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Jay,

Where was the council "that decided which books comprised the written Word of God" held in AD 295?? And, where can one find the decree listing "which books comprised the written Word of God"???

???

Jack,
I fixed the error - it was a typo. I always cite the Council of Carthage, since it's documents list out the books of the New Testament.

I assume this answers your question ???

God bless,
Jay

Yes Jay! I thought I was reasonably on top of this subject matter...But i thought you had heard/read of another council that I'd never heard of.

Jack,
In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.

Lots of web sites with some of the original documents on the Old Testament issues -- here is one http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/deutero2.htm
They show not only earlier quotes from Church documents but also the actual words from several of these early councils.
At the Council of Trent, the bishops were reacting to Luther's treatment of Scripture in affirming that earlier councils had affirmed and closed the Canon on both the OT and NT.

Jay, I still think that Protestant apologetics on the infallibility of the Bible are much stronger than you suggest. That being said, I think Protestant apologetics are much more Catholic than many realize.

The arguments I have seen go like this:
1. Treat the Bible as a historical document without making assumptions about accuracy or infallibility.
2. Gospels have Jesus making truly extraordinary claims.
3. These claims make Jesus legendary (historically distorted), liar, lunatic, or Lord.
4. The gospel narratives are beyond what a human could invent and were written too soon after the Lord's death to be legendary. If Jesus were liar he would not have willingly died. If Jesus were lunatic there would be other evidence. Also the evidence in favor of Jesus resurrection is overwhelmingly strong.

Notice that the above 4 points are presented almost identically in both Catholic and Protestant apologetics. Now at this point, the argument appears to deviate from the Catholic apologetics.

5. If Jesus is God and is risen from the dead, he is surely trustworthy. His acknowledgment of the authority of the Old Testament thus affirms the Old Testament and the process by which it came about.

6. The process by which the Old Testament came about was having the Jewish community (the people of the covenant) decide on one Canon. That this happened is truly amazing considering that the Jewish community was divided on almost every other issue such as divorce, remarriage, resurrection, defensive warfare on the Sabbath, etc. The Jewish rabbis argued with no resolution about almost everything except which writings were sacred.

7. When the New Testament Canon was being decided and also when it was debated a few times after that, the eventual conclusion was always the same. Unanimity amongst the faithful is almost always unheard of on a controversial issue (for example, the early Christians could not agree on whether Gentiles had to be circumcised to be a Christian so the Pope had to sort that out).

8. Thus the support for the Old and New Testament Canons is an inexplicable extraordinary unity amongst God's people which Jesus both affirmed and implicitly predicted.

Now of course, after point #4, Catholics just say "the Church sorted it out infallibly". But upon reflection, I'm thinking that the Protestant argument is just a detailed way of saying "the Church sorted it out infallibly."

If we accept the Protestant apologetics on this as sound (and I think we should rather than try to tear it down), we arrive with two very interesting results:

First, this contradicts Sola Scriptura as we have a divine, reliable source of information apart from the Sacred Scriptures. Namely, the process by which the Sacred Scriptures were put together.

Second, it affirms the "third-level" in the Catholic hierarchy of truths characterised by "unanimous agreement of the faithful". Or to put it another way, because God always preserves a faithful remnant, then unanimity amongst Christ's followers at any point in time indicates truth even if the unanimity is later lost. Or to put it yet another way, you cannot fool all of God's people even some of the time.

This in turn opens the door for many other "Catholic doctrines" such as "Mary was the Mother of God", transubstantiation, the efficacy of asking Mary and the Saints to pray for us, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, and the authority of the Pope and the Magisterium.

By the way, Jay, I also wanted to thank you for your other posts to Catholic apologetics material. Until I read some of your posts, I had no idea how strong Catholic apologetics was in the areas of defending the reliability of the bible. When I first started becoming interested in religion I noticed that Protestant apologetics was strong and that all I could get from Catholics was "well, it's a matter of faith" and found Catholics to even reject the strength of apologetics (my professor of Catholic theology being a notable exception).

The strength of Protestant apologetics was something that attracted me to Protestantism. When I returned to the Catholic Church one thing that saddened me was my belief that I had to do without strong apologetics. Thanks partly to you, I have not only discovered how strong Catholic apologetics is, I have come to realize that the reason Protestant apologetics is so strong is that it was ripped off of Catholic sources.

