Granbury, TX
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This report comes to us from team leader Randy with our Granbury team in Texas:
Yesterday I attended a lecture at a local retirement center. The speaker was an author, former Catholic, and Protestant anti-Catholic author and lecturer. I, on the other hand, am a former Protestant and faithful Catholic street evangelist and team leader. I sat with a group of about 30 Protestants and listened to the first part of the speaker’s lecture. His focus was on how the sacramental system of Catholicism is supposedly insufficient for the forgiveness of sins, as Luther discovered when he explored the sale of indulgences. He sprinkled his comments on indulgences with citations to the Council of Trent and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He said that when Luther determined that we are justified by faith (“alone”) this unraveled for him the entirety of Catholicism and drove him to Scripture alone as the sole rule of faith. He concluded by saying that Catholicism and Protestantism are separate religions.
The speaker asked for questions and comments. My hand shot up. I explained who I was, why I was there, and my journey into traditional Catholicism from the very Protestantism he was lecturing on. I thanked him for quoting Catholic sources accurately, but I challenged him on the foundation of authority in Protestantism versus Catholicism. I explained that the source of authority in Catholicism is Divine Revelation; that this is known through the Deposit of Faith that Jesus gave to the Apostles through the Holy Spirit; that this Deposit of Faith is preserved and transmitted through the preaching of the Apostles, which we can learn about through the Church Fathers and through the customs and practices of the Church, especially at Holy Mass; and through the Scriptures. This forms the Rule of Faith that is protected and preserved through the Magisterium. I also pointed out that Jesus, in John 17, desired unity within the Church, and this was further supported by St. Paul especially in Ephesians 4:5. I concluded by saying that Protestantism is heretical in that it uses private interpretation of the Bible to deviate from the Rule of Faith. This destroys unity and offends Christ. I also agreed with the speaker’s criticisms of ecumenism and told him that the only ecumenism the Church had known was that all people need to become Catholic where there is the true Mystical Body of Christ, unity, and salvation. At that point the organizer of the talk said that they were gathered to listen to the speaker, not to me. I thanked them for the time they allowed me to speak, but I felt compelled to speak up.
The meeting went into intermission. I went to the speaker and introduced myself. He said we should debate this sometime, and I readily agreed. He gave me a copy of one of his books, “Romanism”, which was a critique of “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” by Karl Keating (and which formed the basis of his talk). I returned the favor by giving him “The Case for Catholicism” by Trent Horn. Some people came up to me and thanked me for my comments, saying that it was good to hear the Catholic perspective, which they never get to hear. They also told me that a debate would be useful, to which I agreed.
The evening was pleasant, confrontational (in a respectful and polite way), and I’m sure quite unexpected for everyone there. I left and offered thanks to Mary for her intercession and offered the entire event to God for His greater glory and the salvation of the souls of all who were there, especially the speaker. It was challenging being a stalk of wheat among weeds, but perhaps more wheat will sprout from this encounter.
Praised be Jesus Christ!