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D r a g n e t
GOOD ADDRESSES, BAD SPEECHES
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This Rock
Volume 6, Number 3
 March 1995 
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Subscriber Frank
Pollicino publishes the 1995 Resource Directory for
Catholics, which lists 650 organizations "that are
beneficial to Catholics." Catholic Answers is listed; Call
to Action is not--an indication that nearly all of the groups
can be recommended without reservation. Pollicino can be
reached at P.O. Box 245, Smithtown, NY 11787, telephone
(516) 366-4928, fax (516) 386-0755.
Speaking of Call
to Action, the January edition of its newsletter reported on
its November conference, held in Chicago.
The crowd of 3,000 was 40 percent larger than the previous
year, and the break-down of participants tells a story: 37
percent clergy or religious, 70 percent women, 28 percent
women religious, 90 percent attend Mass "regularly" (which
is not defined, but may mean once a month or more); ten
percent don't attend Mass "regularly" (which suggests they
attended the conference for other than spiritual reasons),
and "one-third are employed by the Church." These numbers
might lead one to conclude that Call to Action is top-heavy
with feminists and Church bureaucrats (and feminist
bureaucrats), and that's a proper conclusion.
It comes as no surprise to learn that Benedictine Sr. Joan
Chittister got a ten-minute "standing ovation for her
speech. She also gave the homily at the Eucharist." (Laymen,
males or females, are not permitted to give homilies; only
bishops, priests, and deacons may give homilies.) Chittister
"invoked the best of the Catholic tradition: not only the
Second Vatican Council, but all the way back to the Council
of Constantinople in 381, which said the church is one,
holy, catholic, and apostolic--rephrased by Joan as
'ecumenical, spiritual, inclusive, and ministering.'"
Apparently there was a small surge in young adult
representation at the conference. Peter Del Vecchio, 25, "is
a youth minister in an affluent parish in Winnetka,
Illinois. He favors a reversal of the ban on contraception,
lay participation in major church decisions, women's
ordination and a married priesthood." He said, "I'd probably
join the Jesuits if Jesuits could get married." Tammy
Liddell, also 25, "is a campus minister at Creighton
University in Omaha." She is more tough-minded than Del
Vecchio. "I'm revolution oriented! We have to break down a
lot of structures; we have to rethink everything." The
newsletter explains that although Liddell "is supportive of
women's ordination, she fears that taking that step now
might only create 'a cosmetic change.'"
Georgia Marin of Wheaton, Maryland agrees but is frustrated.
"I don't know anyone in my parish who is church
reform-minded. When the Pope came out with his latest
asinine pronouncement on the ordination of women, I was
dying to call someone and vent my feelings. There was no one
I could turn to." (Her parish may be worth registering in.)
In many dioceses
the Pre-Cana programs for engaged couples tend to undermine
rather than strengthen the faith. For example, it's common
to hear that prospective brides and grooms are told to make
up their own minds about contraception; the Church's
teaching is not presented clearly or convincingly (and it
is convincing if clearly presented).
Here's the perfect antidote and the perfect pre-wedding gift
for any couple: the Wedding Edition of John F. Kippley's
Marriage is for Keeps: Foundations for Christian
Marriage. The book is now in its second edition and
includes the full wedding ritual. The price is $6.95, with
free copies sent to priests for review. Write to the
Foundation for the Family, P.O. Box 111184, Cincinnati, OH
45211.
Kippley is a well-known author and lay theologian; he wrote
this book at the request of a parish priest who wanted a
comprehensive but not cumbersome explanation of the married
vocation for engaged couples. Marriage is for Keeps is
written in a lively question-and-answer format. The
publisher explains that "it avoids the wishful bromides that
often arise from an abstract treatment of married life." It
makes sense that Kippley would know what he's talking about:
He's been married for 31 years.
Lawrence Ho, a
young senior banker in Singapore, helped establish the
Apostolate for Catholic Truth. ACT has been giving seminars
throughout the small country and operates under the
spiritual direction of Fr. Alfred Chan and with the approval
of Archbishop Gregory Yong. The group is staffed entirely by
volunteers and recommends several Catholic Answers
publications in its promotional brochure.