To think that all these years I thought Catholic apologetics was weak when in reality it was merely forgotten. I guess I should also thank Protestants for keeping that rich body of solid apologetics material alive so that I did not have to do without it until Search Engines and the world wide web were invented.

I have been looking for the answer to this question for quite some time. In another article, John Rogers presents a three-fold argument called, “Why Should We Believe the Bible?” (http://www.opc.org/new_horizons/Rogers.html) The first argument is similar to the one presented by Jay. However, Rogers goes on to discredit this argument. He claims that believing the Church “puts the word of the church and her very human and fallible officers above the Word of God”. Accordingly, Jay, you have not sufficiently answered the question of how we should know that the Bible is true. Stating that the Bible is true just because the Church and the Bible say so is not good enough. Thanks for your feedback.

Regards,
Will

Dear Joe, Jay, and Danny,

I thought you guys would want to have a look at this review of Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth. I suggest it because it is illustrative of a thoroughly positivistic, historical-criticial perspective on the Bible that cannot even see its own methedological problems behind its virulence.

The review is offered by Gerd Lüdemann who teaches at Göttingen, and is rather famous these days for having recently dumped his faith for "historical reasoning" or something of the kind.

Let me know what you think.

http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~gluedem/download/pope_review.pdf

Peace,
Jack

Jack

Interesting article. Ludemann has issues with the historical critical input of the Pope because, frankly that mode of analysis is already on the way out. Benedict prefers the Neo-Patristic method of analysis which is on the rise and IMHO will obliterate HC as poorly critiqued fad. Benedict likes "scientific" analysis of say paper and ink but in attempting to use science as the lens of exegesis is a miserable proposition. Faith, by its essence, is outside the laboratory of the scientist.

Here is an article by Hahn describing Benedict's "new techniques."

http://www.cuf.org/LayWitness/online_view.asp?lwID=881

Here is an article by Msgr. John F. McCarthy predicting the rise of NeoPatristics over HC from 1998 led by this bold and brilliant Cardinal .... Ratzinger!

http://www.cuf.org/LayWitness/online_view.asp?lwID=450

In Love

when we were one

Dear WWWO,

Actually Pope Benedict is rather clear in the preface of his Jesus book that he does not want to dispence with historical-critical perspective, even describing it as a vital component of the Church's task of interpreting the Bible. I believe (don't remember for sure, nor do I have the book with in front of me), that he calls for a necessary tempering of HC by means of utilizing it within a broader interpretive framework of Canonical Criticism.

To my mind, what needs to be dispenced with (but will not happen!) is the kind of HC run-amock that Ludemann represents.

Jack

Jack

You are correct. In the diplomatic language of bishops, a few tweaks need to be done to HC... those tweaks result in neo patristics noted by Hahn and McCarthy. As Hahn broadly notes, Benedict respects and expects HC to contribute on matters of matter but not on matters of faith.

In Love

when we were one

Jack, WWWO,

You two seem way more informed than I on the proper role of the historical-critical method of biblical exegesis in the Roman Catholic faith.

I have been exposed to the HC method four times. In a Catholic setting (which I considered heretical) before I left the Church, in a Catholic setting (which I also considered heretical) after I left the Church, in an Evangelical Protestant setting (which I considered faithful to Christianity) after I left the Church, and recently in a book by Raymond Brown many years after I returned to the Church.

I'm still wondering what to make of Raymond Brown's ideas but he makes a lot of sense and he appears to be in line with official Catholic teaching. Are either of you familiar with Brown's work?

I think he was much misunderstood by both his supporters and his critics. Much like Pope Benedict XVI. I think many "conservative" Catholics (myself included) would be shocked by the things Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI wrote and taught. A certain quote from "Love and Responsibility" comes to mind as not in line with the beliefs of conservative pharisees such as myself.

Burnt

I think nitroglycerine can do great things but it is too unstable to use on a consistent basis. Nobel progresses to TNT and the world has benefitted. I think (HC nitroglycerine) without the tethering of Magesterial input (NP TNT) leads us to unpredictable and imprecise results. That is why IMHO Brown's exegesis has had such extreme results.

In Love

wwwo

WWWO,

From what I read of of Fr Raymond Brown, he was perfectly willing to submit to the authority of the Magisterium on matters of faith and morals.

