Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 (edited) [quote] few trained Protestant ministers who converted[/quote] There are actually a very large number of trained Protestant ministers who come into the Church every year. Ever heard of the Coming Home Network? There have been entire congregations that have converted en masse. Also famous protestants. A whole swarm of protestants from CRI (Christian Research Institute) converted a while back, that place was famous for its "critiques" of Catholicism. Funny so many of their scholars are now Catholic. Edited April 4, 2004 by Laudate_Dominum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce S Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote] I am familiar with the debates mentioned in your quote. That debate between Fr. Pacwa and White was a disaster, I don't think Fr. Pacwa should debate, he's not good at it at all. [/quote] Yeah, it was. But Mitch, my favorite Catholic TEACHER by the way, was younger then, and his speciality seems to be more READING Papal Encyclicals anyway...grin. Shhh, don't tell anyone I listen to every one of his shows on EWTN. He is a nice guy, I would enjoy him in real life I think. Like I said, most Catholics need the doc dump to prevail, one on one, they don't have the verbal skills that Protestants normally develop, as they are more preaching oriented, and Catholic clergy don't have to live or die on thier sermons, so they don't work as hard in that area as Protestant pastors have to to keep bodies in the pews, remember, on our side of the fence, it is fluid, if a pastor is a bad preacher, people move around, they are not chained to the galley like your side. Grin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce S Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote]There are actually a very large number of trained Protestant ministers who come into the Church every year. Ever heard of the Coming Home Network? [/quote] Yes I have, and to me, it is the most obnoxious show on EWTN. Imagine the cries of BIGOTRY, that would ensue here, if TBN had a show called LEAVING ROME, where the focus every week were Nuns and Priests who LEFT the Catholic Church? That entire show is in terrible poor taste. Frankly, I wonder why someone hasn't done that show, just to show EWTN how bad that format really is.... :ph34r: :angry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Bruce S' date='Apr 4 2004, 12:56 PM'] Yeah, it was. But Mitch, my favorite Catholic TEACHER by the way, was younger then, and his speciality seems to be more READING Papal Encyclicals anyway...grin. Shhh, don't tell anyone I listen to every one of his shows on EWTN. He is a nice guy, I would enjoy him in real life I think. Like I said, most Catholics need the doc dump to prevail, one on one, they don't have the verbal skills that Protestants normally develop, as they are more preaching oriented, and Catholic clergy don't have to live or die on thier sermons, so they don't work as hard in that area as Protestant pastors have to to keep bodies in the pews, remember, on our side of the fence, it is fluid, if a pastor is a bad preacher, people move around, they are not chained to the galley like your side. Grin. [/quote] I agree with you for the most part. Protestants can be more elusive and are often very impressive speakers. A Catholic can be pinned down quite easily, and because Catholic doctrine is so vast a debater can find some point of doctrine that the opponent is weak on and exploit that. If the Catholic doesn't know the history and details of say, the Church's teachings and practices on indulgences, the professional anti-Catholic can run circles around him. This happens a lot and it makes me sad. Sometimes I'll be on the edge of my seat itching to jump in the ring. And I agree, Fr. Pacwa is a great teacher, and he knows a lot. But I've yet to be convinced that he has any sort of talent when it comes to debating. God bless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livin_the_MASS Posted April 4, 2004 Author Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote] remember, on our side of the fence, it is fluid, if a pastor is a bad preacher, people move around, they are not chained to the galley like your side. Grin. [/quote] Ya, you move around, your not obedient. I'm obedient to what the Catholic Church tells me to do. If there is a priest who is doing something wrong, one call to the bishop takes care of it and things like that don't happen often. Bruce tell me why you left the Catholic Church? Why do you go to Mass eveyday watch E.W.T.N. all the time if you don't think we are the One True Church (which we are!)