How do we defend against ex-priests?

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FightingFat

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My first instinct is that they must have some problem with their ministry, some falling out that lead to them becoming more about hating Catholicism than finding a true spiritual path, but perhaps that is too cynical and they genuinely feel that they are making the right choice for them. Whatever the case, how do we defend the faith when confronted with stuff like this jesus-is-savior.com/Books,%20Tracts%20&%20Preaching/Printed%20Books/Bernard_Fresenborg/thirty_years_in_hell-page1.htm
** **Ex-Priest, Bernard Fresenborg,
Who for thirty long years tread the slippery and deceitful path
of abhorrent Catholicism, but who to-day stands at the
Vatican’s door, with the torch of Protestant wisdom,
and denounces Popery with a tongue
livid with the power of
a living God.
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FightingFat:
how do we defend the faith when confronted with stuff like this
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In any profession, there are folks who are a credit to the profession, and folks who are not. There are high-quality doctors and low-quality doctors. There are high-quality carpenters and low-quality carpenters.

(by “quality” I mean someone who has the knowlege and wisdom to faithfully fulfill his professional vocation)

The priesthood is no different. There are high-quality priests and low-quality priests. Some low-quality priests act foolishly. This is to be expected (Martin Luther was, after all, a priest).

We don’t judge medical sciences on the basis of a few quacks. We shouldn’t judge the Catholic Church on the basis of a few quacky priests.
 
This guy needs our prayers - how can you be trained as a Priest and then end up thinking Catholic’s “worship” the bones of saints? - sounds to me he has been “duped” by our Protestant brothers and sisters.
 
Obviously, ex-priests who get involved with this type of nonsense have an agenda.

If they didn’t, they’d still be priests. (shrug)

And when you run into someone who asks, “Why would you reject what this guys says? After all, he used to be a priest!”, you look them in the eye and ask, “And if you needed an operation on a brain tumor, would you look for somebody who used to be a brain surgeon?”
 
Typical anti-Catholic fodder from 100 years ago. It’s got all the typical earmarks, including the innocent ravaged girls (“Innocent Girlhood at the Confessional Box”, “The Chastity of the Home Invaded by the Lustfulness of the Priest-Craft”), innocent ravaged nuns (“Nunneries the Slaughter Pens of Virtue”), scheming popes and other papist rats (“The Nations completely dominated by the Power of the Pope, are Nations of Illegitimacy”), Protestant triumphantism well-watered with bigotry (“The Characters of the Followers of Catholicism, Compared to the Followers of Protestantism”)

Sexual titillation with young innocent girls as victims, vile scheming degenerate priests, heroic Protestant virtue, racism and anti-Semitism, it’s all here.

Whether this is a real person or a forgery, it’s the most hateful sort of garbage. The fact that this stuff has been a staple of Protestantism since the Reformation speaks volumes about Protestantism.

Read Newman’s Lecture to learn more about this entrenched feature of Protestantism.
 
A priest has been through years of seminary training and has been thoroughly exposed to the true teaching of the Catholic church and how She views relics and the Saints.
For such a trained man to then claim that we WORSHIP bones and Saints is prima facie evidence of a thoroughly wicked heart on his part. He KNOWS better than that and is deliberately lying.

How to defend against him?
Call him an APOSTATE, and to his face.

Jaypeeto3
 
We should take the high road and (as hard as it is) pray for them.
 
Assuming for the moment that this person and book are indeed legitimate, we must also remember that psychiatric and
neurological infirmaties can strike anyone. Striking changes in personality as well as long held beliefs and philosophy can be indicative of medical issues. It is for this reason that I hold such diatribes suspect. To do otherwise would be to try to understand something that is little more than aberent behavior.

IMO, attention and publicity are what they( whoever they are) are looking to attract.
 
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FightingFat:
My first instinct is that they must have some problem with their ministry, some falling out that lead to them becoming more about hating Catholicism than finding a true spiritual path, but perhaps that is too cynical and they genuinely feel that they are making the right choice for them. Whatever the case, how do we defend the faith when confronted with stuff like this jesus-is-savior.com/Books,%20Tracts%20&%20Preaching/Printed%20Books/Bernard_Fresenborg/thirty_years_in_hell-page1.htm
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One priest who left the priesthood 102 years ago hardly amounts to anything - this sentence exceeds the need to reply to such a whimpy claim.

Phil
 
Usually ex-priests who go on anti-Catholic tirades are just trying to justify the fact that they couldn’t live up to the vows they made. They’re just trying to ease their guilt. I’d imagine this man, after seeing this chapter he wrote “The Unmarried Life of the Priest-Craft, compared to the Married Life of Protestant Ministers”, probably left the priesthood because he wanted to marry and is trying to take down the Catholic Church to ease his conscience regarding the fact that he wanted to change the vows he made.
 
This is my observation:

I watch The Journey Home on EWTN and I’ve noticed that Protestant converts rarely trash their former Protestant denomination. On the other hand, many many Catholics, including ex nuns and priests, that leave the Church, bash the CC. Why can’t they just leave and keep quiet? No one is forcing them to remain Catholic.

Anyway, we should pray for the Catholics that have left the faith.
 
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Jaypeeto3:
A priest has been through years of seminary training and has been thoroughly exposed to the true teaching of the Catholic church and how She views relics and the Saints.
For such a trained man to then claim that we WORSHIP bones and Saints is prima facie evidence of a thoroughly wicked heart on his part. He KNOWS better than that and is deliberately lying.