I was intrigued by his assertion that the theologians and scholars are better equipped to deal with matters of exegesis the theologians enjoy considerable leeway on such matters.

For example, he argues that the Scriptures do not conclusively demonstrate the perpetual Virginity of Mary and that statements supporting the divine nature of Jesus was retrojected by the post-resurrectional community into Jesus' original teachings. But he also states that he accepts these defined doctrines because the Magisterium has pronounced on these matters as matters of faith.

He points out that no Church Teaching rests SOLELY on the exegesis of a biblical passage and that there is no need to force the original literal meaning of a biblical text match the current catholic doctrines. After all the Church has the authority and privelege of introducing new layers of meaning to biblical texts that were not originally present.

This seems like a position a good Catholic could hold.

Burnt

Thats nice that RB believes the Magesterium, too bad the outcome of his work is schism. Here we have a major problem with HC. It pretends to be a hard science. Like a harder historical science...anthropology... you often get conflicting opinions because of investigator bias.

In HC we have "published" differing opinions on what the church has deemed dogma. This merely causes confusion amongst the less gifted readers. Sure Jack, Burnt and wwwo can see the holes; but have you ever gotten into it with a "true Ray Brown believer?" I would rather get into it with a Jack Chickite. They are 10 times more dense and just as blind. They take Brown's comments as dogma and unhinge themselves from the Magesterium. Once they unhinge from the Magesterium I get a truckload of heresy to wade through.

A recent example, though not dogma, is where liberal protestants (think the kind that just kill Michael O. the happy clappy, self motivation, church as a social club hand me a double latte crowd) are attempting to use HC to internally prove that Revalation was written before 70 ad. Somehow they need this to assist in the all important end times calculations that Christ himself won't know. In order to do this, they now ignore Irenaeus' witness that it was Domitian that sent John to Patmos. Because Domitian was after 85 ad. Here we have completely non scientific procedure, create a hypothesis and ignore the biggest and most historic piece of evidence because it counters the hypothesis.

So a poor historian won't see this titanic error and instead sags deeper into this pile of poop. Then one of us mediocre apologists has to go attempt to pull an unwilling zealot from their new found outhouse retreat. This soft and sloppy exegesis IMHO leads to further schism because of the suceptiblity of poorly formed minds.

I suppose if the participants of HC were more honest in presenting their conjectures as just that, it would be more palatable to me. In the end it is schism caused by their deciet or conceit that is scandalous.

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

While I'm not impressed with Brown's fans, I remain impressed with his actual work. I would like to think that Brown's work, like the Second Vatican Council, could be assessed without reference to abuses promoted by its/his supporters.

He's advanced some pretty bold ideas in exegesis though they seem onside with Catholic orthodoxy. I was wondering if you or Jack had any evaluation on his actual work.

He's gone so far as to suggest that there are no reasons for Catholics and Protestants to be at odds over historical exegesis (though hermeneutics is of course another issue). His work often quotes Cardinal Ratzinger perhaps mroe progress can be made in the area of ecumenical relations based on these new exegetical techniques.

Burnt

I think on my part... you've read much more qualified critics than I. I agree that somebodys work can be abused ie. V2. But the comparison of V2 to Ray Brown is flawed. I'm not familiar with V2 questioning the virginity of Mary... I'm not familiar with any Christian Church noting that the bible is ERRANT. I am aware that Brown did not bow in obedience to the Magisterium until he was heavily challenged. Far from a fair comparison.

Here are a couple articles you may wish to review. The first is by Msgr. George A. Kelly, President Emeritus of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars:

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/Jan-Feb00/Article5.html

http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=525

In Love

wwwo

WWWO,

I've only read one book by Father Raymond Brown so I'm hardly a qualified source which is why I solicit your opinion and Jack's. Thank you for the articles, they were very helpful in alerting me to the more problematic areas of his work.

Perhaps Father Brown was better at pulling the wool over my eyes than the writers of the articles, but it seems to me that Father Brown has been misunderstood.

Take for example the Virgin Birth and the perpetual Virginity of Mary. He appears to question whether these doctrines have iron-clad exegetical foundation from the "literal" perspective of the original audience and the original author(s). But he does accept these doctrines as legitimate, true, and authoritative on the belief that the Holy Spirit inspired the post-resurrectional community to adopt these teachings.

