The Ewtn Tv Show "the Journey Home"

[Eutychus]

Many here might find this little tidbit about myself unbelievable, but on my NKJVB I will declare that an obsession of mine, is WHY non-Catholics join the Roman Church. Along that line, I have taped and watched just about all the EWTN TV shows of "The Journey Home" with Marcus Grodi now for four solid years. Watching to see what makes them "tick" what motivates people and what they lack, and seek, that leads to such a momentus decision.

This post got me to thinking....

[quote]Both my parents were in the protestant "Church of Christ" denomination before converting to the Catholic Faith, and held beliefs quite similar to those of Budge and Eutychus. They were both quite familiar with Scripture before converting, and argued against Catholics. But their own study of Scripture and Church History led them into the Catholic Faith.[/quote]

Generally, after a LOT { you have literally no idea how much...} of thinking, rethinking, analysis and observation, I can classify the converts featured on the show { with a few exceptions that frankly still baffle me } into four general categories. I will assign MY NAMES for each group.

[size=4][b][u]1:- The scholars.[/u][/b] [/size]In love with books, history, tapestry and theology. The depth and complexity of the accumulated treatises, encylcicals, bulls, and council documents smell of elderberries them in, and provide for a lifetime of chasing dusty documents and study.

[size=4][b][u]2: - The Liturgy Lusters. [/u][/b][/size]The more "bells and smells" the better. And no one puts on the grand show in this area better than the Roman Catholic church when she decides to pull the stops and gussy up for showtime!

[size=4][b][u]3: - Family Uniters. [/u][/b][/size]They join more to keep peace in a family unit than for any strong belief system.
[size=4][b]
[u]4: - Eucharistic Ecstacy Extollers. [/u][/b][/size]They want a god they can see, feel, touch, and eat. The FLESHLY aspect of the Catholic Church is everything to such sorts.

EWTN seems to like #'s ONE and TWO the most, since those seem to be the preponderance of the converts highlighted.

Now in all honesty, in four years, and I would estimate over 200 guests, there have been five or six, that frankly I loved, I believed they did what they did for reasons that make perfect sense, and frankly I was very very impressed with them. The others were great people, very likable, and for the most part very sincere.

What I have noticed however, is the number that said they were becoming Roman Catholic after being born again, and seeking Jesus and the WORD, was close to none.

[color="#990000"][i][b]{ as a side note, can you imagine the howls of rage and cries of HATER, if some protestant network had a show EXCLUSIVELY dedicated to those who have LEFT the Catholic Church? Call the show "LEAVING ROME" instead of Coming Home and have NOTHING but priests and nuns who have left the denomination? THAT would be very interesting, juxtaposed against the EWTN lineup, don't ya think??}[/b][/i][/color]

Edited September 16, 2006 by Eutychus

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

I was a non-denom Youth pastor. I was baptized in the Foursquare Church by choice in the fifth Grade, I was Born Again long before that. I love God, and would constantly read my bible. As I began teaching Scripture lessons at my Church my understanding of the scriptures grew. I would sometime bring up a point with the pastor he would disagree on, and work it out, ussually with him coming more to my side. it was not until AFTER this I learned that my independent study of scripture and the theology that created were Catholic Beliefs. I had no choice but to join the Church which Scripture had shown me.

Oh just so you can Clssify me...
#1- Theology and history are important parts of understanding god, and the Bible. It is not always necessary to delve super deep, but if it helps me grow in my love of God then I say, Amen.
#2- God is a Liturgical God, and man created in his image also are liturgical beings.
#3- Well lets just say my family didn't jump up and down when i told them i was becoming Catholic
#4- I love the Body of Christ, I'm so glad that Jesus' isn't a liar and he really did give us his body.

