Too many Catholic apologists; not enough Catholic evangelists?

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In my diocese, a few parents and teachers started a new Catholic high school, with a classical education model. One reason is that we could incorporate, or rather restore, apologetics to the Theology curriculum. There are many Jesuit, Franciscan, or diocesan high schools that have enormously larger budgets than we have, but they exclude apologetics, among other important things.
 
It’s incredibly uncharitable and insulting in my country, to say someone is frothing at the mouth.

And we , as Catholics on a public forum, are called to exemplify our lives so Jesus shines through us, to others.

I don’t make any apologies for living my faith. Nor will I lower my standards to conform globally, nor should any Catholics.

We live in the world but are not of the world. We beat that narrow path home to God.
 
And this is just so right. Sometimes, we are what our spoken words are. As disciples of Christ, perhaps we can choose our words well. Nice words are nice to hear, and there is nothing to lose by doing that.
 
I know of two people (non-Christian) who have confided in me that they went to a protestant church, for whatever reason they did, and that they found themselves standing up, saying a prayer, and suddenly taking on Jesus when they never wanted to in the first place. Coercion is not really evangelism. Next week they went back to being themselves and never went to church again.

Which begs the question what truly is evangelism. A formula?
 
Hereiam said:
Until the internet age, when it could be argued it became a money grab.
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It could also be argued that the internet age turned on a flood of misinformation that has made apologetics an absolute necessity unless we’re okay with losing countless souls to liberal, atheistic, or secular mentalities. The fact that those engaged in full-time apologetics need to provide for their and their families’ needs does not make it a “money grab.” In any other sphere it would be called “making a living” or “earning your keep.”

I would suppose you also earn a living wage for what you do? I would also suppose professional and well-educated apologists have something to offer that part-time or hobby apologists can not.
 
Not questioning you reasoning, but perhaps…or perhaps not…just my own opinion.
 
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We all see what we want to see.

Do we approach Catholics with inherent suspicion? Are we trying to find reason to question their motives? We all approach with some biases. A Protestant who sees a Catholic defending the primacy of the Pope or the Eucharist, for example, may wonder “Why are they doing this?” probably because that Protestant doesn’t believe in either of those.

But why does that make it less important? To Catholics, those are very critical issues.

And many non-Christians come to Catholicism precisely through the great beauty of such Catholic particulars (which are really Christian essentials). The Pope, for example, expresses the historical reality of Christianity and the Faith, all the way back to Peter and the original church.

But also, consider the source: Catholic Answers Forums has a variety of people, including some like me who are just really into theology and want answers to every aspect of Christian history and faith. Some minds are just like that, so we like to get the best of the best thoughts from others on here — we who are already convinced of Jesus Christ, his Gospel, and his Church.

But just as many come here with specific questions, often dealing with specific Catholic topics: Why purgatory? Do Catholics worship Mary? Why did my priest do this last Sunday?
 
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Roseeurekacross said:
It’s incredibly uncharitable and insulting in my country, to say someone is frothing at the mouth.
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Let me make sure I’ve got this straight: it’s horribly uncharitable for someone to say something that sounds insulting to your ears, but not uncharitable for you to castigate them for a reference that isn’t seen in the same light in his culture? Umm… ok…? 🤔 :roll_eyes:
 
My experience of CAF is that in employing a discourse acceptable in one culture, that’s unacceptable in another, still gets one suspended.
This is the internet age, A global culture. There will be people from Aus, UK, USA, India, countries of Africa, Phillipines, Europe, and othe SE Asian countries reading the forum today.
And having spent time in the states, I know you can’t just state an individual is foaming at the mouth, anymore then you can call someone the N or E Word.
 
It may seem like there is more apologetics and apologists than there used to be, but that is because we notice the exception to the rule; we usually don’t notice the rule.

Up till the 1960s, every city that had a major Catholic university had professors who would give talks in parishes, or on radio programs sponsored by the university, explaining and defending some aspect of the Faith. Every diocesan newspaper editor spent 20 percent of his time on “apologetics”, it just wasn’t usually called that.

My 1950s 11th grade religion text spent a lot of pages on what I would now call apologetics, but they replaced that text with one that had no apologetics, no specific doctrine at all.

In 1960, pastors would occasionally devote sermons to apologetics, if they sensed some particular aspect of the Faith was being attacked in their city.

Essentially, we have gone from having tens of thousands of American Catholics doing apologetics part time, to now having a very few doing it. It is reasonable that some of that very small number do it full time. We are still far short of where we were in 1960.
 
It is a “tougher job” now than it was in 1960. Today the apologist not has to defend Faith, but has to defend Reason as well.

Several decades ago, the Church would lose individuals who were wrapped up in materialism, the pleasures of the flesh. We still lose people for that reason, but we lose more due to the Media, which is now practically an established religion in the West.
 
Good grief! What a silly thing to argue about. Here in the South, it’s a common expression. No one takes offense at it.
 
Here it describes a mentally unstable totally off the rails individual. We are working at acceptance and destigma of the mentally ill.

We are working at placing the mentality of viewing the mentally unwell into the same way as physically unwell. Same applies to disabilities.

Foaming at the mouth is alienating and excluding an unwell person.

Here.
 
Well, your initial complaint was made a week ago… So, I guess you got your answer :man_shrugging:t2:
 
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