As far as I can tell, he is merely relegating the Virgin birth and perpetual virginity to the same position as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Many conservative Catholic apologetics admit that neither of those doctrines has strong support from the criteria of biblical exegesis and appeal instead to the authority of Tradition and the Magisterium (which of course does have strong biblical support) for those two dogmas.

A debate as to what extent a particular doctrine relies on Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium seems acceptable within orthodox Roman Catholicism.

Re: being misunderstood... I think what is misunderstood is ...reason and Brown's apparent lack thereof.... I will reprint Morrissey's assement of Brown's "reason."

Morrissey tells us that Fr. Brown, while believing that "it is likely that Matthew and Luke teach the Virgin Birth," also asserts that the Virgin Birth is only a "minority view in the New Testament." Why? Because other books of the New Testament, for example, the Gospel of Mark, make no mention of the Virgin Birth.

To this, Morrissey offers a well-reasoned rebuttal for Catholics troubled by Brown's reasoning:

"Suppose a family member suddenly takes seriously ill. Nearby is a doctor's office. So we ask Raymond, a family member, to go for the doctor. Before leaving, Raymond tells us: 'Our family believes that this man has a special knowledge of medicine. Since the family believes this, and I want to be loyal, I believe it also.

" 'However, I'm not sure that this man is a licensed doctor. Perhaps he is, but it's possible he is not. Yes, he has two plaques on his office wall. One says he graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School. The second plaque says he was licensed five years ago to practice medicine in our state. But, perhaps these statements are not historically true: they may be a literary device by which the man is communicating an important truth — that he is interested in helping sick people.

" 'One reason we have to doubt whether this man is a licensed doctor is that none of the other tenants in the building has a plaque on the wall supporting such a claim. The silence of other tenants means that either they deny that he is a doctor, or that they are ignorant of the fact. In other words, it is only a minority view within his own building that he is licensed. Would such denial or ignorance by fellow tenants be possible if the man were really what his plaques claim?"'

The rest of the family, Morrissey stated, would logically respond to Raymond as follows:

• "The reason our family is convinced the man has special knowledge of medicine is precisely the fact that he claims to be a licensed doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School."

• "If the claims made by the plaques in his office are not historically true, then the man is a liar and a fraud — and our family would not go to him."

• "The 'silence' of the other tenants does not mean that this is only a 'minority view' in the man's own building that he is a licensed doctor. If anything, such silence indicates that the rest of the tenants accept the man's claim — since if they do not, at least some of the tenants would have made a statement or taken some action to warn the unsuspecting public."

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

This is a perfect example of what I mean. While we may both dispute his specific scholarship and exegesis in claiming the Virgin Birth as a minority view of scripture, he does not actually deny the doctrine but assents to it based on the authority of Tradition and the Magisterium.

As far as I know this places him squarely on the side of orthodoxy and theologians should have free reign to debate the scriptural foundation of any particular defined doctrine on the understanding that neither the truth of the doctrine challenged nor the theologians status as an orthodox Catholic is being challenged.

For my part, if I believe that Maccabees is weak support for purgatory and accept purgatory because of 1 Corinthians, you and Scott Hahn should be perfectly in your rights to show my reasoning and exegesis to be moronic but not within your rights to conclude that I had adopted heresy.

Now maybe it is I who misunderstand Brown but it seems that he is not challenging the truth of the Virgin birth but whether the Scriptures (viewed through the lens of Cartesian doubt applied to history) provide irrefutable support for the Virgin Birth.

With two possible understandings, one benign and the other heretical, then charity would oblige us to take a benign understanding of his work. After all, wasn't it you who insisted that I take a benign understanding of what I considered a heretical hymn? You offered the silence of the bishops as evidence of being benign. I offer as evidence of being benign the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat that at least one of his HC books have received.

Burnt

I fully understand your point... "I submit to the wisdom of the Church but I don't think the concept is unpacked in Scripture easily."

I agree many things are hard for me also. I come from an upbringing that is 50%+ protesting christian so Marian doctrines have been really tough for me. But I know the church must be correct via patience and prayer the Lord continues to quicken my faith in this regard.

