Ever heard of this guy? Richard Bennett

[jmcrae]

Someone famous (and I have now forgotten who it was) once said, “Every great heresy begins between the legs.”

I think it holds true in at least the majority of cases.

 

[Damascus]

 

[Jeanette_L]

I also just find it amazingly “ironic” that every former Catholic priest ends up married within a few years.

And their anger towards the Church, is really born from guilt, guilt that is associated from breaking an oath, a vow, a covenant made to Christ, and Christ alone. They blame the Church for this guilt, but the Church never made them take the vow, and the Church didn’t make them break it. It was an act of their own free will to give in to the temptation to break their vow.

They twist the truth of *their own sin *into a lie, a lie that results in accusing the Church of being apostate, *the Church *of being a deceiver, in the hope that maybe they can quiet their consciences, convincing themselves that it was because they were deceived by her that they made a vow and then later broke it.

And the sad reality is, no matter how long they rant and rave against the Church, they can never be free from the guilt in their own consciences. It will forever be a witness against them until they are brought to repentance.

 

[JMartyr]

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.

Hi, i’m JMartyr. I’d like 2 know what the site you posted this on is called, as I also own this book. It was disgraceful. The Catholics in the book are depicted as being abysmally ignorant of the Church’s doctrines, still holding medieval crusader-like views regarding Protestants, being biblically illiterate, etc. BTW, I also love TJH.

Many thanks in advance 4 your help.

 

[adawgj]

Watched one of their videos where they talked about how born again Christians are becoming Catholic. Unfortunately they were very ignorant and at one point didn’t recommend reading about the early church fathers. Also saw some of their essays on Marcus Grodi and Dr. Scott Hahn where their is bigotry all over the place. Unity under Rome will be a long way with this group.

 

[InNomineDomini]

And the sad reality is, no matter how long they rant and rave against the Church, they can never be free from the guilt in their own consciences. It will forever be a witness against them until they are brought to repentance.

I cannot speak to Mr. Bennett’s conscience, but this line of thinking makes sense to me, given the level of emotion in a lot of his material. His fundamental lack of trust and good will towards the papacy, for example, borders on paranoia; and his documented insinuation that the Holy Father’s outreach to Protestants was demonic is simply far too ridiculous to interpret as a sane conclusion. I quote:

*. . . in order to push forward John Paul II’s ecumenical agenda to snare Evangelicals, Lutherans and Anglicans into accepting Catholicism as a valid form of Christianity, the Vatican announced that an apology was to be made for the Inquisition . . . Solemn warnings are given in Scripture concerning such veneer that conceals devious people, “…false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” *(Pp. 6 - 7 of Source)

There is almost certainly a level of pain that causes Mr. Bennett to include such barbs in his anti-Catholic polemic; of that there can be little doubt.