? Just wondering? God Bless Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce S Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote]I'm obedient to what the Catholic Church tells me to do[/quote] Of course. No matter what, right? If the leadership would tell you to ... say ... Holy War, would you fight one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Bruce S' date='Apr 4 2004, 01:00 PM'] Yes I have, and to me, it is the most obnoxious show on EWTN. Imagine the cries of BIGOTRY, that would ensue here, if TBN had a show called LEAVING ROME, where the focus every week were Nuns and Priests who LEFT the Catholic Church? That entire show is in terrible poor taste. Frankly, I wonder why someone hasn't done that show, just to show EWTN how bad that format really is.... :ph34r: :angry: [/quote] hehe, I don't know to much about the show. I don't have a tv. I forgot that the show existed actually. I was speaking of the organization, because I know some of the people who run it. Their apostolate is primarily to assist protestant pastors who are seeking to enter the Church (because it can be so difficult in terms of life change, persecution etc), so I've heard many things about the numbers and stuff. That's all I was talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Bruce S' date='Apr 4 2004, 01:08 PM'] Of course. No matter what, right? If the leadership would tell you to ... say ... Holy War, would you fight one? [/quote] Because I know that the Church is Christ's Church I believe everything that she teaches as true. If I lived in the medieval world I suppose I would join a holy war, but such things are hardly comprehensible to us moderns. It's a different world. Just like a lot of the stuff in the Bible about holy wars strikes moderns as a bit odd, it was a different world. Remember "the three"? David's top three warriors? Those guys were so cool. I would love to have fought along side those guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livin_the_MASS Posted April 4, 2004 Author Share Posted April 4, 2004 (edited) [quote name='Bruce S' date='Apr 4 2004, 01:08 PM'] Of course. No matter what, right? If the leadership would tell you to ... say ... Holy War, would you fight one?[/quote] Number one Bruce the Church would not call for "holy war". Come up with something better? The Pope is against war, thats a whole other issue. I'm loyal to the Catholic Church, as much as you say you know about us, then you should know that the Church teaches, forgivness, mercy, love, prayer!! Come on man? God Bless Jason Edited April 4, 2004 by Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 I thought this looked interesting. [quote]CONVERSION TO CATHOLICISM GENERAL OBSERVATIONS Jaroslav Pelikan, a prominent Lutheran historical theologian, declared: Neither Protestants nor Roman Catholics are entitled to act as though conversions in their direction always proceeded from sincerely Christian motives, while conversions in the other direction always proceeded from selfish or ignoble motives. Motivation is a complex and subtle thing, especially in matters of religion and most especially in a decision for or against conversion . . . Pilgrims in both directions are motivated by a mixture of desires and convictions . . . The road to Rome has often been the road to a synthesis of faith and intellect which appeared impossible anywhere else. Americans . . . are surprised to see the number of intellectuals in Britain and in Europe who take the road to Rome in order to find freedom for their intellectual and cultural pursuits. Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Edith Sitwell, Sigrid Undset, Gilbert K. Chesterton - these and many more transferred their allegiance to Rome because Protestantism did not seem to them capable of coordinating Christianity and culture without sacrificing one or the other or both . . . To all of them Rome represented a liberating force within whose walls they could do their creative work . . . There are certainly many instances where conversion to Roman Catholicism did not destroy, but rather heightened the creativity of a writer or artist . . . Where they wanted to go, varied from one individual to the next, but a prominent feature for most of them was the reestablishment of Christian unity. (The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, New York: Abingdon Press, 1959, 205, 208-209, ch. 14: "The Way of Salvation") Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), the French-English journalist, historian and critic, asserts a Catholic perspective on conversion: In proportion as men know less and less of the subject . . . they attempt some simple definition of the mind which ultimately accepts Catholicism. They will call it a desire for security; or an attraction of the senses . . . A very little experience of typical converts in our time makes nonsense of such theories. Men and women enter by every conceivable gate, after every conceivable process of slow intellectual examination, of shock, of vision, of moral trial . . . The Church is the natural home of the Human Spirit. The truth is that if you seek for an explanation of the phenomenon of conversion under any system which bases that phenomenon on illusion, you arrive at no answer to your question. (Foreword to The Catholic Church and Conversion, by G.K. Chesterton, New York: Macmillan, 1926, 6-8) G.K. CHESTERTON'S "THREE STAGES" OF CONVERSION Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), a famous convert to Catholicism, wrote brilliantly about three phases of conversion, which seem to be fairly typical of many, if not most, converts (including myself): The convert commonly passes through three