What my problem is... as you have correctly seen... is subjective elimination of evidence then implying hard science. We see this with the end times crowd and Irenaeus and we see this with Brown and 2 gospels. This reminds me of Luther and James. You and Mac. Well for crying out loud only Genesis speaks of detailed Creation... so should I then say there was no evidence of any creation?

That is my frustration. And you are correct to submit to the church out of trust... I doubt any of us here on this site understands the depth of the church.

In Love

when we were one

Jack, I read the review you linked to and the foreward to Pope Benedict's book.

The review begins by describing the orgy of Cartesian suspicion which pervades biblical studies in Catholic and Protestant seminaries. So repulsive are the teachings that I thought the reviewer was intending to paint a ridiculously bleak picture so as to trumpet Pope Benedict's work as a much needed rescue attempt to a style of study gone horribly wrong.

When I realized the reviewer both possessed and praised a level of doubt and suspicion that David Hume could only aspire to, I felt like I was reading a typical Screwtape Letter where everything it rejects was something I should embrace and everything it embraces is something I should reject.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Pope Benedict's book. Though the reviewer got one thing right though. If anyone other than the Pope had written this, no one would have paid it any heed - the headlines would just be so unnewsworthy:

"Scholar claims that taking the contents of the Gospel at face value leads to an accurate portrayal of Jesus".

I'll bet even I could get something published in a reputable magazine by "translating" a "suppressed" document which revealed Jesus to be a black, lesbian, transvestite.

WWWO,

By the way, the foreward to Benedict XVI's book answered most of my questions about HC and Raymond Brown much better than the links you sent me.

Dear Burnt & WWWO,

I’ve only “breezed” through your dialogue (surprised it took off like it did over the holiday!).

I have read nearly everything that Fr. Brown has written, and most of it very carefully. My assessment of his work vis-à-vis this conversation shall be very brief, and (only) reflective of his work as a whole.

Fr. Brown's work, on the whole, admits to three things come through loud-and-clear, which after attacked, he has often had to articulate directly in footnotes.

First: The post Enlightenment – positivist – historical-critical methodology that he employs in his exegesis is limited in its ability to draw out answers to all “modern questions” about the bible (which unfortunately, revolve around “did Jesus really say/so that?” or “Did that really happen just like it says?”).

Second: When the biblical text is forced into this post Enlightenment – positivist – historical-critical methodology and its “modern” questions, then the result is not always certitude, that is, “certitude” from a post Enlightenment – positivist – historical-critical perspective. This has nothing to do with Truth, but everything to do with the results of ancient texts emerging from an ancient culture, alien to our own post Enlightenment culture, being “read straight” as if it in fact emerged in our post Enlightenment culture.

Third: Where the ancient, alien text does not jibe with the post Enlightenment – positivist – historical-critical methodology, then the Church’s teaching is the guide, and where the Truth about a particular point is to be found.

What this looks like? Brown admits that bringing post Enlightenment – positivist – historical-critical methodology to bear on the NT with an eye toward the perpetual virginity of Mary does not yield reasonable certitude on the perpetual virginity of Mary. To Brown this is a limit of the methodology, and NOT a limit of the divinely inspired text, and so the Church’s dogma offers the clarity on many matters that the HC methodology cannot.

At bottom, it seems to me that it is Catholics who hold to a biblical literalism/fundamentalism (a post Enlightenment, positivist perspective pure-and-simple) that have been unable to hear Fr. Brown’s work.

For example: A few years ago, I carried on a painful conversation with Fr. John Echert of EWTN's "Scriture, Divine Revelation" forum about this. Fr. Echert was so unwilling to hear Raymond Brown's positions that he refused to post quotes of Fr. Brown admitting final authority to the Magisterium about the perpetual virginity of Mary because such humility did not jibe with Fr. Echert's caricature of Fr. Brown.

Blessings.

Jack,

I've dealt with Brown's supporters more than his opponents - I am beginning to think that his supporters misunderstood and caricaturised him as much as his opponents.

I remain intrigued by Fr Brown's assertion that he sees no reason why Catholic and Protestant scholars need to disagree on what the gospels meant in the context of their original audience and that the disagreement between Catholic and Protestant is really about what the gospels mean in the context of today's world.

Are you familiar with this bold yet hopeful assertion made by Fr Brown?

