Former Catholic Priest Condemns the Catholic Church and Scott Hahn

[mercygate]

You comments ring true to some degree. Some of us were hurt …or even abandoned, left for dead so to speak. Some of us were products of mixed religious faiths, something I despirately attempt to direct people away from not only from my parents, relatives, but also from my own personal experience. I saw many Catholics use annulments like it’s a Catholic divorce…as if it is okay and not scandalous. Some of us were victims. If you’ve ever been victimized you’d konw what I mean. When men or women in sacred offices commit awful crimes against the inosent, young inexperienced adults, they commit a grave sin that causes a lot of hardship. I could carry on abou this topic because it is rather personal for me.

There is truth in what you say, but the next question to ask is invincible ignorance and culpability. Sometimes wounds need time to heal and people need time to learn. Whe looking for truth and you get mixed answers it’s often difficult to know what the real truth is in a world bent on pushing their own agenas. It’s a wonder that more people don’t fall away when you look at the intensity of it all. Pride is often overstated. There is an element of self-preservation that must be considered.

It’s true sometimes that the worst of anything is someone from that broke away from that frame of thought. Probably because they’re still fighting internally with what they used to believe. Sometimes its truly ignorant pride and others it is selfish pride. I’m sure someone has terms up their sleeve for what I’m trying to say.

If the pride of the priests I ran into was less than my pride I may never have fallen away from the Church. My biggest lesson that I learned through this heart breaking experience is that we all need to be on guard against the evil one who is out to devour us. Anyone can fall into this pit. But I do believe that if you are truly seeking God you will find him. In my case it lead me back Home and with my wife who proselytized me years ago. The only reason I hand out of these forums is to learn apologetics and help as many Catholics both in and fallen away with what I’ve learned to date. I also look for things I should know.

Being a priest does not necessitate being an “expert”. Some of the dummest people I’ve met were the smartest and/or most educated.

MAN! I sure wish I could have you come and tell your story to a group of bruised/broken/angry fallen away Catholics seeking to reclaim their faith and the mercy of God in His Church! Unfortunately, I do not HAVE such a group, although I have been pumping for it with the Archdeacon (who is my confessor).

You have been truly graced. I am deeply touched by your line:

If the pride of the priests I ran into was less than my pride I may never have fallen away from the Church.

My experience has largely been with the “noisier” ex-Catholics who rail against the Church from a platform of willful arrogance or obscene ignorance. I am going to print out your post and put it where I can read it until I have absorbed what you have shared and made it my own.

May God reward you for your graciousness here.

 

[Aleii]

OK,… according to your story, your “one” of your major problems was the thought that a “good” person could be “SENT” to hell for some “unjust” reason.

No one is SENT to hell. They choose hell. Also, God is incapable of BEING unjust, therefore it is simply impossible for Him to “unjustly” do anything.

The reason you “left the Church” was because you didn’t know who God was, and was disappointed by not getting “what you wanted when you wanted it”.

You were “scandalised” away from the Church because SOMEONE misinformed you of the facts of Christianity as Catholics need to know it.

It is not a blanket statement to say that people LEAVE the Church because they are led into misunderstandings which when seen as UNDERSTANDINGS veritably, and rightly, COMPEL them to leave the Church!

It is simply a fact.

You said:
“The reason is ALWAYS some variant of being scandalized by some behavior of some sinful Catholic, and not being able to separate the sinner from the sin, and imputing to the Church the evil of the person.”

There is no specific person whom I was not able to separate the sinner from the sin. It is my own personal large issues with the basic tenants of Catholicism which is the reason I am no longer a part of that religion. No specific person is responsible.

Let me clarify my writings. The problem of hell is something that is still a very gray area. From what I know of Catholic teaching, yes, people “choose” hell: those who are not Catholic/those who die in a state of non-priest confessed mortal sin/sin against the Holy Spirit/those who reject Jesus, or those without perfect contrition are very likely to go to hell. We are supposedly all given enough information sometime in life to “make the correct choice”.

