False Citations by Anti-Catholics

[MercyMia]

I get really irritated by false citations in anti-Catholic literature. Obviously, Jack Chick is notorious for this and Loraine Boettner who wrote “Roman Catholicism” without putting in a bibliography. Recently I was reading some posts on a church of Christ board where a bunch of them were attacking some Catholic girl and they quoted a Alexander Hislop tract (they didn’t actually know this was his tract - they were quoting it as thought it was fact because they have seen reprinted at their churches and passed off as fact) and he cites word from PIUS III about the bible being bad, it must be taken away from the people yadda yadda. Anyways, he claims that these writings of the Pope are in the Library of Paris. One problem, there is no such thing as a Library of Paris. Now, there is a French National Library that is in Paris (that does not claim to have these texts) - but he clearly cites Library of Paris. He even uses a Catalog number to make it look all official. Sadly, the quotes are on many church of Christ sites on the internet and people are falling for the falsified info.

So - Anyone else know of some really crazy whoppers that anti-Catholics site? Lets put them to rest here and expose them for what they are in the name of academic integrity.

 

[stteresasgirl]

Funny that they are disobeying the commandment: “Thou shall not lie.” For those of them who say they are “Christian”, they surely don’t show that they fear Him or follow His commands. They must be beyond God Himself. (Ahhhhh…the devil has them wrapped around his little finger!)

Live by the sword, you will die by the sword…live by hate, you will die by hate. :sad_yes:

Blessings,
stteresasgirl

 

[puppypatrol]

There aren’t any “Anti-Protestant” tracts because Catholics don’t play that way. Catholics aren’t afraid that they are right about faith, practice, Tradition, the Bible and that we Catholics are wrong. Catholics don’t have to worry about their individual interpretation of Bible verses, we have our interpretations handed down to us from the Apostles.

Some Protestants, not all and actually not many, are Anti-Catholic out of ignorance and fear. Many of the Anti-Catholics aren’t even talking about things they have learned for themselves, just what they have been told by some other uninformed and possibly angry person. We should not stoop to their level. We should try to talk with them, educating them on the truth, and do it with love and with the goal of planting the seed that God will use to change their hearts.

 

[losh14]

I get really irritated by false citations in anti-Catholic literature.

Be fair - without the false citations, the breadth and depth of anti-Catholic literature would be only as thick as your electric bill.

Recently I was reading some posts on a church of Christ board where a bunch of them were attacking some Catholic girl and they quoted a Alexander Hislop tract

Hislop and Chick are examples of the anti-intellectualism among many (but thankfully not all) evangelical Christians. There’s a profound difference when I talk with my Presbyterian friends, who will disagree with the Catholic Church but keep the tone respectful and positively assert their positions, and my Baptist acquaintances who often go to extremes and argue nothing less than conspiracy theories and 16th century propaganda.

Hislop’s work (1850s) was shoddy to say the least, though this didn’t keep Dave Hunt from borrowing from and expanding upon it in his 1994 book, “A Woman Rides the Beast”. Nevermind that the thesis of both books - that Catholicism comes from Babylonian cult mythology of a divine mother Semiramis and her divine son Nimrod - would impugn Christianity in general, and nevermind that the scholarship is lacking in both. An evangelical minister, Ralph Woodrow, first agreed with Hislop’s work in the 1960s but later recanted and when he found that Hislop’s scholarship was so contrived he couldn’t support it.

Nevermind, also, that Hunt’s other works impugn every branch of Christianity other than a Baptist theology - Calvinist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, all cast in the same light as Catholicism. Most anti-Catholics who like Hunt’s work don’t know that he doesn’t like their faith backgrounds either.

Sadly, the quotes are on many church of Christ sites on the internet and people are falling for the falsified info.

Same way that all the rumors of Jews not going to work on 9/11 started gaining credibility among some in the Muslim world. What astounds me is how these same groups will reject anything that’s not in the Bible, yet embrace wild-haired contrivances when it suits them, regardless of reputation of the source.

