Ever heard of this guy? Richard Bennett

[apophasis]

Does Catholicism contradict the Bible, though, like he says?

I have found his website extremely interesting, posing many important and very legitimate questions for Catholics regarding what they are taught in respect to eternal life and what is clearly taught in the N.T. Scriptures.

 

[Jabronie]

Check out the beautiful things they say about our pals Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi.

 

[Fidelis]

I have found his website extremely interesting, posing many important and very legitimate questions for Catholics regarding what they are taught in respect to eternal life and what is clearly taught in the N.T. Scriptures.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!


For a minute there, I almost thought you were serious!

 

[Bonnie]

Not only have I heard of him, I researched his book, Far from Rome, Near to God, to find out if the stories of priests who left the Church were true. Many of the priests were real priests - including Bennett - but there were “errors” & outright falsehoods. The good news is that at least 3 of the priests returned to the Church, 1 to the active priesthood. These stories were left out of the 2nd edition. I wrote up my research & posted it on a Catholic apologetics site.

Bennett lived in Portland, OR at the same time I did, but I never met him. I did, however, write to him about the “errors” I found (I was really polite!) He didn’t reply, but his wife did. She consigned me to hell for “Catholic” practices such as lighting candles, worshipping statues & so on. Not a nice person.

 

[Mijoy2]

Not only have I heard of him, I researched his book, Far from Rome, Near to God, to find out if the stories of priests who left the Church were true. Many of the priests were real priests - including Bennett - but there were “errors” & outright falsehoods. The good news is that at least 3 of the priests returned to the Church, 1 to the active priesthood. .

I should probably start a thread to get answers to these questions but I’ll pose them here, since it seems relevant.

Being a EWTN *Journey Home *regular viewer and admirerer I have often wondered if there is any data on the numbers of protestants to catholic and catholic to protestant conversion ratios.

Bennett’s website and book outlines 50 priests who left the priesthood for a protestant theology. Of course the Journey Home often features protestant pastors who left thier protestant faith for catholicism. Grodi’s show is wonderful and quite convincing. The guests he has most often appear very knowledgeable and charitable to thier former faith. Bennetts site is anything but charitable. In fact the lack of charity one might take as further evidence in who holds the Truth and who holds a counterfiet.

I suppose a more appropriate question would be how many knowledgeable converts prot-cath and cath-prot have there been?

I try to be objective and wonder (not being a scripture scholar) if I were to spend as much time reading and listening to the “other side” if I’d be just as convinced in thier view.

My heart and head feel and believe catholicism holds the Truth. But intellignet well informed theologeans can argue the matters that we differ on equally convincingly to those of us who cannot spend thier life studying scripture.

How does your average layman ever know for certain if he has the Truth?

 

[Bonnie]

Being a EWTN Journey Home regular viewer and admirerer I have often wondered if there is any data on the numbers of protestants to catholic and catholic to protestant conversion ratios.

If you contact the people at Journey Home, they might have some numbers for you. But I would think it would be an estimate, not a statistic.

My heart and head feel and believe catholicism holds the Truth. But intellignet well informed theologeans can argue the matters that we differ on equally convincingly to those of us who cannot spend thier life studying scripture.

I don’t think there are very many theologians around, especially on the Protestant side. The Protestant’s grasp of Scripture may be as fautly as anyone’s. I have seen & heard too many misquotes & misinterpretations to consider them “informed”.

How does your average layman ever know for certain if he has the Truth?

Follow the Church. Read the Catechism. Anytime I have doubts, that’s what I do. Nothing else makes sense.

 

[Unfinished]

** He didn’t reply, but his wife did.**

Hmm. Makes me wonder.

What is the first thing anyone wants to do when the drop out of seminary or falls away from the priesthood?

I do not want to judge his motives, but after reading his story about why he left the Church, I was unconvinced. A half-informed Catholic could of answered some of his objections better than he did, and he even went to seminary? Did he even pay attention?

 

[Bonnie]

A half-informed Catholic could of answered some of his objections better than he did, and he even went to seminary? Did he even pay attention?

That was the conclusion I came to about many of the stories in Far from Rome, Near to God. Some of the stories were fraudulent, tho, & I have no idea why people make up those things.

 

[Verita]

Does Catholicism contradict the Bible, though, like he says?

Earlier today I had a revelation about the relationship between the Bible and the Church. I read that there are NO original copies of the books of the New Testament. Everything we have is a copy. But if it’s a copy how can it be trusted, I wondered. How do we know that the words we read in those copies are actually the words the authors used. What if someone made a mistake? What if someone intentionally changed something? How would we ever know?