Yes, I have seen it said over and over again that people chose to reject Jesus or chose not to believe in Jesus. The thing is this - I don’t agree that a person’s religion, or ability to believe in Jesus, is their choice. I am at the mercy of what my brain tells me is logical. I can go through the motions but to call myself Catholic would be a lie. I can not choose believe even though I have asked for it for over a decade. I can not choose to believe a cat is a blueberry, nor can I choose to believe that Catholicism is accurate. Even though I may want it to, my heart can not dictate what my mind thinks. As per Catholic teaching, we can not officially “know” who is going to heaven or hell, but things look bleak for those who are not Catholic, much less Christian. Faith + good works = heaven. I think this is amoral, since my understanding is that faith is not a choice.

Therefore, I don’t agree that getting into Catholic heaven is fully dependent upon one’s choice.

As for not “getting “what you wanted when you wanted it”.”, I fail to see where this is the case, and ask that you point it out to me. I spent over a decade trying to reconcile all this and force myself back into believing Catholicism. I decided I had to change my designation because continuing to call myself a Catholic would be a lie. I know my journey, wherever it takes me, will last a lifetime.

I know that God is incapable of being injust. This contradiction draws me away from thinking the Catholic religion is the correct one, because it differs from my perspective of a perfect God.

 

[ralphinal]

As per Catholic teaching, we can not officially “know” who is going to heaven or hell, but things look bleak for those who are not Catholic, much less Christian. Faith + good works = heaven. I think this is amoral, since my understanding is that faith is not a choice.

This is not an accurate representation of Church teaching. Start from where Jesus says that to he that much is given, much is expected. Those with the gift of faith are expected to do more than those without. Further, those blessed with Christian beliefs are expected to do more. Finally, those who are Catholic have the most expected out of them. If anything, it is more bleak for Catholics.

Yes, you must have faith, and faith leads to good works, but you must also avoid sin and repent when you do sin.

 

[qui_est_ce]

This is not an accurate representation of Church teaching. ** Start from where Jesus says that to he that much is given, much is expected**. Those with the gift of faith are expected to do more than those without. Further, those blessed with Christian beliefs are expected to do more. Finally, those who are Catholic have the most expected out of them. If anything, it is more bleak for Catholics.

So true. The closer I get to God in the more I realize how unworthy I am. The small things I say and do that hurt other people. I’m not talking scrupulosity, I mean that the closer I get to God, the more I am overwhelmed by His unconditional love for ME. It is awesome and humbling at the same time. It is a self-perpetuating journey. The closer I draw to Him, the more I WANT Him, make Him part of who I am. And then then some little mean word pops out of my mouth, and I think how offended the God in me must be, yet He forgives me when I ask.

And this is what I don’t understand about Bennett’s anti-Catholic rants. Instead of wallowing in God’s love, joy, and peace, he is wallowing in hate and lies.

The Evil one works hardest at those close to God.

I have used several search engines trying to find out if Bennett was really a priest. I couldn’t find anything but his story and links to his Berean site. Although it doesn’t seem he could have been a priest with the things he is saying, it’s possible. He seems to have been a nobody before he started his anti-Catholic propoganda.

 

[ralphinal]

So true. The closer I get to God in the more I realize how unworthy I am. The small things I say and do that hurt other people. I’m not talking scrupulosity, I mean that the closer I get to God, the more I am overwhelmed by His unconditional love for ME. It is awesome and humbling at the same time. It is a self-perpetuating journey. The closer I draw to Him, the more I WANT Him, make Him part of who I am. And then then some little mean word pops out of my mouth, and I think how offended the God in me must be, yet He forgives me when I ask.

How true and how truely wonderful!

And this is what I don’t understand about Bennett’s anti-Catholic rants. Instead of wallowing in God’s love, joy, and peace, he is wallowing in hate and lies.

God is love. Love is putting other’s well being ahead of your own. Hate is desiring ill for another person. Hate and God cannot co-exist in the same heart.

The Evil one works hardest at those close to God.

I have used several search engines trying to find out if Bennett was really a priest. I couldn’t find anything but his story and links to his Berean site. Although it doesn’t seem he could have been a priest with the things he is saying, it’s possible. He seems to have been a nobody before he started his anti-Catholic propoganda.