Lets put them to rest here and expose them for what they are in the name of academic integrity.

Doesn’t matter how many times you do it, folks will still believe the ridiculous and irrational.

Every time I’ve found a Chick tract stuck between the pages of a Catechism or between two Catholic books in a bookstore, I’ve given it to the store manager. Once in a while, they’ll agree it’s offensive and apologize. I’ve had no such luck with inventory, though.

It would be interesting to see if we get an answer from Borders on why they carry “A Woman Rides the Beast” but nothing by Jimmy Akin. Or why they’ll carry books on what evangelicals think about the Catholic Church (Ankerberg’s “The Facts on Roman Catholicism”) but not Armstrong’s “The Scriptural Basis of Catholicism”. I think it has something to do with mass market domination by evangelical publishing houses (Harvest Press, for one), and the frequent urging of Protestant pastors to have their flocks read more and more. We could stand to do more of that in the Catholic Church - considerably more. It’d make us better Catholics, period.

Two last thoughts:

1. Jimmy Akin’s “Salvation Controversy” is on a 2-for-1 sale on catholic.com. Highly recommended.
2. My Presbyterian minister buddy, who started his theological education wanting to change the way Catholics thought about Christ, came to me about a year ago and said he wanted to help everyone (Catholics included) find Christ in their own churches. He said if we practiced Catholicism the way the Catholic Church intends, we’re following Christ. He doesn’t get “the Mary thing” but he admires our worship and asked me to help think of ways to deepen my fellow Catholics in Christ. So it’s not all lies and misinformation out there.

And honestly, in 200 years, we may not have these denominational differences. A priest of mine once said (or prophesied, perhaps?):

“One day, Washington, D.C. will be in ruins and the United States will be a memory, but the Catholic Church will remain as the Promise of Christ to lead His people.”

 

[praise_Jesus_1]

I hear a lot of protestants cite Ralph Woodrow’s work: BABYLON MYSTERY RELIGION, in which he originally confirms what Alexander Hislop wrote about how the Catholic Church is almost identical to Babylonian paganism (Hislops sources are extremely sketchy by the way)

What’s humorous is that Woodrow has retracted his work and removed it from publishing! He’s written THE BABYLON CONNECTION? which in fact takes a closer look and points out why both he and Hislop were wrong.

I guess if you tell people something they want to hear and make it sound believable they might not think twice about it.

-EDIT- Looks like the poster above me already mentioned Woodrow.

 

[MercyMia]

Lol - not sketchy citations, fabricated citations.

On the rare occasion that these people do use citation, they use circular citation where they just cite each other’s books and say “a prominent scholar said” and their version of prominent scholar is a guy with a degree from Billy Bob’s non-accredited bible college.

Yup, the problem with the Two Babylon pagan connection thing is that many atheists travel that thought path all the way to the conclusion that Jesus has pagan roots as well. I didn’t know about Woodrow’s retraction, but that is pretty cool. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

It is sad that so many are led into darkness by these false prophets. The devil really has these writers wrapped around his finger. Worst of all, he has convinced them that they are serving God by bearing false witness. All evil starts with a lie. The devil is the author of lies and confusion, and he has these men as his insturments.

 

[David_Steel]

This is copied and posted from another forum that I am a member of. The topic is Jehovah’s witnesses and this is one guy’s response;

just another group of decieved people. they are deceived because they have chosen to “love not the truth…” just like all the others who focus on a system, religion, church or a man to get them to heaven instead of Christ. they are no different than the folks who pray to mary, thinking she can intercede… or the folks who are starving but wont eat the filet mignon that is standing in their yard because that cow is aunt bessy who was reincarnated… or the monk who sits up in a mountain and refuses food or shelter because he believes that he has to punish himself for god. or the man who thinks his uncle from 20000 years ago was a monkey… or the person who thinks because they were “sprinkled” as a baby, they are now born again…

satan and this evil world has blinded men because they “love not the truth”… and therefore are blinded even further… they need to be witnessed to and told the true Gospel… the only one that saves. His name is Christ. [End Quote]

