Best Hardcore Catholic Apologist?

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**allroadsministry.com/abou…too_harsh.html

Here’s a sample…

"I am harsh because I follow the example of Jesus. When dealing with those who should have accepted Him as God, He was harsh; not gentle. He confronted the Jews (who had been prepared by the prophets and the Old Testament) with a harsh choice: total acceptance or total rejection. He refused to answer the questions of the Pharisees, or to give evidence by way of signs. His approach was harsh. He called them names, labeled them as hypocrites, sons of Satan, liars, etc. I often wonder why no one seems to read what Jesus actually says in the Bible. Why do Catholics not pay attention to His words before they accuse me of being improper in my approach? " **

Thanks for posting that. I one time ordered some of Mr. Lewis’s “apologetics” tapes.
In one tape, when questioned, sincerely, by a nonCatholic who mentioned (and it’s true) that SOME Catholics had supported the Nazis, he snapped “SO WHAT?”
And left it at that. No “They shouldn’t have supported such wicked men,” no 'Perhaps they were deceived and repented later," no nothing. These young men questioning him were, it was evident from the tape, very sincere (he recorded a conversation with them. I don’t know if he let them know that they were all being recorded), and he just comes back with a smart-alecky “SO WHAT?”, as if supporting Hitler and his mass-murderers is no big deal, is how it came across. I cannot stand this man and his approach to “apologetics.”
I think he is as rude as all hell, to put it bluntly.
And he dares compare his approach to Jesus’s sometimes blistering castigation of the Pharisees? Some things need observing here:
  1. JESUS IS GOD, and can read minds and hearts, and knew the motives of those
    Pharisees who were hounding and harassing him.
  2. Mr. Lewis is NOT God and CANNOT read hearts and minds and is thus in no place
    to be, as he frequently does, accusing people of being of Bad Will.
    therefore,
  3. Jesus had the right to sometimes be harsh with his attackers. Mr.
    Lewis, in nearly
    all cases, does NOT have that right nor just cause.
  4. The Pharisees, for all their hypocrisy, were often indeed EXPERTS in the scriptures
    of the Tanakh (the Old Testament as we call it). Mr. Lewis’s victims, as I like to call
    the people that he attacks, are NOT true experts in scripture acting willfully to
    deliberately deceive with full knowledge, like some of the Pharisees did,
    and I think Mr. Lewis surely must realize that.
    4a) Jesus could, and did, work miracles to back up his claims.
    To my knowledge, Mr. L. has never worked a miracle to back up his apologetics.
    So he can’t accuse the people he attacks of resisting the Holy Spirit thereby.
  5. If my only exposure to Catholicism had been through the tapes of the incredibly
    insulting, rude, hostile Mr. Lewis and his ALL ROADS so called ministries,
    I would have utterly rejected Catholicism from the experience and be a fierce
    anti-Catholic today. I personally warn people not to give that person’s tapes
    and cd’s out to nonCatholics whom they hope to win over, because he is
    WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hostile and judgmental to people.
The gospel is, indeed, to be presented in charity and, sometimes, with miraculous power too. Not blistering, nasty personal attacks on those you disagree with.
 
I don’t think these guys are very good 😛 that’s not to say they don’t have responses to objections, or that they don’t respond aggressively.
 
I’ve been doing some apologetics for over 10 years now and faced some of those who came on without regard for offending me. It took me some time to learn to maintain a calm and prayerful attitude rather than respond in kind, but that passage from 1st Peter cited above has made all the difference. You can look over my post history here at CAF and see that I’m not scared of the devil or his minions, but that I never…repeat never, let it get personal or offensive. The work of apologetics is the work of the Holy Spirit, not myself, nor any man. Unless He is at work in the hearts of all of us, we labor in vain.

Bishop Fulton Sheen put it this way.

“There is a need to take hold of tortured souls like Peter, agnostics like Thomas, and mystics like John and lead them to tears, to their knees or to resting on His Sacred Heart.”

He also said “The Catholic faith is like a lion in a cage. You don’t need to defend it - you simply need to open the cage door.”