Edited September 16, 2006 by PadrePioOfPietrelcino

[DAF]

[quote]{ as a side note, can you imagine the howls of rage and cries of HATER, if some protestant network had a show EXCLUSIVELY dedicated to those who have LEFT the Catholic Church? Call the show "LEAVING ROME" instead of Coming Home and have NOTHING but priests and nuns who have left the denomination? THAT would be very interesting, juxtaposed against the EWTN lineup, don't ya think??}[/quote]
That's your misunderstanding of what the "Catholic Church" is. It's not one Church among many, it's THE Church. The Journey Home isn't some show that only talks about Baptists who converted to Catholicism, it's not about Mormons specifically who converted to Catholicism. It's about people from all the thousands of Christian sects coming back to the true Church. There's tons of Christian churches, there's only one Catholic Church baby. You're comparing apples and oranges.

On a side note, what is the purpose of this thread? Just an outlet for you to vent your frustration against the rich tradition of the Church or what?

[Veritas]

[quote name='DAF' post='1063871' date='Sep 15 2006, 09:24 PM']
That's your misunderstanding of what the "Catholic Church" is. It's not one Church among many, it's THE Church. The Journey Home isn't some show that only talks about Baptists who converted to Catholicism, it's not about Mormons specifically who converted to Catholicism. It's about people from all the thousands of Christian sects coming back to the true Church. There's tons of Christian churches, there's only one Catholic Church baby. You're comparing apples and oranges.

On a side note, what is the purpose of this thread? Just an outlet for you to vent your frustration against the rich tradition of the Church or what?
[/quote]




Euty -I STILL like you. I can't wait until you're on "The Journey Home" telling Marcus the story of your taping every episode!

[Eutychus]

[quote]That's your misunderstanding of what the "Catholic Church" is. It's not one Church among many, it's THE Church. [/quote]

It is estimated that there are approximately 3 billion Christians in the world today.

Roman Catholics "claim" 1 billion.

You are a MINORITY sect of the larger Christian body. Now YOU many not like that statement, but the MATH is irrefutable. Rome isn't growing anywhere NEAR the rate that Christianity is around the world. And most of them are Evangelical/Pentecostal non denominationals.

Facts kind sir, are facts, like them or not. And pride filled chest thumping does not change the FACTS.

[quote]On a side note, what is the purpose of this thread? Just an outlet for you to vent your frustration against the rich tradition of the Church or what?[/quote]

Frustration? Hardly. Remember, I WAS a Roman Catholic, if I wanted that, I would have stayed that. Why does everyone here find that so difficult to digest?

Edited September 16, 2006 by Eutychus

[DAF]

And you, sir, are missing the point. I said nothing about who had the majority, I said that there is ONE Catholic Church. There are thousands upon thousands of different Christian sects outside of the Church.

You were mumbling about what a sight 'twould be if there was a Protestant show designed specifically around fallen away Catholics. I was just stating the simple FACT that your comparison doens't make any sense because your Protestant show would be targeting Catholics specifically, whereas The Journey Home talks to all kinds of people from the tons of different 'churches' outside of the Catholic Church.

It's like a Venn Diagram. The Journey home takes the population (the bigger pool of Christian denominations) and talks about how they came into the sample (the Catholic Church). Your Protestant show would not be the equivelant as you were saying because it would be pulling people specifically out of the sample (the Church) and dropping them into the population.

Simply: The Journey Home talks to everybody, your show would just talk to Catholics, so your comparison is just dumb.

EDIT* We're talking on your own terms Eutycus. You see it as "The Protestants (the whole bloody lot of them) against those Catholics (of which there is only ONE Church.) WIth those terms defined, then my post above makes more sense I think.

EDIT^2* [quote]Why does everyone here find that so difficult to digest?[/quote]
It's not difficult to digest, you and Budge are just so darn belligerent that it's difficult to A) have a real conversation with either one of you while remaing charitable and B) keep a straight face while doing it.

Do you honestly believe that you're going to win souls this way, or are you just here to justify your own pathetic choices? Let's be honest.

Edited September 16, 2006 by DAF

[Eutychus]

[quote] And you, sir, are missing the point. I said nothing about who had the majority, I said that there is ONE Catholic Church. There are thousands upon thousands of different Christian sects outside of the Church[/quote]

Actually we agree. Given that "catholic" means universal, or general, or complete body.

