way more effective (re)introducing a person to Christ if I’ve built an intentional relationship with him or her. The better you get to know people, the more you can understand how they would best respond to the basic Gospel message. Also, while someone may have had a conversion to Christ, there may not be readiness to fully embrace the Church (this includes cradle Catholics). Often times there are personal barriers in the way of this, and you may not be able to see or address these barriers unless a good level of trust has been established, which “quick evangelization” does not often accomplish. It was interesting reading the above comments. For those who expressed that they were frightened of it, I agree, evangelization can be difficult, but as baptized, confirmed Catholics, it’s our very IDENTITY to be missionary. Also, while witness through actions is important, it is simply not enough. ‘Evangelization will always contain-as the foundation, center and at the same time the summit of its dynamism-a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ…salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy’ (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 27: loc. cit., 23). Jesus gave us His Holy Spirit to bring others to Him. Just ask Him to speak through you, and He will! It’s actually Him doing all the work, anyways. Believe me, as a university campus missionary, I see both hostility and apathy, but deep down every soul yearns to know Love and Truth and I’ve seen God do amazing things in many students’ lives. And it all started with a hello :)

st bart,

My reasons for rejecting Catholicism (there are probably some that I am forgetting):
-Veneration of idols (relics)
Do you have a creche at Christmas?  Hmmmm…you must be an idol worshiper…all those little “statues”.  How about the Bible?  Do you worship the “Book”?  Or St. Paul?  Sometimes I think you guys worship St. Paul and the “Book” more than you worship God.  You certainly quote St. Paul more often than you quote Jesus!
-Mary died sinless<B>
Can you show me where in Scripture it says that Mary committed a sin?
<B>-Mary died a virgin
Actually, Mary LIVED as a virgin.  And that’s far more important.  Besides, I don’t recall any gratuitous sex scenes in Scripture so you’d be hard pressed to show me that Mary was NOT a virgin
-Mary as co-mediatrix (mediator) with Christ
Actually, we all have a part to play.  We are all co redeemers/mediators.  Jesus was so awesome that He has allowed us to share in His Cross.
-Prayer to other dead people (invoking saints)

-Papacy
-Papal succession
Look up “Royal Stewards” and “Keys to the Kingdom”.  Read Isaiah 22:22.
-Pope taking the title, “Vicar of Christ”
The Pope didn’t TAKE this title.  He was given it.
-Papal infallibility while speaking ex cathedra
Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples,  “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat;  so practice and observe whatever they tell you…”  If the “Chair” is good enough for Moses it’s good enough for Peter.
-Transubstantiation
John 6.  Say no more
-Purgatory
-Penance (we cannot atone for our own sins in any manner)
So what did St. Paul mean by this: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh and I complete what is lacking in Christ’s affliction for the sake of his body, that is, the church”  or this:    “Accordingly, we ourselves boast of you in the churches of God regarding your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions you endure.  This is evidence of the just judgment of God, so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are suffering.

-Church has authority to pass judgment on and interpret Scripture for members
So let me get this straight….protestants have the authority to interpret scripture for themselves, and the likes of Loraine Boettner can interpret scripture for them…it’s only the Catholic Church that has no authority to interpret scripture?  Is that Scriptural?  Really?  I thought one of your complaints against the CC was that we kept the bible from the people.  Now you’re telling me that the one person who is NOT allowed to read and interpret Scripture is the Pope?  Huh.  I didn’t don’t that. 
-Mass/Eucharist is an actual real propitiatory sacrifice offered on behalf of living and dead people
I don’t see dead people.  Do you see dead people?  I was under the impression that those who believe have eternal life.  Who are these dead people?
-Salvation is only found within the Catholic Church
Like what?  We hide it under the second Pew on Joseph’s side???  Salvation, the Catholic Church teaches, is found only in through Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
-Sacred Tradition is authoritative in addition to Scripture
On whose authority do you say otherwise?  Can’t really claim Scriptures authority, because that came from the Catholic Church.  So whose authority does your objection come from?

Am not perfect but recently an Anglican friend who had marriage issues saw it fit to approach me and open up about it and not go to a fellow Anglican. His wife did ditto to my wife and though we never had a round-table with them as a couple, things seem to have worked just fine after I spoke with them separately on separate occasions. The wife was hell-bent on quitting and at no time during our intervention did she recede that decision; I heard her making a long term plan involving her husband and knew God had worked through us to save that marriage.They know we are practicing catholics and respect us despite our frailties. We must have evangelized them willy-nilly; I believe we are the gospel people read by the way we live and we preach that way to all and sundry.