I am taking for granted that what he says is true. I cannot understand how he could be so way off about Catholic Teaching. Too many holes in the story.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Know why there are too many American annulments? There were too many unfounded marriages! Many of them should never have been married in the first place. All the annulment states is that, in fact, there was no actual marriage.

And the American priest scandal? The sexual revolution, tolerance, then acceptance of homosexual behavior in the Seminaries. Then, tolerance, and acceptance of some of the worst human behavior imaginable in the Priesthood.

This is a spiritual attack. It took us only 40 years to notice it.

The church declined when it stopped believing certain things and began believing everything. The counter attack has begun. The first salvos have already been fired.

Christ’s peace.

Thank you for saying this. I get so-o-o bent out of shape when Catholics complain about annulments. American Catholics who seek annulments are those who want to be right with the Church. Those who don’t care, just get remarried. American’s are overwhelming more likely to say religion is a major force in their lives than Europeans. The process is lengthy, difficult, but ultimately quite positive.

As for the priest scandal, it was not pedophilia in most cases, it was homosexuality. But Pedophile Priests has a nice ring to it. Homosexuality is acceptable in our society, but pedophilia is not (yet anyway, except for the NAMBLA’S).

As for the Church believing everything, it was not the Church but it’s Religious. And they will have to account for this when they stand for the final judgement. For *Matthew 18:6
…if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
*

 

[qui_est_ce]

MAN! I sure wish I could have you come and tell your story to a group of bruised/broken/angry fallen away Catholics seeking to reclaim their faith and the mercy of God in His Church! Unfortunately, I do not HAVE such a group, although I have been pumping for it with the Archdeacon (who is my confessor).

You have been truly graced. I am deeply touched by your line:

If the pride of the priests I ran into was less than my pride I may never have fallen away from the Church.

My experience has largely been with the “noisier” ex-Catholics who rail against the Church from a platform of willful arrogance or obscene ignorance. I am going to print out your post and put it where I can read it until I have absorbed what you have shared and made it my own.

May God reward you for your graciousness here.

We have project Bethsaida for the wounded in our Archdiocese. Unfortunately, many seek healing through their lawyers. And it doesn’t work. SNAP is a major force here. They seek vengeance not healing. There have been several false accuations in our Archdioces including a priest at my son’s high school. The problem is that although the priests want to fight the accusations to clear their names, the insurance companies find it cheaper to pay out than to go to court. Therefore you will find “settled for an undisclosed amount” which implies guilt, or inability to defend against overwhelming evidence.

 

[ralphinal]

Same dude, different website

christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-r011.html

Later that same evening I had a freak accident, splitting the back of my head and hurting my spine in many places. Without thus coming close to death, I doubt that I would ever have gotten out of my self-satisfied state. Rote, set prayer showed its emptiness as I cried out to God in my pain.

In the suffering that I went through in the weeks after the accident, I began to find some comfort in direct personal prayer. I stopped saying the Breviary (the Roman Catholic Church’s official prayer for clergy) and the Rosary and began to pray using parts of the Bible itself. This was a very slow process. I did not know my way through the Bible and the little I had learned over the years had taught me more to distrust it rather than to trust it. My training in philosophy and in the theology of Thomas Aquinas left me helpless, so that coming into the Bible now to find the Lord was like going into a huge dark woods without a map.

Interesting.

Yet in studying Isaiah 53, I discovered that the Bible deals with the problem of sin by means of substitution. Christ died in my place. It was wrong for me to try to expedite or try to cooperate in paying the price of my sin.

And yet Paul says that our suffering makes up that which was lacking in the Crucifixion…

One particular sin of mine was getting annoyed with people, sometimes even angry. Although I asked forgiveness for my sins, I still did not realize that I was a sinner by the nature which we all inherit from Adam. The scriptural truth is, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10), and “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The Catholic Church, however, had taught me that the depravity of man, which is called “original sin,” had been washed away by my infant baptism. I still held this belief in my head, but in my heart I knew that my depraved nature had not yet been conquered by Christ.

He missed the class on concupisceince

He also talks about working on his Masters in Rome, and being offered someone elses thesis.