Ho reports that "recently we spotted the circulation of
Catholicism: Crisis of Faith, the anti-Catholic video
tape, and brought it to the attention of the Government
Board of Film Censors, which ordered its decertification,
and to the Catholic press," which exposed the video as
little more than bigotry with high production values.
"Thanks to This Rock's May 1993 cover story [on the
video], a copy of which was sent to the authorities, we have
sought to educate the various parties on what the tape
really is like."
One
anti-Catholic organization selling Catholicism: Crisis of
Faith is Mike Gendron's Proclaiming the Gospel, located
in Plano, Texas. In a newsletter called Pursuing the
Truth Gendron presents "guidelines for witnessing to
Roman Catholics."
Among his ideas: "Discuss the infallibility of a pope.
Review Galatians 2:11-14 when Paul told Peter (the
Catholic's first pope) that he was wrong. Show in verse 14
that Peter admitted he was wrong and submitted, not to
another man or religion, but to the truth of the Gospel."
Our suggestion: Don't stop here, but go a step further and
point out that the episode in Galatians had nothing to do
with an attempt by Peter to teach. Peter was guilty of a
moral (or maybe just diplomatic) fault, and the Catholic
Church does not claim that popes are impeccable
(incapable of sin), but infallible (incapable of teaching
error under certain circumstances).
In other words, Galatians 2:11-14 has nothing at all to do
with the question of papal infallibility. Gendron may know
this; if so, he also knows that most Catholics can be
hoodwinked into thinking his argument undercuts papal
infallibility. He relies for his success on Catholic
ignorance, not on the actual merit of his argument.
This is shown in another suggestion: "Try not to go off on
tangents unrelated to salvation." The issue of salvation is
the Fundamentalist's strongest card because it is the most
alluring. He claims a Christian can have an absolute
assurance of salvation ("Wouldn't you like to know that
you're going to heaven?"), and this is immensely attractive,
even though false. Gendron's advice here is double-edged.
Not only is he telling his Fundamentalist readers to stick
with salvation because it is on that topic that they have
the most rhetorical power, but by implication he also is
telling them to avoid other topics.
For example, he would not want them "to go off on tangents"
such as the unscripturalness of sola scriptura or the
determination of the canon of the Bible. On these issues his
readers will find themselves in trouble, since the Bible
doesn't support sola scriptura and since Fundamentalism
has no good grounds on which to claim that the 66 books in
its Bible are inspired.
The Good
NewsLetter is published by Former Catholics for Christ
and edited by Diane M. Wachtel of Greentown, Ohio. In a
recent issue she informed her readers that the Douay
translation of the Bible says that "all Protestant clergy
are thieves, murderers, and ministers of the Devil."
Wachtel, who gives no commentary on this alleged quotation,
opposes not just Catholics, but many Protestants, such as
Billy Graham, so it's unclear whether she believes the
quotation is entirely wrong or only partly wrong.
In her "Did You Know?" column she asked, "Did you know that
the Latin equivalent of the Greek anti is vicarious
[sic], from which comes 'vicar'? So "Vicar of Christ"
actually means Antichrist? The pope is called the Vicar of
Christ."
This is a good example of how some people know things that
just aren't so. The Greek anti means "against," but the
Latin vicarius (not vicarious, which is English) means
"representative" or "agent," so Vicarius Christi or Vicar
of Christ means Christ's representative.
Someone who
spends too much time in the check-out line sent us a copy of
a page from Family Circle's February 1 issue, which
includes a photograph of Maureen Clancy and Hilary Halpin
giving a client a massage at the St. Francis Center for
Women's Health. So big deal, you say? Read the fine print.
Clancy is a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and
Halpin is a Benedictine nun. The article explains that they
"are just two of the many nuns and priests who have added
massage therapy--and even acupuncture--to their spiritual
tools of the trade. 'It's definitely a growing ministry
within the church,' says Sister Clancy, who once spent 18
months as a missionary in Paraguay and now travels around
the country giving lectures on 'befriending the body.'