To expand on mk:
-Prayer to other dead people (invoking saints)
“Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones.”  We know that the holy ones are not the elders themseles because
“Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne.”

@Vermont Krank - As my post name suggests, I am genuinely a truth seeker and though it is possible to detect a trace of ultra right-wing, historical revisionist, holocaust denying, anti-semitic agenda in your argument; nevertheless - you have given me plenty of things to consider in order to give you the response you deserve! If I may be so bold, your surname suggests a German ancestry, and maybe you also have Georgian family connections? I, on the other hand, have family connections from the Lowlands. All these things inform the person we are, but are none of our own making. I have just been struck down by sciatica, so it may take me a while to return, but I very much appreciate your honesty and promise to respond to it as soon as I am able.

@Vermont - my apologies, I meant Ukraine - it must be the Stalin connection that threw me!

Dear Truthseeker. Sorry to hear about your Sciatica. I know that can be painful.

I am of Irish-Algonquin extraction with some Scots thrown-in for mayhem :)

I am right-wing in the same sense Donoso Cortes was right-wing. Said otherwise, I am a Traditional Catholic.

Of course I am a revisionist. All history ought be revisionist of one is to escape the lies of the Whigs.

I do not deny that about 1.5 million Jews were systematically slaughtered during WW2. I do deny it was in any sense a Holocaust if that word is properly defined. In any event, the numbers of Christian killed far exceeded the number of Jews killed but because the Jews control Hollywood, there aren;t any Movies depicting the slaughter of Christians by a malign ideology intellectually dominated by Jews.

WOW, good question!  I am not a scholar, although I try to be an apologist.  I can only speak from my own personal experience.  I was born Catholic and even graduated from a Catholic School, then soon left the Church and joined an Evangelical Church.  I did some Evangelizing in my 25-year stint, but not very much of the cold sharing that you share here. 

As a Catholic I have to say I would never have done ‘street’ preaching like this simply because I did not know enough.  I early on discovered that I didn’t have the quick answers that my protestant counterparts did.  Maybe that is what attracted me to their church.  However, it is different for me now.  By the Grace of God I am Home Again and a Lay Minister, on several Committees and very active in the Parish Community.  The difference to me is; most Catholics do not take the time to study their faith as adults.  Once they graduate from High School, they… or at least I and many of my acquaintances thought we had and knew it all.

In the last half of the 20th century, the American Church did a lot of experimentation and delivered inconsistent messages to the faithful, turning them off to the faith.  Only by making a personal commitment ... not only to Jesus, but also, to myself did I grow stronger in the understanding of the Catholic Faith.  You do not learn it by osmosis.  You have read scripture and Sacred Tradition.  Where do you find the Sacred Tradition? IN the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church), it is one of the great treasures that came out of Vatican II.  I know many older Catholics may ‘cringe’ when I say that… but VATICAN II was the real answer to Luther’s reformation.  Embrace it and its documents… read them… or I must say… you might as well… just move on to another faith.

LIGHTBEAM!  PRAISE THE LORD!  You got it so right.  My story was much the same. You did a great job of articulating it.  I love all these Evangelicals that have either converted or Come Back to Mother Church as I did!  THIS is EXCITING!

Beth, do not give up.  The best thing a Catholic can do is read the CCC a couple times, READ the New Testament and get familiar with it. And most importantly go to Mass with the intention of getting one idea that you can apply to your life, all week long.  Most importantly make sure you are in the state of Grace when receiving the Eucharist.  The SACRAMENTS are the GENIUS of Catholicism.  NEVER neglect them.  Over time you will be WELL equipped as you simply live out your faith in your daily life.  That is the best form of evangelization.

The Sacraments are the merging of Paganism with Christianity.  Every Bible Scholar knows this.  Sacraments are the wedge that separates Catholics from Christ.  The more you dive into the sacraments, the further you are separated from Christ.

I firmly believe that we don’t have to evangelize by words alone but can also be by actions. Also how we “present” our environment (i.e. a rosary on the car mirror) can be a way to evangelize in of itself.  Much like pro-life bumper stickers.  You know what my parents said…do as I do not as I say.

Thanks to everyone for not responding to the troll.

I’m going to say the reason Catholics don’t do this is because people don’t like us.
Allow me to explain.
I was raised Catholic and attended both Catholic grade school and high school.  I was from a rural, farming area and to my knowledge, almost everyone I knew was Catholic… so evangelism was never modeled for me.

I was off to college, and I had this idea in my head that everyone else wanted to be Catholic.  (I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that if they wanted to be they WOULD be… but hey, I was young!)