He just does not know or understand enough theology to have been a Dominican. Unless that head injury did something

 

[graceandglory]

I Much of what is said against the Catholic Church and Scott Hahn is just plain false or lifted out of context.

Yep. I’ve read his stuff. That would be a completely true statement. He has an axe to grind. He has no other income other than bashing the Catholic Church. Don’t worry, I really don’t think his following is very big.

My question is how can someone who claims to have been a Catholic priest for over 20 years to have found the truth in Fundamental Evangelicism accuse a former Presbyterian minister of not understanding Protestantism when he himself didn’t understand the teachings of the Catholic Church?

That’s right.

It’s his bread and butter!!! He doesn’t have another income as far as I know.

Not sure if Bennett adheres to Calvinism, Antimonianism, etc., as the focus of the site seems to be anything but Catholic.

Don’t worry, he doesn’t adhere to** any**thing. He’s a protestant, after all. It’s HIS interpretations that matter, no one else’s.

I actually know him. I’ve been to his house. God DID however keep me from listening to his cassettes back in my apostate days.

I recently found some of his stuff in storage, took a look at it, and it’s really ignorant. He didn’t know. He hasn’t really checked out Catholicism. I threw it all out in the trash, just like I do with Watchtower trash.

How can I say that about him, after all he’s been a priest!!!??
He was born Catholic, became a priest, but never got to know his faith. That’s why.

I am very good friends with one of his relatives. We used to be evangelicals together. She still is, I have converted. She is now rolling her eyes at some of the anti-Catholic stuff that comes from her family members.

Pray for them. But isn’t his name “Richard Bennett?”

 

[graceandglory]

I feel sorry for them for three reasons. First, it never clicked. They never saw, as priests, nuns or whatever, what the teaching of the CHurch meant in their lives. Second, they are full of hate. Hate and God cannot exist in the same heart. Even if everything they say and thing about the Church is true, they must forgive and let go. Third, they are attacking people who gave up their lives to pursue what they saw as the truth in the Catholic Church. I am willing to bet that Scott Hahn et al lost more than he gained economically while the Beren folks did the opposite.

While I have met Richard Bennett and his wife, they really are soft-spoken people, and don’t seem full of hate. Confused, and just plain WRONG, maybe, but I don’t think HATE is driving them.
He really does believe he has a “Testimony” and wants to see people “saved.”

Definitely, evangelism has to begin with the Church, and all of us need to get to know Christ and our Catholic faith personally, but I think Mr. Bennett has it wrong. Clearly, he didn’t have that kind of faith when he was Catholic, and didn’t “get it” until later.
Poor guy probably never got catechized, even in Seminary.

 

[graceandglory]

Everybody has a right to make a living, espcially an honest living. I do think its on topic, because one of the accusations made on by Bennett is that Scott Hahn made a lot of money on his conversion, implying that Scott Hahn did not convert for Truth.

Good point. I don’t want to be assigning any motives to Mr. Bennett, as he is anything but rich, but to lambast someone for seeking the truth, and not stopping until he found it…,

Also, most people who come into the Church will tell you they are shunned by their families and friends. It’s an “anything but Catholic” attitude. Scott Hahn even considered the Episcopalians so he wouldn’t have to become the “C” word.

When I converted from evangelicalism, I stopped for nearly a year and considered Eastern Orthodoxy. THAT would be acceptable to my former prot friends, whereas Catholic, they would think I had "lost my salvation.

 

[graceandglory]

Rote, set prayer showed its emptiness as I cried out to God in my pain.

In the suffering that I went through in the weeks after the accident, I began to find some comfort in direct personal prayer.** I stopped saying the Breviary** (the Roman Catholic Church’s official prayer for clergy) and the Rosary and began to pray using parts of the Bible itself.

Uh, duh.

Praying the Brevieary IS PRAYING the Bible!
:banghead:

There is something else people have to take into account.
Not everyone has the same IQ.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Same dude, different website

christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-r011.html

And yet Paul says that our suffering makes up that which was lacking in the Crucifixion…

Colossians 1:24, I love it! This started Scott Hahn’s journey into the Catholic Church. I have his CD on suffering. This is why, as Catholics, we tell ourselves to “offer it up” when something hurts or doesn’t go our way!

