Ernie, I’ve been following this discussion for a while, not commenting on my phone, because I was traveling, with family, etc.
You are very articulate and also I have noticed you never really lose your temper or get offended! Good stuff!
However, reading your posts today, it occurred to me you are a Catholic priest, and you are either doing this for some kind of school assignment (upgrading creditials or something) or as part of a Catholic outreach!
Yes, I know your status says “married.” That could be a lie, or you could be some kind of Catholic layperson, qualifying to be a deacon or other position.
So, are you a priest or do you hold any position in the Catholic Church?
Do you have an assignment for some purpose, to persuade people that Catholics are saved by “grace” excepting ”mortal sin,” which you keep on mentioning?
Just curious! Your answers are too solid to just be some ordinary Catholic here answering questions for some 24 for pages for the fun of it!
Hi Angela,
Thank you for your kind words and based on the responses you received from others I want to set the record straight and explain at least a little bit of who I am and what my intentions were in joining this Christian Chat site.
First of all, I am happily married, my wife and I have been blessed with 5 children, and I have a regular day job. I’m not a priest or a nun. I’m not in the seminary, qualifying to be a deacon, or an apologist. However, God did grace me with an incredible faith journey that enabled me to gain quite a bit of knowledge. I’ll share my story now and apologize upfront for its length.
I was born and raised a Catholic, but never really knew or even cared to know about my faith. When for the first time my faith was questioned by a new neighbor I had no answers and was easily swayed. My new neighbor described himself simply as a Christian. He described his personal relationship with Jesus (something I had never heard of) and frequently quoted from the Bible (again new to me). He used verses in the Bible to both back up his beliefs as well as point out the many errors in the Catholic faith.
After several discussions with him he thoroughly convinced me that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon, the pope was the anti-Christ and Catholics were cannibals who worshipped Mary among other things. I decided to leave the Catholic Church and find another church to attend. But, that was more difficult than I imagined.
It never occurred to me how many Christian churches there were. When I started looking around I noticed that there were 5 within walking distance from my house and about 100 within a 10 mile radius. There was Lutheran, Methodist, Assembly of God, Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian, and a bunch of non-denominational churches. It was very frustrating for me as each had slightly different practices and set of beliefs. I wasn’t looking for a feel-good church, I was looking for the truth. Which one taught the truth?
So I began researching. And I had 3 things I knew going in: 1) Jesus was my Lord, God, and Savior, 2) The Bible was the Word of God, 3) The Catholic Church preached error. I started with the Bible because I had never read it besides hearing it at Mass. I read through the entire Old Testament and as I read the gospel of Matthew a particular verse stuck out for me and that was MT 16:18, but not for the reason you might think. At the time I could care less about Peter as I learned from my neighbor that it was Peter’s faith that was the rock, and so I focused on the part where Jesus said He would build and protect His Church. So that became my mission…to find that church, Jesus’ Church.
Since I wasn’t sure who taught the truth amongst the many different Christian denominations I decided to look at the early Christian community to see if that might tell me something. I was very surprised to learn that there wasn’t the vast number of denominations we have today. Rather, there was just one Christian church. This was a huge deal to me because since there was just one church and Jesus said He would build His Church then this one had to be it. Just seemed logical to me. Otherwise, Jesus failed to do what He said He’d do. God can’t fail so this must be His Church. So now all I had to do was find out what that Church believed because what they believed had to be the truth since Jesus said He would protect His Church. Again, otherwise He would have failed. Then once I knew the truth I could just compare that with the denominations of today and the one that aligned with Jesus’ Church would be the church for me. Easy as pie I thought, but this is where my research led me in areas that surprised me and where I didn’t want to go.
I started reading about the early Church and was shocked to find out that they believed in the Eucharist, Mary ever-virgin and Mother of God, praying to the dead, and other “Catholic” beliefs. I felt like a dagger went through me each time because my neighbor proved to me why that wasn’t true. Because of my anti-Catholic bias I searched and searched to find anyone within the Church who had different beliefs and couldn’t find anyone. I went from despair to anger knowing I had been deceived. It wasn’t the Catholic Church that got it wrong, but my neighbor who did. I was in Jesus’ Church but never knew it.
As my knowledge grew so did my confidence and I felt God wanting me to help other Catholics to not be so easily swayed as I was. I then started to talk to non-Catholics in person as well as online. I even watched debates between Catholic and non-Catholic apologists to pick up pointers. But, it all came down to the same thing. One side would state their belief and quote scripture, then the other side would say that is wrong and state their belief and back it up with their own Bible verses and then back again…sometimes even using the same verse but with different interpretations. I called it the “my interpretation is better than yours” game and it was horribly frustrating to me as generally it would end in an agreement to disagree if not a fist fight...haha..just kidding! I felt God calling me to do something different.
I felt the Lord calling me to defend the Catholic faith through the rationale He used to bring me back to the Catholic Church. To teach Catholics about how their faith is the only faith that can prove Jesus kept His promise. And this way they wouldn’t have to memorize all the different verses to defend the multiple attacks thrown a Catholic’s way. Basically, a foundation that can be built on if they so desired. At the minimum a way that would give them great confidence in their faith in the face of numerous attacks.
I joined this chat site to test out my method. I wanted to see how non-Catholics would react and if they would have answers. What I didn’t expect at all was indifference. I expected some sort of biblical interpretation as to why their faith would have made them a heretic in the early Christian Church, but instead it’s been basically a “who cares” type attitude. I’m shocked by this. I prove a gap in beliefs and the response is basically “no, there isn’t” or the Catholic Church is bad or a cut and paste from a Catholic hating website or no response at all. No direct response to my contention with not even any real reflection on their part.
Contrast the above with every attack on the Catholic faith where I have provided a scripture verse that backs up the Catholic belief. One may disagree with the Church’s interpretation, but at least I provide my rationale.
Thanks again and sorry for the length. As people started bashing me I felt I owed them the full story no matter how long it might be. And I apologize to everyone who feels that I'm an apologist. I never would have dreamed to call myself that as I always thought of people like Scott Hahn or Tim Staples to be apologists and I'm nowhere near that.
I start my day job on Tuesday so I’ll have much less time to converse, but I’ll do the best I can.
-Ernie-