How to defend against him?
Call him an APOSTATE, and to his face.

Jaypeeto3
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Too true, Jay! 😦 A number of years ago I attended a talk by one such priest - a former Jesuit, no less! :eek: When speaking on Catholic belief in the Real Presence, he knowingly lied about this most holy Sacrament and its meaning.
 
How do we:confused: know that these people ever were priests to begin with???
See, I am, as many of you know, the 🙂 “Methodist in residence”, & my first reaction to this kind of thing is, the above question…
If I heard someone hatefully describe the Methodist Church, & he claimed to have been a Methodist pastor, I would demand to see the proof that he had ever been what he claimed to be…because I would assume that he was someone who just hated Christianity in general, or was mentally ill…
So, when I see/hear of this kind of thing from suppposed ex-priests, my first reaction is the same: prove it!!
I ran onto a book a few months ago, supposedly by an “ex-priest”, & I knew, just from being on this site, that he was either a fake, a liar, or crazy as a loon…(It was in a thrift store; I paid the 59 cents, & tossed it in the trash can).
 
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Zooey:
How do we:confused: know that these people ever were priests to begin with???
See, I am, as many of you know, the 🙂 “Methodist in residence”, & my first reaction to this kind of thing is, the above question…
If I heard someone hatefully describe the Methodist Church, & he claimed to have been a Methodist pastor, I would demand to see the proof that he had ever been what he claimed to be…because I would assume that he was someone who just hated Christianity in general, or was mentally ill…
So, when I see/hear of this kind of thing from suppposed ex-priests, my first reaction is the same: prove it!!
I ran onto a book a few months ago, supposedly by an “ex-priest”, & I knew, just from being on this site, that he was either a fake, a liar, or crazy as a loon…(It was in a thrift store; I paid the 59 cents, & tossed it in the trash can).
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Good question, Zooey. The former priest that I mentioned above was well known in our diocese through his involvement in the charistmatic movement. But I’ve also seen a former seminarian being touted by a local Fundamentalist group as a “former priest”. I wrote to the pastor of that group to give him a bit of a “wake-up call”, suggesting that false advertising has nothing to do with Christianity. 😉
 
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shannin:
This is my observation:

I watch The Journey Home on EWTN and I’ve noticed that Protestant converts rarely trash their former Protestant denomination. On the other hand, many many Catholics, including ex nuns and priests, that leave the Church, bash the CC. Why can’t they just leave and keep quiet? No one is forcing them to remain Catholic.

Anyway, we should pray for the Catholics that have left the faith.
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Most people who leave Protestantism for the Catholic Church give their early religious foundation credit for introducing them to Christ. Besides, Marcus preps the guests on The Journey Home before they go on the air: Protestant-bashing is specifically discouraged on TJH!

I’m one of those former Protestants who had only good experiences in my denomination personally, until the company platform fell off the edge of the earth.

Anybody out there interested in doing a doctoral dissertation on the bizarre claims of anti-Catholics? Hmm. Would it be for a PhD in abnormal psychology? Theology? Pastoral care? Evangelism? Pick one.
 
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FightingFat:
My first instinct is that they must have some problem with their ministry, some falling out that lead to them becoming more about hating Catholicism than finding a true spiritual path, but perhaps that is too cynical and they genuinely feel that they are making the right choice for them. Whatever the case, how do we defend the faith when confronted with stuff like this jesus-is-savior.com/Books,%20Tracts%20&%20Preaching/Printed%20Books/Bernard_Fresenborg/thirty_years_in_hell-page1.htm
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Oh my. Well, psychiatry at this time is still an inexact science. It has it’s limits. Perhaps someday a cure or medication will be found. In the meantime, we can only appeal to Our Blessed Mother and point out the need for healing.
 
Fr. Paul Stenhouse, Editor of “Annals Australasia” deals with a similar type in one of his chapters on Fundamentalism -
Pastor Chiniquy
A READER WRITES:

A friend of mine recently decided to quit the Catholic Church and now attends a Protestant group.

She has been influenced, among other things, by a book called ‘Fifty years in the Church of Rome: the con- version of a priest’ by Charles Chiniquy. It was written in 1886, but recently re-issued by Chick Publications in paper-back format.

I know very little about Father Chiniquy except one brief mention in one of Dr Rumble’s books — where a very different story is hinted at.

Do you have access to any further information on this man? Why Did He Leave The Church?
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See jloughnan.tripod.com/fun2_21.htm

See more at from “Annals” jloughnan.tripod.com/annals.htm
 
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DavidFilmer:
In any profession, there are folks who are a credit to the profession, and folks who are not. There are high-quality doctors and low-quality doctors. There are high-quality carpenters and low-quality carpenters.

(by “quality” I mean someone who has the knowlege and wisdom to faithfully fulfill his professional vocation)

The priesthood is no different. There are high-quality priests and low-quality priests. Some low-quality priests act foolishly. This is to be expected (Martin Luther was, after all, a priest).

We don’t judge medical sciences on the basis of a few quacks. We shouldn’t judge the Catholic Church on the basis of a few quacky priests.
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Martin Luther was a high quality priest. So, you can have examples of high quality priests who quit. I know a few priests who quit for personal reasons, not because they disliked the church, in fact they remained practicing catholics.
 
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