"'We have a lot of church dogma to overcome,' she says.
'The message of the church used to be, 'Don't touch, don't
look, and if it feels good, it's bad.' But it's not good to
divide body and soul,' she says. 'It's important to embrace
the whole self.' Along with a one-hour massage, the sisters
'anoint' their clients with prayers, blessings, and body
oil. 'I'm a proper Irish Catholic girl from Chicago's South
Side,' she says, laughing. 'I used to think that massage was
pretty risque.' But that view changed when Sister Clancy
experienced her first massage."
Standard texts
in paleontology and geology state that strata of sedimentary
rocks are laid down one atop the other, with the oldest at
the bottom and the newest at the top. Within each strata may
be found fossils, those toward the bottom being more ancient
than those toward the top. The fossils are used to date the
strata, and the strata are used to date the fossils.
But there are some anomalies, such as fossilized trees that
are not found lying horizontally within one stratum alone
but are found lying vertically through several strata that
are supposed to be widely varying in age. How can this be?
If the base of the tree were stuck in a lower stratum and
became fossilized, the upper part, exposed to the air for
countless years, would not also become fossilized, but would
decay away. Yet the trees are found entire, stretching
through two or more strata.
Such a consideration led scientists to ask whether the
uniformitarian assumption (that sedimentary rock is
deposited in even, horizontal strata) is correct. What if
the rock were deposited in such a way that a higher stratum
is not necessarily older than a lower? This would have great
impact on the question of evolution, which relies for its
convincing power largely on the placement of fossils in
sedimentary rocks.
Drama of the Rocks is a video in which this question is
answered. Scientists at an American laboratory built a kind
of sluice in which sedimentary rock is deposited in strata
quickly and on a micro scale, and they discovered that the
deposits are built up from side to side (say, from the shore
toward the ocean) rather than from bottom to top. Through
the glass sides of the sluice you can see the action for
yourself. The video is available from This Rock
subscriberPeter Wilders, 42 Bd. D'Italie, 98000 Monaco, fax
92-16-73-36 and will be useful for anyone interested in the
question of evolution.
The apologetics
movement grows --younger. Connie J. Wright is the editor of
Pillar & Foundation, the newsletter of Young Catholic
Apologists. She says the newsletter "is dedicated to
explaining the Catholic faith in terms the average lay
person can understand. It is 100 percent faithful to the
teachings of the Church. We concentrate primarily on
explaining the sacramental principle and its relationship to
individual doctrines. In this way the faith is seen as a
unity instead of as a series of arbitrary and separate
teachings."
The inaugural issue contains an article on "Sacrament and
Creation," another on the meaning of "born again," and a Q&A
column. Subscriptions ($16.95) and further information are
available by writing to Young Catholic Apologists, 9101 Old
Cedar Ave. S., Ste. 106, Bloomington, MN 55425.
Whatever
anti-Catholicism leads to, it isn't inner peace. Consider
the case of Larry Wessels. He used to work with Robert
Morey, who has a ministry and radio program based in Austin,
Texas. Morey considers himself something of an expert on the
errors of "Romanism," and he has debated such defenders of
the Catholic Church as Robert Fastiggi, who teaches in the
religious studies department at St. Edward's University.
It seems that Wessels and Morey had a falling out. Wessels
has been distributing a small-print newsletter that devotes
several thousand words (plus photocopies of checks, ledgers,
and letters) to the proposition that Morey is a crook.
Wessels refers to his "unenviable position of being
slandered by national bulk mailouts, threatened with
lawsuits, and vilified by telephone by a man determined to
assassinate my character and destroy my ministry." His
ministry--and we take this as a compliment--is called
Christian Answers.
Morey once.aspired to be heir to the late Walter Martin on
the "Bible Answer Man" radio program, but Hank Hanegraaff,
under Martin the president of the Christian Research
Institute, got the job instead. Ever since then it's been
one disappointment after another for Morey as his
anti-Catholic ministry implodes-- and, apparently, as Wessels
takes his own anti-Catholic operation down with Morey's.
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