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Orthodox Without Apology

CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS DEBATE AT FRESNO CONFERENCE

By Charles A.Coulombe

"This conference stands as a platform for Roman Catholic truths. We don't apologize for our faith nor do we intend to compromise the truths of the Church... We all know [Christ] was crucified for speaking the truth boldly without apology." So ran the leaflet announcing the Catholic Rights and Obligations Conference, held September 19-20 in Fresno. Organized by the Athanasius Apostolate, a lay initiative chaired by Fresno resident Scott Keller, the conference promised a solid slate of Catholic speakers.

Keller, a 37-year-old airline pilot told this writer, "I was a typical uniformed Catholic. I went to Mass every Sunday, but I was pretty uninformed about my religion. I began to get involved with apostolates concerned with bringing the Faith to non-Catholics, but I soon realized that none of them were dealing with internal dissent and heresy... I watched a Catholic family who were deeply involved in the apostolate to non-Catholics. They were in poverty and got nothing from their diocese but disdain. Then their eldest son, an eighth grader, complained about his school principal who endorsed women's ordination. The result was that all the children in the family were expelled. Basically, the clergy concerned were not going to allow the laity their religion. It was bullyism-cowardice. And I can't stand bullies. They have to realize that there are lay people out there who are not going to take this."

The Bishop of Fresno, John Steinbock, would not endorse the conference. "In his first letter," said Keller, the bishop "said he would not do so because it was the first time; in his second, he said he would neither endorse nor condemn it. But his non-endorsement sent a message to most priests here, who would not inform their people of the conference as a result, though a few did."

The conference speakers included Father Ignacio Barreiro, a writer on liturgy, based in Rome; Father Christopher Phillips, pastor of an Anglican-Use Catholic parish in San Antonio, Texas; Charles Wilson, co-founder of the St. Joseph Foundation; and Joe Scheidler, the noted pro-life activist. Also on hand were convert-evangelists Scott Butler and Robert Sungenis, who were to debate the noted Protestant speakers, ex-Catholic Robert Zins and Northern Irishman Cecil Andrews.

Father Phillips spoke on "Defining the Catholic Warrior." A beneficiary of the Pope's pastoral provision for married Anglican clergy wishing to convert to Catholicism, Father Phillips insisted upon the warlike nature of Catholic life to-day. Joe Scheidler presented a "Spiritual Perspective on Pro-Life," relating that struggle closely to the individual's Catholic Faith. He dwelt on the possibilities of evangelizing non-Catholic pro-lifers. "We have absolute conviction," he declared, "we know why we are here." Charles Wilson of the Saint Joseph's Foundation spoke on "Rights and Obligations of the Catholic Faithful." Since the St. Joseph's Foundation deals with canon law cases, Wilson described at length how to use canon law. The "Traditional Mass of the Church" was Father Barreiro's talk. A native of Uruguay, Father declared that "the Faith is not only intellectual; it must be accompanied by physical experience. This was one reason for the Incarnation." He further contended that the Traditional Mass better and more clearly expressed the nature of the Mass than the new rite of the Mass, though he defended the validity of the latter.

Scott Butler spoke of his experiences in falling away from the Church, being ordained a Protestant minister, and then "painfully" returning to the Faith. He recounted some of his adventures in debating various of his former colleagues.

The first of the two Catholic/Protestant debates began at 6 p.m., and concerned whether the "Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and as Pastor of the Universal Church, has full, supreme, and immediate power over the whole Church."

Arguing for the Catholic side was Robert Sungenis, president of Catholic Apologetics International, and author of several books on salvation and justification. With Sungenis was Scott Butler, who is one of the authors of Jesus, Peter, and the Keys, a defense of the papacy.

Sungenis, in his opening remarks, declared that when he was a Protestant there were many ways of viewing reality. He mentioned the six Protestant views of abortion as an example. "With six options, how do we know which is the correct information?" Sungenis went on to point out that contraception and infant baptism were similar topics about which there were many different views. He said that Protestants, despite their divergent views, all claim the Bible as their authority. But he pointed out that even Moses, author of the first five books of the Old Testament, had had to resort directly to God, rather than his own writing. "There has to be control, a Divine power, over men's minds. We believe that this rests in the papacy of the Catholic Church."

Butler and Sungenis cited the scriptures regarding the papacy, especially Acts 15, and St. Matthew 16:18. Emphasis was laid upon the role of St. Peter as pope at the Council of Jerusalem: "Peter spoke with Divine authority in an area where the Bible was silent" regarding circumcision for gentile converts.