stages or states of mind. The first is when he imagines himself to be entirely detached . . . that of the young philosopher who feels that he ought to be fair to the Church of Rome. He wishes to do it justice; but chiefly because he sees that it suffers injustice . . . I had no more idea of becoming a Catholic than of becoming a cannibal. I imagined that I was merely pointing out that justice should be done even to cannibals . . . The second stage is that in which the convert begins to be conscious not only of the falsehood but the truth . . . It consists in discovering what a very large number of lively and interesting ideas there are in the Catholic philosophy . . . This process, which may be called discovering the Catholic Church, is perhaps the most pleasant and straightforward part of the business . . . It is like discovering a new continent full of strange flowers and fantastic animals, which is at once wild and hospitable . . . It is these numberless glimpses of great ideas, that have been hidden from the convert by the prejudices of his provincial culture, that constitute the adventurous and varied second stage of the conversion. It is, broadly speaking, the stage in which the man is unconsciously trying to be converted . . . The third stage is perhaps . . . the most terrible. It is that in which the man is trying not to be converted . . . He is filled with a sort of fear . . . He discovers a strange and alarming fact . . . a truth that Newman and every other convert has probably found in one form or another. It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it . . . All steps except the last step he has taken eagerly on his own account, out of interest in the truth . . . I for one was never less troubled by doubts than in the last phase, when I was troubled by fears. Before that final delay I had been detached and ready to regard all sorts of doctrines with an open mind . . . I had no doubts or difficulties just before. I had only fears; fears of something that had the finality and simplicity of suicide . . . It may be that I shall never again have such absolute assurance that the thing is true as I had when I made my last effort to deny it . . . At the last moment of all, the convert often feels as if . . . he is look through a little crack or crooked hole that seems to grow smaller as he stares at it; but it is an opening that looks towards the Altar. Only, when he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside . . . There is generally an interval of intense nervousness . . . To a certain extent it is a fear which attaches to all sharp and irrevocable decisions; it is suggested in all the old jokes about the shakiness of the bridegroom at the wedding . . . He wonders whether the whole business is an extraordinarily intelligent and ingenious confidence trick . . . There is in the last second of time or hair's breadth of space, before the iron leaps to the magnet, an abyss full of all the unfathomable forces of the universe . . . That anything described as so bad should turn out to be so good is itself a rather arresting process having a savour of something sensational and strange . . . (The Catholic Church and Conversion, NY: Macmillan, 1926, 57-66)[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Apr 4 2004, 12:55 PM'] A whole swarm of protestants from CRI (Christian Research Institute) converted a while back, that place was famous for its "critiques" of Catholicism. Funny so many of their scholars are now Catholic. [/quote] I didn't know that, that's cool; I got the [i]Christian Research Journal[/i] for a couple of years; it had some interesting articles in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laudate_Dominum Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Sojourner' date='Apr 4 2004, 01:28 PM'] I didn't know that, that's cool; I got the [i]Christian Research Journal[/i] for a couple of years; it had some interesting articles in it. [/quote] Yeah, some of their articles are quite good. I mainly start having problems when they attack the Faith. God bless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Apr 4 2004, 01:48 PM'] Yeah, some of their articles are quite good. I mainly start having problems when they attack the Faith. God bless. [/quote] Right; when I was a subscriber (2 yrs or so ago) that wasn't such a big deal to me. Things are different nowadays ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the lumberjack Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 [quote name='Brother Adam' date='Apr 4 2004, 12:45 PM'] lol. okay okay. I'll bite. Who are your "heavy hitters" that will eat scott hahn alive? [/quote] I'm pretty sure that Chuck Missler could take him in a debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livin_the_MASS Posted April 4, 2004 Author Share Posted April 4, 2004 Lookie what I [url="http://www.dotm.org/unbelief.htm"]FOUND!!![/url] Please read it all. It's ggggoooooddddd oh ya!!! You have to read the whole article to get the full meaning, so please do so before posting anything!! In the Love Of Christ, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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