Facts and scripture are the 2 best tools for apologetics and when joined with prayer have proved the most effective and often draw people to conversion.

Frankly, if you can’t control your temper or your inclination to respond in kind then you really don’t belong in apologetics because you lack the maturity to explain and defend the faith properly and will do more harm than good though you may walk away with your ego very satisfied.
 
Fr. Mitchell “Mitch” Pacwa S.J.

Very intelligent priest who takes the faith seriously. He has appeared on EWTN before as well as many Protestant-Catholic debates.
 
I like Father Mitch Pacwa S.J. very much as well.
He is one of the still REALLY GOOD Jesuits.

My first exposure to him was well before I ever started studying Catholicism.
The Rev. Jon Ankerberg used to have a protestant dialog-type show on TBN
(remember Ankerberg? With his chalk white hair, in the typically fundementalist
weird hairstyle (big combover, covering almost the entire forehead, with all the hair appearing to be LACQUERED into place, as you never, ever saw a hair so much as BUDGE, no matter how much he moved, LOL) – why do so many televangelists
have those stereotypically really BAD hair-syles?

Anyway, Ankerberg liked to go after Catholicism. He wasn’t nearly as rude and insulting as some other anti-Catholic protestants, but his frequent guest, one alleged “Doctor”***
Walter Martin (author of THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS and other books) could get very rude. Here was this guy with the big, really seriously-ugly toupee ((again, what IS it with the tv fundies and the bad hair?? they STILL tend to wear really bad hairstyles )),
wearing a pectoral cross **twice as big **as anything the pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury would ever wear, with his (unbeknownst to his many admirers) reputedly diploma mill Ph.D. ((he was calling him self Walter Martin, Ph.D. for a long time before even THAT Ph.D. was ever awarded, too. I guess some folks need to have titles in advance…)), but here is Mr. Martin, sitting there like King of the Hill, in his regalia and giant pectoral cross, acting all smug and huffy in opposition to the VAAAAAAAAAASTLY better theologically educated Father Pacwa, calling Catholic doctrines made up out of thin air, calling our Marian doctrines “blasphemy,” and smugly lobbing insult after insult at our Faith and Church ((it was not my faith then, but I found Mr. Martin very offensive once I saw him engaging other people in discussion.)). I was not yet Catholic, but Father Pacwa struck me, even way back then, as the much wiser and much more courteous, charitable, respectful and polite of the two men. He never fired back nasty personal attacks on Martin, in fact he liked him personally, despite the fact that Martin would really try to push his Catholic buttons. Pacwa would offer calm, reasoned scriptural rejoinders to Martin’s one-liner attacks on the church, and Martin would fire back with slinging a mere verse or two, out of context, and ignoring the context of the whole New Testament, for example when he insisted to Pacwa that Christ does NOT expect Christians to do ANY good works to remain saved, not even by his Grace, and Martin kept repeating part of a sentence from St. Paul, “To him who DOES NOT WORK, to him who DOES NOT WORK, to him who DOES NOT WORK” (where Paul shows that it is faith that saves you, even if God doesn’t assign you any works to perform, your faith in him is sufficient for salvation. Martin ignores the fact, however, that throughout scripture, that if God DOES give you things to do, and you deliberately and unrepentatntly disobey them, then you are in REALLY hot water. Pacwa would calmly demonstrate the truth, Martin would jab at him.
Father Mitch Pacwa ALWAYS came out the winner and his knowledge, charity, and vastly superior education in theology and scripture, shone through very clearly.
His opponent in the wig came across as a pompous dilettante.
 
Erbey said:
Who is the best hardcore Catholic apologist you’ve ever heard of now and in times past. One that could/can refute any and every attack against the Church at will at the drop of a hat that did not care if he/she offended anyone or not!
Click to expand...
I would like to know a Catholic apologist who is able to defend the Catholic doctrine of Monogenism in the 21st century scientific arena without having to resort to some rather bizarre theories being proposed by a few popular Catholic philosophers.
 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenism

Link to a wikipedia article on monogenism vs polygenism,
in case folks don’t know what the poster just above is referring to.