To a Catholic, the answer is clear. The Church made a decision guided by the Holy Spirit that those manuscripts we now have in our Bible were true to the teachings handed on by the Apostles and free from error. The Bible was actually held up to the standard of Sacred Tradition and anything that contradicted that wasn’t put into the canon.

So, the Church cannot contradict the Bible.

 

[jpusateri]

It really makes me sad. I pity this poor guy.

One thing that struck me is that in his article about the Priesthood, he refers to 3 things that the infamous 50 priests who left the Church didn’t question. The third one was that they were worthy to ever become priests.

Yet in the same breath he says

We had a great yearning to be different from those around us. We wanted to be more pure, nearer to God.

This is a sign of pride, is it not? A theme in other articles is that God made the first move in our “justification” (which I put in quotes since he doesn’t get that right either).

So if it’s all Grace, yet he wants to be nearer to God than a priest in the Church, who’s moving toward whom here? If he has any leeway in the matter, then he must agree with the Catholic understanding of grace/cooperation with grace, no?

What do you guys think?

 

[mrs_abbott]

The Bible was actually held up to the standard of Sacred Tradition and anything that contradicted that wasn’t put into the canon.

So, the Church cannot contradict the Bible.

What about knowing when something is literally translated and when it’s just metaphorically speaking? I think that’s one of the most confusing and inconsistent aspects about interpretting the Bible from the Church’s standpoint. Does the Pope and the Cardinals just get to together and discuss the Bible and its translations and what is literal and what is metaphorical?

 

[mrs_abbott]

How does your average layman ever know for certain if he has the Truth?

Hmmm . . . interesting thought . . .

 

[jpusateri]

What about knowing when something is literally translated and when it’s just metaphorically speaking? I think that’s one of the most confusing and inconsistent aspects about interpretting the Bible from the Church’s standpoint. Does the Pope and the Cardinals just get to together and discuss the Bible and its translations and what is literal and what is metaphorical?

That’s the thing about the Living Tradition! The books of the Bible originally gained entry into the canon by whether they agreed with what the bishops were already taught!!!

That is, if a prospective book contradicted the understanding of the Faith that the Church Fathers had, then it didn’t make the cut! Living Tradition is one whole thing. It didn’t come from the books, the books were chosen as representative of the whole!

 

[Verita]

What about knowing when something is literally translated and when it’s just metaphorically speaking? I think that’s one of the most confusing and inconsistent aspects about interpretting the Bible from the Church’s standpoint. Does the Pope and the Cardinals just get to together and discuss the Bible and its translations and what is literal and what is metaphorical?

I believe my previous post already answers this. Because the Bible was compiled of letters the Church declared to be in agreement with the teachings of the Apostles, the same criteria would be applied to its interpretation. Whether or not it is literal and metaphorical would depend on which of those interpretations agreed with the teachings of the Apostles handed down.

 

[mrs_abbott]

They base that view on several things primarily although they vary from sect to sect. Most agree on the following as proving that Catholicism not only contradicts the Bible but is actually anti=-Christian

First and foremost the Pope. They will point out there is no scriptural reference to the Pope whatsoever and therefore, we are in error from square one.

Second the Mass itself. They will point out that when Jesus broke the bread at the last Supper he was merely speaking fuguratively, not literally as the eating of flesh and the drinking of blood would have been repugnant to Jews. It naturally follows that when the Priest consecrates the Host he is obviously in error. Further, they say that by re-presenting the sacrifice at Calvary Catholics completely deny the efficiency and completeness of the sacrifice. If it was sufficient in the first place why must the Priest re-present it?

Third Marian devotion They will point out that Mary was a minor figure, pretty brusquely and rudely treated by Jesus and in no way shape or form the Mother of God as she was a mortal woman.

**Fourth Priesthood itself ** they will point out that there is no evidence that Jesus passed any authority on to the Apostles but if he did somehow, there was no way they could pass it on to anyone else. So, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is worthless as no man can hear and forgive sins, only God.

**Fifth Baptism ** they will point out that there is absolutely no scriptural justification for even thinking that there is such a thing as Original Sin and therefore no reason to believe that Baptism could remove it. Baptism is just an initiation or welcome into the community in their eyes.

Sixth The Sacraments as a whole. They will point out there is absolutely no scriptural basis for the sacraments and therefore they are man made, Some Churches do admit that Baptism and the Eucharist can be considered sacramental in nature.

