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Lady_Kikyo
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Does anyone know if those two are still friends?
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ljubim
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Who’s Matatics?
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Lady_Kikyo
Guest
Gerry Matatics went to seminary (protestant) with Scott Hahn, they were the two most anti-Catholic students on the campus. When Mr.Hahn was considering conversion to the Church, his wife called Mr. Matatics begging him to help her husband, since he was just as opposed to Rome as Mr. Hahn used to be. So Hahn shares his discoveries with Matatics, and Matatics takes it in and brings in his objections…Hahn gets a call one day from his friend who says: I’m [his wife too?] joining the Church this Easter. Apparantly Hahn’s first thought was: what?! you can’t join before me! LOL
Anyway, Mr. Matatics is sort of (sad to say) a Sedevacantist, and Mr. Hahn obviously is not. So, I was just wondering if they still associate on any regular basis or if ties have been cut.
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preV2tradcath
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Both Scott Hahn and Gerry Matatics are converts from the same denomination.
Mr. Matatics is the head of Biblical Foundations International. According to him, he is “uncompromisingly defending the traditional Catholic Faith in an age of apostasy”. When I heard him he was giving great talks presenting the Biblical basis for the Catholic Faith. On the issues facing the Church, he would definitely have been described as a traditional Catholic.
However, since then, he has gone too far and has become what I can only describe as a sedevacantist who regards Benedict XVI as an anti-pope. He lost my support and a lot of the respect I had for him when he did so.
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Lady_Kikyo
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Isn’t that the saddest? I’ve heard some of his talks, he’s amazing!
Kyrie eleison!
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Shin
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I pray for his soul. It is a sorrowful position he is in.
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yinekka
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I read a blog post which claimed that Karl Keating of Catholic Answers travelled far and wide to get Mr Matatics disinvited from speaking engagements. No proof was supplied but I think that the claim is flat out wrong. Karl has written something about Matatics (available online at Catholic Answers) but to allege anything more is wrong.
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Lady_Kikyo
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I think it would be pretty stupid, not to mention a waste of money, to travel all over just for that, but I wouldn’t doubt that calls were probably made. Of course, if this was **after **Mr. Matatics became a sedevacantist, I suppose he’d be obliged to.
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Ultima_Ratio
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I had dinner with Gerry Matatics about a year ago, and the subject of Scott Hahn came up. The context of the discussion was why Gerry doesn’t debate any of the well known apologists. Although I am not a Sedevacantist, his answer was exactly what I suspected: the reason he doesn’t debate the well known apologists is because they won’t debate him. He has challenged them all, but they won’t taken him up on his offer. In my opinion the reason why they won’t debate them is very obvious: They don’t want to be faced with the questions that the Sedevacantists will put to them. It is much easier to simply ridicule them than actually debate them.
It was in this context that the subject of Scott Hahn came up. He met Scott at some sort of public gathering (probably some Catholic event). Scott made a personal attack against Gerry due to the position that he holds on the Sedevacantist issue. Gerry attempted to defend himself and Scott would not listen. Finally, after a pointed challence, Scott agreed to hear what Gerry had to say, but only in private, and with no witnesses (which I found interesting, but not surprising). Gerry then related what transpired in private. He opened one of Cardinal Ratzinger’s books and read a section to Scott. Gerry then said “Scott, you know that is heresy”. Scott wouldn’t reply, and that’s pretty much how it ended.
What many people don’t realize is that the Sedevacantists have reached their conclusion for a reason. I’m not saying they are right, but they do have a case for their position. It is my experience that very few people have a good reply for the case they make, and that is the reason almost no well known apologist will get within 100 feet of an* informed *Sedevacantist. No one wants to enter a debate they are going to lose, or be foreced to address points they have no reply for.
It was in this context that the subject of Scott Hahn came up. He met Scott at some sort of public gathering (probably some Catholic event). Scott made a personal attack against Gerry due to the position that he holds on the Sedevacantist issue. Gerry attempted to defend himself and Scott would not listen. Finally, after a pointed challence, Scott agreed to hear what Gerry had to say, but only in private, and with no witnesses (which I found interesting, but not surprising). Gerry then related what transpired in private. He opened one of Cardinal Ratzinger’s books and read a section to Scott. Gerry then said “Scott, you know that is heresy”. Scott wouldn’t reply, and that’s pretty much how it ended.
What many people don’t realize is that the Sedevacantists have reached their conclusion for a reason. I’m not saying they are right, but they do have a case for their position. It is my experience that very few people have a good reply for the case they make, and that is the reason almost no well known apologist will get within 100 feet of an* informed *Sedevacantist. No one wants to enter a debate they are going to lose, or be foreced to address points they have no reply for.
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Jacafamala
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I understand the premise behind their argument but if you follow the Sedevacantists conclusion to it’s logical end, then Catholicism it makes no sense, to me anyway.
No, rather I think that the SSPX position makes more rational sense, that Cardinals can be wrong, Popes can err… Any teaching or practice that goes directly against what has been previously defined is either misunderstood or else false.