I would fall squarely in the monogenist camp.
I have never heard any serious arguments for polygenism,
which strikes me as a racist theory, namely, that humans are really all
different species (( I know this is raising a bugaboo, but the fact is,
that this is precisely what the Nazis believed. Jews and blacks, for example,
“LOOK” somewhat like us “Aryans”, i.e. two arms, two legs, a nose in the middle of
the face, eyes in front of the face, lips below the nose, ears on the sides of the head,
stand upright, bipedal, etc., but THEY AREN’T REALLY fully human beings,
like we Aryans are, and in fact they are less human than “us.” )).

Darwin defended monogenism primarily, and to me this is conclusive,
all human “races” are able to interbreed with each other.
Other species that are NOT human, from a common descent, are NOT able
to interbreed with us, and to attempt it is the sin of Bestiality.
 
grannymh said:
I would like to know a Catholic apologist who is able to defend the Catholic doctrine of Monogenism in the 21st century scientific arena without having to resort to some rather bizarre theories being proposed by a few popular Catholic philosophers.
Click to expand...
This is something which has bothered me in the past.

I have however, made a concious decision to it. I don’t understand, but I believe, and a defense is not required for me to believe revealed truth.

For me personally, every time I questioned Church teaching, the Church has been correct time and time again. I no longer have any reason to question the Church, based on her track record.

-Tim-
 
Erbey said:
Who is the best hardcore Catholic apologist you’ve ever heard of now and in times past. One that could/can refute any and every attack against the Church at will at the drop of a hat that did not care if he/she offended anyone or not!
Click to expand...
I consider Jimmy Akin, Tim Staples, and Steve Ray to be right up there.

Scot Hahn is a wonderful theologian, writer, teacher, and speaker, but I don’t think that he thinks of himself as an apologist.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenism

Link to a wikipedia article on monogenism vs polygenism,
in case folks don’t know what the poster just above is referring to.

I would fall squarely in the monogenist camp.
I have never heard any serious arguments for polygenism,
which strikes me as a racist theory, namely, that humans are really all
different species (( I know this is raising a bugaboo, but the fact is,
that this is precisely what the Nazis believed. Jews and blacks, for example,
“LOOK” somewhat like us “Aryans”, i.e. two arms, two legs, a nose in the middle of
the face, eyes in front of the face, lips below the nose, ears on the sides of the head,
stand upright, bipedal, etc., but THEY AREN’T REALLY fully human beings,
like we Aryans are, and in fact they are less human than “us.” )).

Darwin defended monogenism primarily, and to me this is conclusive,
all human “races” are able to interbreed with each other.
Other species that are NOT human, from a common descent, are NOT able
to interbreed with us, and to attempt it is the sin of Bestiality.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the interesting link which does have some good information. However, the Catholic doctrine of Monogenism goes beyond the basic Wikipedia link. For some reason I could not get to the Christianity link so I will briefly summarize Catholic teaching. Catholicism holds that an individual Adam is the first human being. All of humanity descended from the first, sole human parents, known biblically as Adam and Eve. Catholicism also holds that there was an actual, real original sin committed by the actual first human being.
 
TimothyH said:
This is something which has bothered me in the past.

I have however, made a concious decision to it. I don’t understand, but I believe, and a defense is not required for me to believe revealed truth.

For me personally, every time I questioned Church teaching, the Church has been correct time and time again. I no longer have any reason to question the Church, based on her track record.

-Tim-
Click to expand...
Praise God. 😃
 
Is John Martinogni of Monday’s EWTN Open Line too soft to be considered “hard-core?”

He refutes non-Catholic callers with a direct, no-nonsense response.

Joe
 
Yes, my vote would be for John Martignoni and Steve Ray would be a close second. But let’s not forget about all of the great apologists right here at Catholic Answers.
 
