However, I AM FASCINATED with anti-Catholics and their testimonies, because, as I've mentioned, I've never met a fully catechized Catholic who knew his faith, understood it and left anyway. (With the caveat that those who have left for reasons such as birth control, homosexuality, women priests, abortion - name your social issue, in my experience tend to try to take their Catholicity with them, i.e. Catholics for Choice, or recreating their own "Catholic " church not under the supervision of the local bishop or the Pope.
So with that in mind I was anxious in fact delighted to look at Dan's testimony to see if he might be the elusive know-it, understood- it, left anyway ex-Catholic I've been looking for. Let's see!
I was raised in a strict RC family, 2 of my uncles were
priests, my Dad taught CCD., my Mom was the church secretary, and my 2
brothers + i were altar boys. But in all my years growing up as a Catholic
never heard the Gospel of the Grace of GOD (Acts 20:24), which brings a soul
to realize his desperate need for salvation in the light of a completely Holy and
perfectly Just GOD, and our utter inability to either merit Eternal Life with
GOD in His Holy Heaven, nor escape the just punishment due for our sins (and
sin of rejecting the Light of CHRIST), and thus can only look to the Son
sent from the Father to be.(1Jn.4:10,14); Who is set forth as the Direct
object of faith for the helpless and destitute sinner, for the immediate
forgiveness of sins and regeneration by the Holy Ghost, all on GOD's expense
and credit.
A couple of things. My mother was proficient enough at the piano that she seriously considered a career as a concert pianist.
I did not receive any of her interest or talent in the piano - either genetically or via osmosis!
Listing the credentials of one's parents is a strawman. And interestingly, on the Protestant side, there are all the stereotypes about "the preacher's kids." So I find the "pedigree" at the beginning to be less than compelling.
It's clear though that this gentleman wasn't keeping his ears open at mass! Acts 20 IS CLEARLY IN THE LECTIONARY. If he didn't hear it, he wasn't listening.
Instead, i was in essence taught to believe that i was in good
hands with the Catholic system. Though i am thankful to the Biblical things that i did learn, which lead to my being born again at age 25 by faith in the Gospel of Grace, Romanism effectively made such truth of none effect by promoting faith more in herself and personal merit than directly in Christ and His precious blood.
Wasn't listening in religion class either. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.
2025 We can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God.
1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: "Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!" God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God's love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:
The indifferent or even antagonistic response to the evangelical Gospel is an effect that made me search for a cause. I have also tried to reason with Catholic street evangelists
Translation: When Dan tried out his apologetic chops on catechized Catholics who knew their stuff - he was blown out of the water.
I belive (sic) that the evident scriptural illiteracy and general spiritual deadness (in the light of the NT) has its foundation in Roman Catholisim's completely unwaranted and autocratic interpretation of Mt 16:13-19, by which they postulate an ultimately infallible Pope Peter and Church, to whom all must submit, and whose position and power and is to be perpetuated via Papal Progression and eccleciastical linkage.
Covered. See here and here.
Though a doctrine so critical to the eternal welfare
of souls (such as the death and resurrection of CHRIST, or the great commission)
must have fairly abundant Biblical support, in vain do we search the scripture to
find at least one command by the Holy Spirit to the church to submit to Peter
as its universal Head, or one clear instance wherein the church did so
(especially as Rome manifests it), or in which Peter claims such an office
for himself (rather than being "an apostle," and "an elder:" 1Pt.1:1;
2Pt.1:1). A careful examination of the entire body of the NT. (esp. in the
"church epistles" in which such a doctrine would be most expected to be
found), invalidates Romaism's papal premise. Nonetheless, Rome's circular
reasoning (according our interpretation, only our interpretation can be
correct) allows her to rather blithely dismiss scriptural reproofs to her
arrogance, the result being the propagation of a plethora of pronouncements
that either have no Biblical warrant or contradict what the Bible clearly,
and contextually, declares.
Note there is nothing in the bible that supports Sola Scriptura or Sola Fide, yet our uncatechized friend subscribed to those rather easily.
The rest of it is Dan going on about how much he loves all of us in the institutional gospel churches but I don't think he can persuade or compel anyone to the "rightness" of his position from this piece.
My theory stands.
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