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Ultima_Ratio
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I agree with you. I’m not a Sedecavanstist, and I am willing to engage Sedevacantists in debate. My point was that the radio apologists won’t. And I think the reason they won’t is because the Sedevacantists do make a strong case for their position, and these people don’t want to have to deal with it. It is easier to just ridicule them, rather than engage them. No one want to enter a debate they are going to lose. The lay apologists will debate any Protestant (since it is easy to win a debate with a Protestant), but almost none of them will get near a Sedevacantist. The one exception was Robert Sungenus, and I think he regreted it. He was threatening to walk out of the debate early on. Why? Because, since what Senguins was saying was so obviously wrong, the Sedevacantist (John Lane) asked him to name just one theological book he had read on that topic. Sungenis never did name a single book, but instead pretended to be offended by the question and repeatedly threatended to walk out of the debate if he continued to ask. It was a very transparent attempt to dodge the question. Also, of the three point the Sedevacantist brought up evidence for his position, Sungenis did not address a single one. He avoided all of them. He argued against points that were not even brought up by his opponent.
My guess is that you won’t see any of the well known apologists enter a debate with an informed Sedevacanists. If the apologist thought they could win, they would have already had the debate.
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MarcoPolo
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I understand the sympathy for sedevacantists, but the story you relayed sounds like an awfully biased caricature that Catholic apologists are just a bunch of dishonest louts who can’t defend their positions and embrace heresy by Cardinal Ratzinger. I know Sungenis has specifically challenged him. You know, James White uses the same “they won’t debate me” logic. I think to be fair you should provide what heresy Scott Hahn “wouldn’t reply” to and what Matatics was doing toting a copy of Cardinal Ratzinger’s book at a “public gathering.”
p.s. while on the subject, what do you think is the sedevacantist’s strongest argument that is not being addressed that you have addressed?
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Lamentabili
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To be fair, another reason could be that the mainstream apologists see the issue as so well settled that the very act of debating it would be to lend credence or legitimacy to the other side, which is in their eyes, destructive, heretical and only currently held by a small few.
Also the sedes have made a cottage industry out of going into painstaking meticulous detail to craft arguments from all sorts of Church documents to support their position. They have written many legalistic volumes on the topic. A mainstream apologist and especially a busy Professor like Hahn would have to take months out of his schedule to meticulously research and study in order to refute a position that only .001% of the Catholic population even takes seriously and, to them, most likely is, on its face, absurd.
After all, what kind of god abandons his church without a head for 50+ years and allows them to drift into oblivion. It is akin to debating atheists. There are very few atheists and their claims are absurd on their face, but require months of study to properly academically and technically refute claim by claim.
Also the sedes have made a cottage industry out of going into painstaking meticulous detail to craft arguments from all sorts of Church documents to support their position. They have written many legalistic volumes on the topic. A mainstream apologist and especially a busy Professor like Hahn would have to take months out of his schedule to meticulously research and study in order to refute a position that only .001% of the Catholic population even takes seriously and, to them, most likely is, on its face, absurd.
After all, what kind of god abandons his church without a head for 50+ years and allows them to drift into oblivion. It is akin to debating atheists. There are very few atheists and their claims are absurd on their face, but require months of study to properly academically and technically refute claim by claim.
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Jacafamala
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I think that the reason it’s so difficult for Conservative Catholics to Debate Sedevacantists is because they’re two sides of the same coin, really. Both maintain that the Church can never teach heresy. So, Sedevacatists say, “this is heresy, thus it’s not really the Church” whereas Conservatives have to say, “This can’t be heresy, because the Church is teaching it”. If and until Rome explains some of what’s been stated these past forty years, in encyclicals, and in the documents of VII, the latter is much harder to prove.
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Jacafamala
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Yes, you’d have an easier time debating a Sedevacantist than a Conservative would.
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Ultima_Ratio
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Shin
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I agree. The problem with the popular apologists is in fact I think their methodology. They’re all deductive logic with what they know popularly about the Faith. This is however often simply ‘human reason’. They actually don’t follow the most Catholic method of attention to tradition in their approach.
If they paid more attention to proper methodology they might be able to bring some Sede Vacantists back inside, but as it is, I heard that John Lane debate too, and it seemed like Sungenesis simply hadn’t walked in John’s shoes (and a traditional approach) sufficiently to be able to understand and reply in a way that would relate.
This is just my opinion of it all of course, it’s a shame.
So I do think the mainstream apologists can’t handle the Sedes well, and I would like them to be able to. It would in fact make them more attentive to tradition than they in fact tend to be, which is less than they should be truly.
And of course very likely the other reason they won’t debate is of course they’re not going to come out of it in flying colors no matter what because of the problems within the Church today. It’s not easily going to be a, ‘Everything is wonderful and going as it properly should in the Springtime’ conclusion.
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Ultima_Ratio
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Ignore the above line from my last post.
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Jacafamala
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I was just going to ask you about that.
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Emily23
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Sorry if somebody already made this point…
Em :grouphug:
That’s certainly possibility, but that may not entirely be the issue though. I participate in many apologetics debates between Catholics and protestants. Often it gets to the point where you realize nothing you say will convince the opposition… So you stop or refuse to continue debating anymore. It’s not because you don’t have the necessary arguments to “win” the debate or are afraid of losing… But rather because you refuse to dignify what they’ve said by any further comments on your part. I’ve heard many outrageous claims and if you know they won’t change their position, why waste your breath? Why create and prolong a situation that won’t come to a close? That may be what’s happening in this case, but truthfully I don’t know much about the situation… I only thought I’d throw that out there because of my experience debating.
Em :grouphug:
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