Ignatius said:
Yes, my vote would be for John Martignoni and Steve Ray would be a close second. But let’s not forget about all of the great apologists right here at Catholic Answers.
Click to expand...
Very true! Jimmy Akin, Michelle Arnold, and Tim Staples are some of the best around. Not to mention Karl Keating who started CA. 👍
 
**so I will briefly summarize Catholic teaching. Catholicism holds that an individual Adam is the first human being. All of humanity descended from the first, sole human parents, known biblically as Adam and Eve. Catholicism also holds that there was an actual, real original sin committed by the actual first human being. **--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, the Catholic Church is RIGHT.
Most scientists are atheists these days. As nonbelievers, they are devoid
of the Spirit of God, and to that extent, as scripture clearly teaches about the unregenerate, their minds are darkened and they cannot see the truth regarding
spiritual things.

“Adam” simply means Man and EVE simply means woman.
They were real,
they were just much farther back in time than we used to always assume.
And yes, the reality of that original sin is seen, clearly, every day, universally,
in human behavior. Even the nicest people pull nasty things sometimes, because
we have a “BENT” in that direction. We are disordered, physically and psychologically, from that primordial Fall and Original Sin.

Go and read the articles online about the controversies surrounding “Mitochondrial Eve”, our mother who was supposed to have lived somewhere in Africa more than 150,000 years ago. As it turns out, there is growing evidence that she lived a LOT MORE RECENTLY than that, and NOT necessarily in Africa, either.
 
The church’s official position, since about 1950 in Humani Generis,
is a cautious acceptance of Theistic Evolution,
with direct Divine Intervention in the process to bring about the first humans,
quite possibly transforming a pre-existent, living being of the primate line
into the first “Man.” (( the story of the garden, the clay, and God blowing into the face of the clay man, in Genesis, is not strictly literal, and great Catholic Saints even in the early church said so, such as Chrysostom and Augustine, that God told the story in a way to accomodate limited human understanding of how God brought about human life )).
You do not have to believe, as a Catholic, that God literally molded a man shaped
thing out of clay,blew his breath into it’s face, and it became a human man.
You CAN believe that, millions of good Catholics HAVE,
but it’s not necessary, and if the verifiable evidence points away from it being fully literal,
then it is unnecessary to reject verifiable evidence. And kind of foolish too, IF you’ve seen the evidence for yourself.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
**so I will briefly summarize Catholic teaching. Catholicism holds that an individual Adam is the first human being. All of humanity descended from the first, sole human parents, known biblically as Adam and Eve. Catholicism also holds that there was an actual, real original sin committed by the actual first human being. **--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, the Catholic Church is RIGHT.
Most scientists are atheists these days. As nonbelievers, they are devoid
of the Spirit of God, and to that extent, as scripture clearly teaches about the unregenerate, their minds are darkened and they cannot see the truth regarding
spiritual things.

“Adam” simply means Man and EVE simply means woman.
They were real,
they were just much farther back in time than we used to always assume.
And yes, the reality of that original sin is seen, clearly, every day, universally,
in human behavior. Even the nicest people pull nasty things sometimes, because
we have a “BENT” in that direction. We are disordered, physically and psychologically, from that primordial Fall and Original Sin.

Go and read the articles online about the controversies surrounding “Mitochondrial Eve”, our mother who was supposed to have lived somewhere in Africa more than 150,000 years ago. As it turns out, there is growing evidence that she lived a LOT MORE RECENTLY than that, and NOT necessarily in Africa, either.
Click to expand...
FYI
The media’s “Mitochondrial Eve” is not the original human Eve married to the first human Adam. She was one of a large population which according to Catholicism would rule her out as being the founder, along with Adam, of all humanity. Yes, I am familiar with research; however, out of respect for the ban on evolution discussion, I will not go into particular items.

This “Eve thing” and the speculations surrounding it, is why I am looking for a Catholic apologist who is familiar with basic contemporary molecular biology and anthropology or at least has access to solid information including how current research is conducted.

Frankly, I would be happy knowing an apologist who is actually interested in facing 21st century science which, in some restricted areas, is hammering away at human nature as created by God.

For the record, recent scientific advances have produced many benefits for society especially in the medical arena. I deeply respect women and men who are working scientists. At the same time, Catholics need to learn how to deal with the science that intersects with Catholic doctrines.

I will now step down from my soapbox.
 
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