Saturday, October 6, 2012
Evening Three
How is God present in the Islamic faith?
In what way did the Crusades affect the holiness of the people of God? What part did sin play in the Crusades?
What did God accomplish through the mendicant orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic?
What error in holiness motivated the inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition?
How was God present when the plague wiped out a third of Europe and decimated the Church?
How can we say that the gates of Hell didn’t prevail against the church when the Catholic Church had two antipopes in Pisa and Avignon challenging the Pope in Rome?
What answer can you give a Protestant who asks you why the Catholic Church, which claims to be guided by the Holy Spirit, burned John Hus at the stake for his sincerely held Christian beliefs?
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Okay, I waited long enough... gotta make a comment or two... the gates of hell didn't prevail against the Church... though there certainly was plenty of error and sin-laden activity in and around the Church, Christ's promise has never been broken. Not once through these dark days did the official teaching on faith and morals waiver from its origin.
ReplyDeleteHow would I answer a Protestant asking me to defend the Catholic Church during these dark times, or even today? I'd first acknowledge that these transgressions, as horrible and unacceptable as they are, do not define the Holy Church or her doctrine. If a sinner speaks the Gospel Truth, what is more likely the case... that the sinner is affected by the Truth or that the Truth is somehow rendered untrue by the sinner?
Over 2000 years, the Truth remains the Truth.
Well put, Mike. If a Protestant brother in Christ points to sinful acts having been done by sinful Catholics, my answer is "guilty as charged." Our Protestant brethren surely agree that we are all sinners in the Church of Christ. Otherwise why would we profess to need Christ's salvation? Sinful actions that harm others were a part of the Inquisition, but so were they a part of the Salem Witch Trials and the torture and execution of Catholics in Elizabethan England, the last being inflicted by Protestants on saintly Catholics. Sinfulness in the Church will always be present because even Christian people are sometimes sinful, despite their efforts to be holy. The proof of the continuous presence of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church is revealed precisely because the Church has survived despite such unspeakable sin and calamity.
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