---

I find it annoying when non-Catholics think that they alone understand the Bible and the true spirit of God, and others are “misguided”

 

[losh14]

just another group of decieved people. they are deceived because they have chosen to “love not the truth…”

That’s counterintuitive - you cannot choose to be deceived. You can either choose to believe in something that you know is false, or you can choose to believe in something that you have been deceived (by another) to believe is true. The former brings culpability, the latter has none, because God is Just, and justice does not allow judgement to come where there is no guilt.

just like all the others who focus on a system, religion, church or a man to get them to heaven instead of Christ

Ah, this is familiar - “I don’t need your church/system/religion, I’ve got Jesus!”
That’s nice. Let’s look at how you got Jesus:

• did you read the Bible? Good. But who preserved it, translated it, defended it from heresy, and passed it down to you? Who kept Paul’s epistle to the Laodiceans out but kept the Apocalypse of John in?
• were you preached to? Good. But who taught that preacher? Who gave that preacher authority, and what was the authority of the one who ordained the preacher?
• were you ministered to? Good. But where is the human model of that ministry?
• do you worship? Good. But how do you know what kind of worship God wants?
• did you receive Grace? Good. But how did you get that Grace? How do you know it’s really Grace that you received? And from whom did you receive it?

Rhetorically, saying “You’ve got a system, not Jesus” is like saying “you went to school instead of learning” or “You married instead of committing”. It’s, at best, an accusation of form without substance - a system devoid of meaning but heavy on filler, a student who sleeps through class but is physically present, a marriage that neither spouse is committed to.

Which is logical to someone whose opinion of the Mass is formed by Davy Hunt and Lexi Hislop. To we who are Catholic, it’s fighting words. It’s accusing your marriage of being a sham, your faith of being devoid, your life of being spent asleep.

It’s also a sham unto itself. “I reject the system in favor of Jesus” really means “I reject this system in favor of my own.” If Christianity is not systemic, then Paul wasted his words on the Romans, and we shouldn’t need a single epistle when John 3:16 suffices. But even then, we cannot read John 3:16 without understanding the system - the economy of salvation - into which we are thrust and through which we are saved.

or the person who thinks because they were “sprinkled” as a baby, they are now born again…

“Born Again” occurs in two chapters in all of Scripture - John 3 (at Jesus’ Baptism) and 1 Pt 1 (in a passage admonishing to holiness). Outside of there, it’s not defined.

Meanwhile, much clearer doctrines are more thoroughly defined - the Eucharist (the latter half of John 6), the necessity of baptism, etc.

I’ve heard some accuse the Jehovah’s Witnesses of literally cutting passages out of Scripture to make the New World Translation. I don’t know if this is true. But you don’t need scissors to relegate passages of Scripture to the cutting room floor - you only need ignore them. This is why, when I was challenged to live my life in accordance with the Bible, I found I could only be Catholic because only the Catholic Church takes the Bible in its fullness and entirety. We don’t skew the entire economy of salvation towards 3 verses in two chapters and say we’re “born again”.

satan and this evil world has blinded men because they “love not the truth”… and therefore are blinded even further

The rhetorical end of many Catholic- nonCatholic exchanges is an appeal to fear - “You are blinded, you are under Satan’s spell”. This is not an answer to Scriptural objections. It is the antithesis, and the more anti-intellectual the strain of Christianity, the sooner this appeal.

they need to be witnessed to and told the true Gospel… the only one that saves. His name is Christ.

Counterpoint: Do you follow Christ’s teachings?
He preaches absolutely that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven you must:
Be humble (Mt 18:3)
Forgive one another (Mt 18:34-35)
Repent (Lk 13:3)
Be “born again” through baptism (Jn 3:3)
Take Eucharist (Jn 6:53)

His Name indeed is Jesus Christ, and He asks much of us.