When you want to NARROW THAT DOWN, to your particular sect, the ROMAN version of the Catholic church, then we just have YOU deciding to not accept reality, or standard language usage, which of course, is your right to do. However, others get a nice hoot when you do that.

[DAF]

Give me a break. The Church was using the term 1700 years before your lot. I think we've got more legitimate terminology than you.

And as I said in Edit 1, you see it as the bunch of Protestants against the one single Catholic Church. You see it as all the Protestant churches teaming up against this one corporate powerhouse labeled the Cathoilc Church. With that understanding, we can talk about Leaving Rome as a real counterpart to The Journey Home.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1063841' date='Sep 15 2006, 10:31 PM']What I have noticed however, is the number that said they were becoming Roman Catholic after being born again, and seeking Jesus and the WORD, was close to none.
[/quote]

Umm maybe because Catholics realize that being born again means having been baptized into His Church . I'm quite sure most of them came to have a relationship with Christ before their conversion to this Church, but the real magic doesn't happen until baptism when you enter into Christ's family.

[Mercy me]

I have seen that show and the majority of "scholars" come into the chuch from reading the early church fathers and realizing that the church about which they wrote was the Catholic church.

Furthermore, underlying each convertion is a love of Jesus.

[DAF]

And anyway, it's all relative to you people. What does it matter to you that we're Catholic or that people are joining the Church?

[Eutychus]

[quote] And anyway, it's all relative to you people. [b][u]What does it matter to you that we're Catholic or that people are joining the Church?[/u][/b][/quote]

Again, please pardom me for introducing reality here, I know that isn't a favorite topic.

How many "join" the Catholic Church each year? I will confine this to the USA where we have some reliable numbers, up to a point.

Two years ago, the USCCB released it's annual report on the state of the Catholic Church in the USA. They announced that, for the entire year, approximately 180,000 adults joined the Catholic Church here. Now I would assume that about 1/3 of those were for marital reasons, folks joining merely because a spouse that they were marrying wanted peace in the family { this is just a rough guess } leaving 120,000 or thereabouts as converts of the heart. Given that there are now around 19,000 parishes in the USA, that means that coverts IN were in the neighborhood of 6 annually per parish, per year.

Frankly, given the EXODUS rate because of the problems, that INTAKE rate is abysmal. Were it not for those "green card Catholics" I suspect that your denomination would be in a serious freefall here in the USA and the illegals are the only thing keeping the numbers positive.

[Mary-Kathryn]

Before I leave for the day:

Jesus called to me, I came. That is why I am Catholic. I trust that Our Lord knows where to lead His children. He brought me home.

God Bless you E. May you have peace in your heart today.

Mary-Kathryn

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1063841' date='Sep 15 2006, 10:31 PM']What I have noticed however, is the number that said they were becoming Roman Catholic after being born again, and seeking Jesus and the WORD, was close to none.

[color="#990000"][i][b]{ as a side note, can you imagine the howls of rage and cries of HATER, if some protestant network had a show EXCLUSIVELY dedicated to those who have LEFT the Catholic Church? Call the show "LEAVING ROME" instead of Coming Home and have NOTHING but priests and nuns who have left the denomination? THAT would be very interesting, juxtaposed against the EWTN lineup, don't ya think??}[/b][/i][/color]
[/quote]

That would be my husband and me. Maybe I should put in a call to Marcus and see if he'll put us on his show...

As for the reverse show.... If you watch, Coming Home has people from all different backgrounds-- Protestant, Mormon, JW, secular, reverts etc. It's not the "Leaving Evangelicalism" show or the "Leaving Mormonism" show. It's the destination, not the beginning point that is the common thread. With that in mind, are you telling me that there are no evangelical shows featuring people giving their testimonies in evangelical television?

[OLAM Dad]

I suspect that a show titled "Leaving Rome" would be pretty boring, even to the fundy/non-denominational crowd.