He also talks about working on his Masters in Rome, and being offered someone elses thesis.

I don’t know ANYONE, Protestant or Catholic who has been in Rome and not been inspired.

He just does not know or understand enough theology to have been a Dominican. Unless that head injury did something

That’s the only logical conclusion.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Yep. I’ve read his stuff. That would be a completely true statement. He has an axe to grind. He has no other income other than bashing the Catholic Church. Don’t worry, I really don’t think his following is very big.

It’s his bread and butter!!! He doesn’t have another income as far as I know. Don’t worry, he doesn’t adhere to** any**thing. He’s a protestant, after all. It’s HIS interpretations that matter, no one else’s.

I actually know him. I’ve been to his house. God DID however keep me from listening to his cassettes back in my apostate days.

How can I say that about him, after all he’s been a priest!!!??
He was born Catholic, became a priest, but never got to know his faith. That’s why.

I am very good friends with one of his relatives. We used to be evangelicals together. She still is, I have converted. She is now rolling her eyes at some of the anti-Catholic stuff that comes from her family members.

Pray for them. But isn’t his name “Richard Bennett?”

On the website, it says Richard Peter Bennett. You KNOW him? Ar you sure he’s the same guy? Are you sure he was really a priest? Dominicans are OP, Order of Preachers. They are specially trained to teach the faith.

 

[mercygate]

ralphinal:

He just does not know or understand enough theology to have been a Dominican. Unless that head injury did something.

* *

That’s the only logical conclusion.

I’m not so sure it’s laughable. TBI can disrupt memory, abstract thinking, the ability to reason, information processing, judgment and psychosocial behavior, and the effects can be very long term.

 

[graceandglory]

On the website, it says Richard Peter Bennett. You KNOW him? Ar you sure he’s the same guy? Are you sure he was really a priest? Dominicans are OP, Order of Preachers. They are specially trained to teach the faith.

Yes, I know who he is, we have met, I have been in his house. I am just about best friends with one of his relatives. A dear protestant friend of mine, who I love, and pray that she comes into the fullness of the faith in the Catholic Church. (It could happen, especially since she has some serious wacked-out anti-Catholicism in her family.)

I do know the Dominicans, OOP. Clearly, he never made his faith his own, from reading his personal story. Just because someone attended Seminary, doesn’t mean they were actually “present” in mind.

He is pretty open about his ignorance in his testimony, only he blames the Church and not his own ignorance.

I too left the Catholic Church when I was 18. I was ignorant, and blamed the Church for not teaching me. I loved Christ, but I never got to KNOW His Church on Earth.

To this very day, I am a little mad that I wasted so many years as a fundamentalist, when it really was Christ and His truth that I was seeking. I thought it was in the modern evangelical churches. Sure, His truth is there, but it’s not ALL of His truth.

We Catholics really are to blame for so many people being clueless about the faith they are raised in. I loved God, I wanted to do His will, I attended Mass every Sunday until College, I read the Bible, I went to Catholic school and CCD every year, and still I didn’t hear anything to defend my faith.

 

[maggieodae]

I just discovered this website, started by a former Catholic priest, Peter Bennett:

bereanbeacon.org/RC_Apologists.php

Bennett chastizes Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, and other converts for falling into apostasy. Elsewhere on this site, he solicits testimonials from former Catholics. Much of what is said against the Catholic Church and Scott Hahn is just plain false or lifted out of context. He is alarmed by the many books, cd’s, and talks given by these converts and seems bent on countering them. As a Catholic, Evangelical tapes and CD’s do not bother me unless they spout anti-Catholic falsehoods. I used to listen to them all the time before the Catholics got into the media. I would not condone Catholics spreading falsehoods about Protestantism either.

My question is how can someone who claims to have been a Catholic priest for over 20 years to have found the truth in Fundamental Evangelicism accuse a former Presbyterian minister of not understanding Protestantism when he himself didn’t understand the teachings of the Catholic Church? Not sure if Bennett adheres to Calvinism, Antimonianism, etc., as the focus of the site seems to be anything but Catholic.

