Another Significant Evangelical Comes Home

[ConfusedTim]

If you are non Catholic does the fact that so many learned people are converting to Catholicism ever make you stop for a second and think am i in the correct church?

On this section of the board I think we debate at a fairly elementary level as most of us have limited knowledge of the context within which Jesus walked the earth, we have a 21st century view of the words used in the bible, we dont understand the language used at the time including the cultural and historical references, etc…

I know that Catholics do convert to protestantism, Islam, etc but when somebody like Joshua Betancourt spends years of his life researching to prove that the Catholic Church is not the true church then because of what he has learned converts to Catholicsm
it surely must mean something. This is on top of the fairly recent re-version of Professor Francis Beckwith who was at the time of his reversion President of the Evangelical Theological Society, Professor Peter Kreeft and a long list of others.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Sorry, I don’t have data to hand, but I did read from a RC study that followed up on priests who left the RCC and about 400 had. The overwealming majority went to the Episcopal Church, but perhaps 15% went elsewhere. I believe that there have been about 200 priests admitted under the Pastoral Provision.

As to your question about sexuality or other issues, I don’t know. And of course, of those who did, how many went into faithful heterosexual marriages, and how many were attracted to other forms of sexuality?

I will look for the report. But certainly, in my region, I know of maybe 2 pastoral provision priests, and at least 4 catholic->episcopal priests, including Matthew Fox. Interestingly enough, the bishop of Long Island NY, James Provenzano is a former RC priest.

Apparently there is a fair amount of cooperation between the two communions on this. If a priest from one wants to go to the other, the former communion is happy to open its files with the consent of the applicant.

I wouldn’t make a distinction between Catholic priests who leave for heterosexual marriages and those who leave for “other” sexual reasons. Either way, the priest is breaking a vow he made to God when he accepted celibacy at the time of his ordination, and this is a moral issue as opposed to a purely theological issue.

 

[adstrinity]

It is rather condescending to state that only poorly informed Catholics leave the church. I have known very dedicated catholics who have become very dedicated Baha’is, for example. I think more priests have left the Catholic church for the Episcopal Church than have gone in the other direction. Presumably these priests knew their catechism.

It is dangerous to judge the motives or knowledge of others.

Sometimes, when you approach a subject with genuine malice, that malice works on you and you end up becoming that thing you once hated.

Presumably is correct. Not that they did, but that one presumes.

I’d be interested in reviewing any data if you have a link to a report on this.

As for priests leaving the Catholic Church, my only question is this: How many of them left due to issues surrounding sexuality or other moral issues?

Let me, in reply to both of these posts say something I found a few days ago. I looked up (Yahoo! & Google) “Priests who left the Catholic Church”, and, expecting to find an abundance of sites, it was the same sites and the same exact story. I think this guy was Irish and, he was saying how he went to Catholic school as a lad and how they were well chatechized and had answers by rote on what they believed but, then one keeps reading and one finds in bold letters, “I was trying to earn my salvation,” about when he was an adult, perhaps even as a priest. If this was the case, he would know this is not what Catholicism teaches, and if he knew Catholicism, he would know that that is not how it works.

 

[Randy_Carson]

If you are non Catholic does the fact that so many learned people are converting to Catholicism ever make you stop for a second and think am i in the correct church?

On this section of the board I think we debate at a fairly elementary level as most of us have limited knowledge of the context within which Jesus walked the earth, we have a 21st century view of the words used in the bible, we dont understand the language used at the time including the cultural and historical references, etc…

I know that Catholics do convert to protestantism, Islam, etc but when somebody like Joshua Betancourt spends years of his life researching to prove that the Catholic Church is not the true church then because of what he has learned converts to Catholicsm
it surely must mean something. This is on top of the fairly recent re-version of Professor Francis Beckwith who was at the time of his reversion President of the Evangelical Theological Society, Professor Peter Kreeft and a long list of others.

The non-Catholic will simply dismiss this saying, “He was never really saved to begin with. That’s the reason he has gone out from us.”

 

[PA650]

Yes, I agree. Sensory experience is a great strength of Catholicism, and one of the huge mistakes of post-Vatican-II Western Catholicism was to play this down.

Edwin

Edwin, as a well versed individual in Catholicism, I am sure you are aware of the divide between orthodox clergy and those that adhere to the “Spirit” of Vatican II. One primary element of Catholicism is its traditions and if you remove or diminish them you will inevitably hurt the faith itself. Sadly, this struggle still continues in the Church.

 

[benedictus2]

It is rather condescending to state that only poorly informed Catholics leave the church. I have known very dedicated catholics who have become very dedicated Baha’is, for example.

Dedicated does not necessarily mean informed.

I think more priests have left the Catholic church for the Episcopal Church than have gone in the other direction.

It’s usually to do with a failure to keep to their vow of celibacy so that does not really mean anything.

Presumably these priests knew their catechism.

Presumably yes. But most likely they disagree with the discipline of celibacy and probably other moral teachings of the church. So again, their dissent does not mean anything.

 

[benedictus2]

If you are non Catholic does the fact that so many learned people are converting to Catholicism ever make you stop for a second and think am i in the correct church?

On this section of the board I think we debate at a fairly elementary level as most of us have limited knowledge of the context within which Jesus walked the earth, we have a 21st century view of the words used in the bible, we dont understand the language used at the time including the cultural and historical references, etc…

I love reading conversion stories and the common thread among them is that they cannot escape the truth. If one really searches for truth and has the humility to accept it, it will be very hard not to convert. I remember Scott Hahn saying that “delaying conversion seemed like disobedience to God”.

I would like to add here a little exerpt from Pope Benedicts’s Jesus of Nazareth.

In his commentary on the Parable of the Good Samaritan as based on the Church Fathers, he wrote:

If the assault victim is the image of Everyman, the Samaritan can only be the image of Jesus Christ. God Himself, Who for us is foreign and distant, has set out to take care of His wounded creature. God, though so remote from us, has made Himself our neighbour in Jesus Christ. He pours oil and wine into our wounds, a gesture seen as an image of the healing gift of the sacraments, and he brings us to the inn, the Church, in which He arranges our care and also pays a deposit for the cost of that care.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

I love reading conversion stories and the common thread among them is that they cannot escape the truth. If one really searches for truth and has the humility to accept it, it will be very hard not to convert. I remember Scott Hahn saying that “delaying conversion seemed like disobedience to God”.

I would like to add here a little exerpt from Pope Benedicts’s Jesus of Nazareth.

In his commentary on the Parable of the Good Samaritan as based on the Church Fathers, he wrote:

If the assault victim is the image of Everyman, the Samaritan can only be the image of Jesus Christ. God Himself, Who for us is foreign and distant, has set out to take care of His wounded creature. God, though so remote from us, has made Himself our neighbour in Jesus Christ. He pours oil and wine into our wounds, a gesture seen as an image of the healing gift of the sacraments, and he brings us to the inn, the Church, in which He arranges our care and also pays a deposit for the cost of that care.

That is wonderful. I never heard so deep or beautiful a reading of the Good Samaritan before.

 

[benedictus2]

That is wonderful. I never heard so deep or beautiful a reading of the Good Samaritan before.

Pope Benedict is awesome! You can’t go through his writing quickly. I am always stopping and mulling and savouring in prayerful meditation when readinng his book. Thanks and praise to our Loving God for giving us the Pope as His Vicar.