Well said Burnt. I suspect that only Fr. Brown really understood what he was trying to say and do with his work. But again, what I think comes through loud and clear was his unapologetic admission that he worked within a particular methodology, and that that methodology had its limits.

As far as the “Brown’s assertion” that you recall – I cannot recall such an assertion (no photographic memory for me!). But on reading it, I can see him making it. Fr. Brown did his exegesis within the context of the “academy.” To be precise, this means within the larger framework of biblical studies as such (perhaps represented by the Society of Biblical Literature), and so often in conversation with Protestant scholars – among whom he had “allies” and “opponents” (as he did/does among Catholic biblical scholars). The assertion (the first part) as you recall it, is about the HC methodology and reflects a blatant historical positivism – that is, that an ordered methodology, carefully followed will yield reasonably sure results. This statement reflects a hope in the face of a reality that did/does not shake down since HC has simply not yielded any consistent results. But Fr. Brown nevertheless, had hope that it would bring Catholic and Protestant scholars together. The second part reflects the post-Reformation situation.

I personally have a lot of problems with the historical positivistic perspective from which both HC and biblical literalism/fundamentalism emerge since both trajectories neglect the cultural character of the text. My position here is very different than it was five or so years ago when I was a thoroughgoing HC fellow.

Peace!

Lousy HC = http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Rowan-Williams-calls-virgin-birth-a-legend-.html&Itemid=127

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

This sort of HC which was going on at Catholic colleges was what convinced me that the Roman Catholic Church had fallen into error and probably played a big part in convincing me to leave the Roman Catholic Church.

It took me so long to realize that what I had rejected was not actually Roman Catholic teaching.

Burnt,

What convinced you to return to Catholic Church?

WWWO,

Lousy HC biblical research = any “reading” of the biblical text that…

1) simply reads the text “straight” as if it emerged in own world-view, that is, our own Enlightenment world-view. This includes both radical historical-criticism [a la FC Bauer, Robert Funk, The Jesus Seminar] that debunks everything in the bible, AND biblical literalism & fundamentalism.

2) offers claims to certitude, or conversely, refuses to admit any limitations

3) does not recognize that at least half (I actually think, more than half!) of the meaning of the biblical text is driven by what is not explicit in the text, namely, cultural fibers that were understood by the original authors and the original audiences – 1st century Palestinian Jews and Gentiles – (“What is understood doesn’t need to be discussed!”). So much of this escapes us 21st century, post-Enlightenment Western Europeans/North Americans.

I could go on, but I haven’t the time.

Blessings!

Skelly asked: What convinced you to return to Catholic Church?

During my years in Evangelical Protestant communities, I identified a few obstacles that needed to be overcome before I returned to the Roman Catholic faith:

1. Roman Catholic Church denies communion to Protestants
2. I felt that Evangelical Protestantism was the authentic biblical expression of the Christian faith.
3. The Catholic requires its members to "believe and all that the Roman Catholic Church proclaims to be revealed by God" - I just couldn't bring myself to trust the Magisterium to this extent - it was like signing a blank cheque.

The first point was one of the biggest stumbling blocks. I found it outrageous that Catholics who denied the Virgin Birth, believed in reincarnation, rejected the authority of the Bible, rejected the idea of Salvation through Christ alone, and/or did not even know of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, were welcome to receive communion but Protestants who believed much more of the Catholic teachings than the ordinary Catholic were barred because their faith was deficient. My fiance pointed out to me that barring Protestants of integrity from communion was an act of mercy (so that they would not drink judgement on themselves) and that Catholics who took communion under false pretenses were offending the Lord and were not being given a "free pass".

The second obstacle wavered when I met a highly intelligent Protestant who was quickly moving from Evangelical ideas to Liberal ideas. My lengthy discussions with him convinced me that Evangelical Protestantism was merely an early point on a slippery slope that led from Roman Catholicism to Liberalism and into atheism. Knowing that I couldn't stay in the Evangelical world, I reconsidered the Catholic faith. My wife observed this change in me and suggested I was now ready to return to the Catholic faith.

I discussed my third difficulty (especially the Council of Trent) with a parish priest and he believed I could work out those issues after I returned to the faith rather than before. It was only a few years after I returned to the Roman Catholic faith that I was able to trust the Magisterium.

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