Patrick Madrid is a cradle catholic.

 

[graceandglory]

bereanbeacon.org/RC_Apologists.php.

I’m starting to think this guy’s harmless. Except for the harm he’s doing his own soul in leading the Catholic and protestant faithful into apostasy.

Anyone reading this thread really ought to look at the front page of his website. He is ANTI- everything: Evangelicalism, Purpose Driven Life, Catholicism, the Emergent Church, and MOTHER TERESA! (According to him, she’s a lost soul)

Now that we know what he’s against,
I wonder if he is FOR anything?

 

[qui_est_ce]

I’m not so sure it’s laughable. TBI can disrupt memory, abstract thinking, the ability to reason, information processing, judgment and psychosocial behavior, and the effects can be very long term.

You’re right, I was being uncharitable

 

[graceandglory]

An interesting read from Catholic Answers. Found with a Google search:

WILL THE REAL RICHARD BENNETT PLEASE STAND UP?

In 1963, when he was 25, Richard Bennett, a native of Ireland, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood. In 1985 he abandoned the priesthood and Catholicism. Today he is a Fundamentalist missionary and decidedly anti-Catholic.

He runs a small ministry known as the Berean Beacon (www.bereanbeacon.org)). At his web site he has an archive of articles, one of which is called “The Antichrist Unveiled.” The final line in that article says that the testimony of “martyrs and reformers” “was that Papal Rome is the Babylon of prophecy, ‘that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth,’ and that its head, the Roman pontiff, is the predicted ‘Man of Sin,’ or Antichrist.”

Most Fundamentalists do not go so far as to claim that the pope is the Antichrist. They realize that Scripture refers to the Antichrist as being a particular man, and, if a pope is the Antichrist, which pope would that be? There are so many to choose from! If they say, “the current pope,” they look a bit ridiculous, since John Paul II has not performed a single act that is attributed by Scripture to the Antichrist.

Bennett also offers his “Life Testimony” at his site. It reads as many others read: lots of little facts, but big things seem to be missing. The reasons offered for his disillusionment with Catholicism and conversion to Fundamentalism just don’t add up. They are too insubstantial.

Do intelligent people really abandon the Catholic Church because they suddenly discover that some Catholics, including some priests and bishops, are venal or ignorant?

I can imagine how a youth who lived under overly protective parents might venture into the world for the first time and be surprised, but how long can that surprise last? Seminary life 40 years ago was more sheltered than it is today, but were the new ordinands of 1963 really so cut off from the world and from an understanding of human nature? I doubt it.

If a man throws up his hands and says, “I can’t be a priest any longer; I can’t serve with such men any longer,” is there anything that necessarily impels him toward Fundamentalism? Wouldn’t it make more sense for such a man to set aside religion entirely, at least for a while, as he sorts out his life?

Something in Bennett’s story just doesn’t add up.

Go to his site and see the other conversion stories he has posted. One is by A.J. Krause. Among other things, Krause discusses the meaning of “rock” in Matthew 16:18. He seems unaware that the argument he proffers has been refuted innumerable times by Catholic apologists.

No, in Matthew 16:18 “rock” does not refer to Jesus or to Peter’s profession of faith. The only interpretation that makes sense is that the word refers to Peter himself, as I explained at length in “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” and as many other Catholics have explained in other books. Krause makes no attempt to grapple with the Catholic rebuttal; he does not even seem to be aware that there is one.

The top page of the Berean Beacon web site sports photographs of Richard Bennett and A.J. Krause. They look like regular guys. One could imagine spending a pleasant evening with them, if the topic of discussion were not religion.

Krause I take to be an enthusiastic new convert to Fundamentalism; allowances must be made for him. Bennett is in a different category, since he has every reason to know better. Like some other ex-priests I know, Bennett brings to mind the young fellow who, having jilted his girlfriend, now takes every opportunity to talk her down.

There is something ungentlemanly and unseemly in that.

Until next time,
Karl
catholic.com/newsletters/kke_030909.asp

I guess I’m surprised the guy is even “on the radar.”