Butler pointed out that most Protestants would accept that shepherds referred to in the Gospel of John are the clergy, while the sheep are the laity. Butler said that the Greek word used in Christ's admonition to Peter to "feed my sheep," means "to give spiritual nourishment....When Christ says 'my sheep,' He does not cease to regard them as his own, even though He has delegated their nourishing to Peter." Butler explored the Church Fathers' views of the scriptural references to the papacy.

Cecil Andrews, a native of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the founder of Take Heed Ministry, which seeks to warn people about cults and the occult. For Andrews, the cults include: Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, Seventh Day Adventism, Hare Krishnas, and the New Age movement. Andrews said that the grounds for his rejection of the papacy "are to be found in the Scriptures alone. The Scriptures reject the very though of the Papacy." He declared that there was no warrant in Scripture for a priesthood only for bishops and deacons. He denied that the Church was to have any human authority, save the collegial authority of the disciples. Holding that Christ disapproved of calling any man father, he added "how much more would He have disapproved of calling anyone 'Holy Father?'" He at once held that Scripture has no mention of the papacy and also predicts the pope as "that man of perdition, drunk with blood of the Saints." Among the latter he numbered the Albigensians (although he later admitted that he did not share their belief in the creation of the world by an evil god, the goodness of sodomy and corresponding evil of marriage, and the virtue of suicide). Andrews maintained his disbelief that the representative of God on earth could be this "jet-setting, ground-kissing, Pope-mobiling, Polish son of Adam."

Robert Zins, who in 1994 founded Christian Witness to Catholicism, an organization which produces tapes, pamphlets, and position papers, frequently debates Catholic priests and apologists, and is the author of Romanism: the Relentless Roman Catholic Assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and On the Edge of Apostasy: the Evangelical Romance with Rome.

Zins pointed out that St. Paul corrected St. Peter at the Council of Jerusalem; this negated papal infallibility, which Zins apparently thought meant papal impeccability. Zins presented examples of papal malfeasance. Over and over, the Protestant side sought to prove that the popes were not impeccable, and that this disproved papal infallibility; over and over the Catholics attempted to get their disputants to see the difference. In this they were apparently unsuccessful.

At last, reading aloud Vatican I's decree that heretics are damned, Andrews asked the Catholic side if this meant that he himself was going to hell. Sungenis replied that if Andrews knew the Church were true and did not join it he would indeed go there. Andrews answered that if he thought the Church was true he would certainly join it; as it was he knew its falsity and so would not join. Did this mean he was going to hell? Back and forth the question went, until at last Sungenis said that Andrews was invincibly ignorant. This the latter denied forcefully. In a subsequent exchange on the same topic, Zins pressed Sungenis in the same manner. Sungenis declared that he would not condemn him as a heretic and to hell, but that he might do so himself if he liked. This, Zins exclaimed, he did gladly.

The second debate covered sola scriptura, and featured the same combatants. "The Church does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from he Holy Scriptures alone; both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence" was the proposition.

Butler began by saying that all four of the debaters affirmed that Scripture is inspired and infallible; that, he said, was not the issue. "What the debate is not about tonight," he added, "is proving all the traditions, like the Eucharist and Mary, which have come down to us. It is not enough for these gentlemen to bring up a passage of scripture and say 'this scripture supports the Bible alone.' The audience must have no doubt that they proved their case." He cited scriptural passages from various epistles which show that adherence to scripture must be included with other qualities, such as perseverance, to be complete. Other passages were mentioned, which showed that the word of God is not purely written, but preached or oral. He quoted St. Paul in Corinthians 11:2, "Now I praise you brethren, that you remember all these things, that you hold to the tradition." It was further pointed out that the Bible can be cited in support of both sides of many issues. "We need a thinking personality to interpret scripture."

Once again, Andrews came to the attack, maintaining that we do indeed get all truth from scripture alone, and we do not need "a self-appointed ecclesiastical hierarchy" to interpret it for us. Counter-arguments from history and logic did not sway him, nor did the evidence that no two Protestant sects agree, though they both claim to derive their beliefs from the same source.

Two more Catholic Rights and Obligations conferences have been tentatively scheduled, one for March and another in the autumn. For details on these and other activities, call the Athanasius Apostolate at (209) 323-5003.

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