Seventh Purgatory They will point out there is no scriptural references to such a place or state, remember they don’t accept the Books of the Maccabees as being scriptural, and it firther denies the eficiency of the Sacrifice at Calvary. If we are saved, why must we pay a temporal debt for sins already forgiven?

Basically that is about it. There are others, the Saints etc, but the ones above are the biggies.

Does anyone know the Catholic counter arguments for these? I’m not an apologetist but I’d love to know the answers to these for spiritual gain and knowledge for myself.

 

[mrs_abbott]

I believe my previous post already answers this. Because the Bible was compiled of letters the Church declared to be in agreement with the teachings of the Apostles, the same criteria would be applied to its interpretation. Whether or not it is literal and metaphorical would depend on which of those interpretations agreed with the teachings of the Apostles handed down.

I’m thinking that this is one of the questions I need to ask God when I die someday. Thanks for trying to answer me but I guess I’m just thinking differently on this one.

 

[jpusateri]

Does anyone know the Catholic counter arguments for these? I’m not an apologetist but I’d love to know the answers to these for spiritual gain and knowledge for myself.

There are many resources for all of these from an apologetics standpoint. For Bible arguments, start with biblechristiansociety.com/

My first and easiest argument for the list you gave is: Please tell me where there MUST be a scriptural basis for any/all of these? (Answer: there need not be.) And then it goes to Sola Scriptura and from there it goes to Authority. Then you explain that the Catholic Church has the monopoly of being the Church that Christ founded and established Peter as the earthly head of the Church. The Church assembled the Bible based on what they were taught and therefore have the understanding of what the Faith IS.

It’s not really as simple as that, but that’s the outline!

 

[Mijoy2]

Hmmm . . . interesting thought . . .

Mrs_Abbott, I was thinking about this a tad deeper. At least in my mind I believe I have a partial answer.

Mr. Bennetts’ web site states emphatically that the souls of some of our most beloved catholic apologists (I’ll leave the names out) have lost thier souls and are damned. Other articles on the site indicate that we catholic laymen are damned.

To be christian is to believe Jesus loves us with a love we cannot even fathom. He calls on us to use our conscience and God given intellect and will to love one another and to love, above all, Him. How can a faith, who claims to love the Jesus of the bible (and I am sure they do, with all thier heart) truly believe that the average God fearing, Jesus loving catholic is damned to hell for all eternity? There is no logic in this. Does it make any sense at all that anybody is damned simply because they followed the faith they believed to be true, but were mistaken on some details?

Catholics, would never make this claim in the other direction. The guests on the Journey Home almost invariably speak of thier religious upbringings and former churches with respect, dignity and (often) thanks for bringing them to Christ.

Ummm, working only from my non-scholarly, average Joe Catholic (which most of us are) self’s perspective, I think this goes a long way toward discerning who has the Truth Jesus spoke of…would you agree?

 

[mrs_abbott]

Mrs_Abbott, I was thinking about this a tad deeper. At least in my mind I believe I have a partial answer.

Mr. Bennetts’ web site states emphatically that the souls of some of our most beloved catholic apologists (I’ll leave the names out) have lost thier souls and are damned. Other articles on the site indicate that we catholic laymen are damned.

To be christian is to believe Jesus loves us with a love we cannot even fathom. He calls on us to use our conscience and God given intellect and will to love one another and to love, above all, Him. How can a faith, who claims to love the Jesus of the bible (and I am sure they do, with all thier heart) truly believe that the average God fearing, Jesus loving catholic is damned to hell for all eternity? There is no logic in this. Does it make any sense at all that anybody is damned simply because they followed the faith they believed to be true, but were mistaken on some details?

Catholics, would never make this claim in the other direction. The guests on the Journey Home almost invariably speak of thier religious upbringings and former churches with respect, dignity and (often) thanks for bringing them to Christ.

Ummm, working only from my non-scholarly, average Joe Catholic (which most of us are) self’s perspective, I think this goes a long way toward discerning who has the Truth Jesus spoke of…would you agree?

Romans 14 contradicts damning your fellow man so that would be against a sola scriptura Christian. Romans 14 says what you have just said and I agree.

 

[Genesis315]

Check out the beautiful things they say about our pals Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi.

Yeah, pretty sick stuff right there. However, I am surprised more anti-Catholic sites don’t try and defame knowledgable and well-written converts more often–as they are great examples of how a halfway intelligent person would never fall for the garbage being spewed by alleged “ex-catholics.” (of course, I think Scott Hahn and Marcus Grodi are more than halfway intelligent ).