Then, after I became friends with girls on my dorm floor - we were talking about boys (naturally) and about one guy in particular, the conclusion was this, “He’s really a great guy, but ... he’s Catholic.”  When I asked why that was a bad thing, the response was, in part, “Because Catholics want you get married in the Catholic church and raise your kids Catholic.”
Which led me to understand that not everyone wanted to be Catholic.  And that perhaps, Catholicism wasn’t so great in every mind as it was in my hometown.

Now, over the years… I find that most Christians have a weird view of Catholics…  they think we worship saints and statues (veneration), argue about birth control and abortion, and then there’s the priest abuse scandals. 
It’s hard enough to defend Catholicism, much less try to convert somebody.
They don’t like us.

I used to approach strangers but not anymore.  I came to understand that I was throwing pearls before swine.  A door to door salesman selling plastic screwdrivers has a better conversion rate.  I also dont argue with the nutty almost christians who come to my door.  They just get angry and slash my tires.  It is hard to invite people to mass with all the abuses recently. 
If I know someone and I have enough time with them to talk and explain then I will try but I am not going to waste my time or theirs if it can not be done. 
One of the most powerful things I ever did to convert someone was to tell everyone that I do not consider protestantism to be Christianity.  Everyone who knows me knows I feel this way, it is no secret.  I can only imagine what is said behind my back but it does not matter.  They will come to me and ask “what’s wrong with anglicanism” or some other group and I let them know.  The Catholic Church alobe is founded and sustained by God and outside this church there is no salvation.
One added effect of this is that when people wont hear at first they eventually come along.  They have some trouble but can not talk with the wishy washy protestant pastor about it because deep down they know he doesn’t really have an answer for them.  They come to me knowing I won’t spare their feelings and knowing I expect Christians to conform to a higher standard.

Hi Jimmy.

I think the Catholic don’t “do that” are many but here are some reasons that I think contribute to it:

1)Catholics don’t usually like it when “that” is done to them. Evangelicals and other Christian often approach Catholics as “un-saved” and it can be a bit insulting. Catholics don’t want to do that to other people.

2) Catholics tend to think “God only knows” the state of another’s soul. We don’t go around wondering whether or not someone is saved - with no curiosity or pinioin there’s no need to take action.  Plus we think the whole thing is rather personal. We kinda think that God will works things out in that person in time. We have a lot of hope and not so much a sense of urgency that we see in evangelical Christians.

3) Catholics are scared - you’re right about that. We don’t realize how much we know, or how capable we might be when talking to a total stranger about faith. I think this is due, in part, to the fact that some non-Catholic Christians seem so much more knowledgeable about their faith and sometimes put Catholics down. It makes us feel insecure and unsure about our faith. (And poor catechesis over the past few decades hasn’t helped matters.)

**Converts to the faith are a GREAT gift because they wake us up to ways that we can help someone come to faith, or the practice of faith.

A blessed Easter to you and your family

Wow, this has some of the most polite comments i’ve seen coming from people of many different groups of Christianity!
anyways, i was trying to find information on whether Catholics are Christian because i’m sure that they are, yet many people i’ve come across told me they are not -____-’
I’m not Catholic, so it was interesting to learn that Catholics dont actively go out to try to “save” strangers.
And i’ve gotta give the Evangelicans props for their courage in doing so.
I’m LDS and I get so nervous whenever I tell people that because “Mormons” get a lot of negativity in the media. But it is nothing compared to the hate and attacks Catholics get. And for that, I believe, makes Catholic no chicken for continuing to be a member of a religion that gets so little media support.

It has zero to do with Catholics fearing anybody.  Catholics are in utter shock at the pride and arrogance of evangelicals paper thin theology and the dismantling of scripture.  Its best just to stay away from arguments.  Now if an evangelical wants to act like a decent person would, they would ask what Catholics believe and get into a conversation that way.  Instead they bop you on the head with utter stupidity and arrogance. It’s kinda like a second grader stomping his feet at a Professor and telling him he’s an idiot for believing in more than 3 letters of the alphabet. It’s that bizarre. That is the sum of it.  I have found that most atheists and agnostics are far more decent to have a discussion with than evangelicals.
Neophytes are clueless and bring it into the Catholic Church.  utter turn off.  utter un-Christian behavior

How about Mr. Akin write an article titled “The Pride of Evangelicals and why Christianity never would have gotten anywhere”.

Its because of Evangelicals that Christianity is dying out in this country. They are a total turn off.

Can anyone fathom the apostles running around dripping with pride and asking people if they have been saved? Where can I find this in scripture?

Is Mr Akin a chicken and unable to bash evangelicals or has he come into the Church to just bash Catholics?  That’s the real question???