Catholics Have Lost The Zeal For Souls, Even Their Own

I've been a Catholic now for almost 12 years. Michael Voris is right. The vast majority of Catholics I have met in that time have shown no interest, let alone zeal, for souls, even though the Catholic Church offers gold to those of her flock while Protestants make do with peanut butter.

Dr. Peter Kreeft's Conversion to Catholicism - Part 1

Tremendous story of conversion from a delightful philosopher!

I'm falling in love with the Whore of Babylon.  I can't quite figure out how she can be that smart, and how she can be that beautiful, and how she can produce that many saints, and still be such a whore, but this is wrong.  I've got to deal with this temptation.  I'm falling in love with the wrong woman here.

See part II of the video here.

Read the text version here.

Shock! Catholic Convert Magdi Allam Leaves the Church

In March of 2008 I blogged about the conversion of Magdi Allam by Pope Benedict.

Just a couple days ago reports began to surface that Magdi had left the Catholic Church. It’s a shocker and a terrible disappointment for all Catholics.

I think Robert Spencer has a very useful summary of the story and its underlying dynamics. It’s an important read.

The highest-profile convert to Roman Catholicism in recent memory, Magdi Cristiano Allam, has left the Catholic Church.

Allam, who was baptized in the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI on Easter day 2008, explained that what “more than any other factor drove me away from the Church” was the “legitimization of Islam as the true religion of Allah as the one true God, Muhammad as a true prophet, the Koran as a sacred text, and of mosques as places of worship.”

Full article here…

Related reports:

Prominent Italian Muslim convert renounces Catholic faith

Magdi Allam Leaves Catholic Church Over Its Dhimmitude

Newt Gingrich on the Shame of Notre Dame

No doubt some readers will know that Newt Gingrich recently converted to the Catholic faith, the faith of his wife Callista. He does a very nice job in this interview on Fox News with Greta. It's certainly refreshing to hear such talk from a Catholic politician...who are otherwise notoriously famous for spewing poison and rebellion.

Incidentally, for another video of Newt and wife Callista, being interviewed once again (February past) by Greta Van Susteren, go here.

Father Z reported that in an interview this past Sunday with Chris Wallace, Newt discussed briefly the question of his standing on Holy Communion, in light of his former marriages.

Also, Wallace asked Gingrich if, since he had been married and divorced, he can receive Holy Communion. Gingrich responded that over the last 10 years they had done everything according to Church law that was necessary to be done and that, yes, he could receive Communion.

A warm welcome, Mr. Gingrich, to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church!

The Void at the Center of the Church's Activity

A particularly pointed posting from Uncle Di at the CWN website summarizing the last five years worth of postings, all 4600 to be exact. I could be wrong but perhaps Diogenes has finally figured out himself the real reason for all those posts and now he’s officially gone on the record [pun intended] with it. It seems he is positively dumbstruck and in awe over the stark absence in ecclesiastical circles of a true concern for souls who stand in jeopardy of hellfire.

Imagine a mother whose toddlers crawl past her legs under the kitchen sink, open various bottles marked with the skull-and-crossbones, pour the contents into sippy-cups, and then trot off drinking the contents while she shakes her head in bemused resignation. Either the woman is criminally negligent, or she doesn't believe the marked bottles really contain poison. There is no third possibility.

The eerie but incontestable fact is that most Catholic pastors behave like this unnaturally nonchalant mother. The Church still labels certain bottles with the skull-and-crossbones -- i.e., she still professes a belief in mortal (soul-destroying) sins, but even those of her clergy who give verbal assent to Church doctrine seldom conduct their office in a way that is intelligible if the doctrine were true.

I think what Uncle Di says is not surprising—but admittedly rare to see it put so succinctly in print—but I suspect his observations would be lost on the majority of Catholics.

I think this is why Evangelical Christians have such a difficult time believing that the Catholic faith emphasizes conversion of the soul. The “born again” experience of Evangelicals is tied strongly to a solid belief in the spiritual realities of salvation, heaven and hell and for the most part helps the Evangelical to stay focused on a concern for his/her own soul as well as the souls of others.

This is why I believe they’ve been labeled “Bible thumpers.” It’s not that they “thump” with the Bible per se but they do believe the Bible warns a man of the dangers facing his soul and urges a right relationship with God through faith. This is pretty basic stuff and it’s why, generally, they engage in evangelism and why they are called “Evangelicals.”

What Uncle Di observes explains precisely why the rank and file Catholic is not likewise seen to be very cognizant of their spiritual need. Their spiritual leaders—with shockingly few exceptions—are insensitive or oblivious to spiritual dangers. There might be many angles to this phenomenon and therefore many explanations but I think a significant factor relates to the nature of Catholic teaching on the formation of conscience.

Put simply and briefly, I think the Catholic has little leeway with picking and choosing what he/she believes. That kind of attitude in itself is fatal to the faith and when it becomes an entrenched attitude in Bishops the result is what we see in our own Canadian society.

Stefan’s website is full of this kind of subject. Here’s a basic article with which to start. He’s a great fan of Uncle Di, by the way.

P.S. What I said about Evangelicals doesn’t place them on a level above Catholics. It may make some of them better practicing Christians and it likely means that shocking numbers of Catholics are unwittingly living in peril of their souls. But ALL Christians must return to the fold if they are to fulfill the will of Christ and impact the world as the visible Body of Christ, which is what Christ prayed in the Garden. (John 17:20-23)

The problem, in short, is not with the Catholic faith, which remains a true witness of Christ and His Truth. The problem is with unfaithful pastors.

P.P.S. One Evangelical blogger's current discussions on her journey into the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict Baptizes Prominent Muslim Magdi Allam

UPDATED: see below

Expect fallout.

One can only assume from this that the Pope means what he says when he constantly reiterates that all peoples—including Muslims—must have the freedom to pursue truth and the religion which their conscience dictates.

But the price will be high. It was for the Christians in Rome. Obviously the Pope knows this.

The mass came some 12 hours after an Easter vigil service on Saturday night where, in a surprise move, the pope baptized Muslim-born convert Magdi Allam, 55, an outspoken journalist and fierce critic of Islamic extremism.

At the morning Mass, the pope read a prayer saying that after Christ's resurrection some 2,000 years ago "thousands and thousands of people converted to the Christian faith" and he added: "This is a miracle that still renews itself today."

The Egyptian-born Allam's conversion to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before the Saturday night service began.

 Slideshow here.

UPDATE: This is the sort of injustice which Benedict XVI has protested as a grave violation of religious freedom.

Also Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion

Also see this very amazing story reported today on Joel Rosenberg's blog.

Benedict XVI on the Sacrament of Confession

In a posting I made yesterday, I stated how rare it was to find a mention of the subject of conversion—let alone an elaboration or a homily—from priests or Bishops in the Catholic Church in Canada. It is even rarer, in my experience at least, to find any mention of confession, otherwise officially known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Pope Benedict recently summed up the relationship between the two extremely well in a March 7 address on matters of conscience.

It must be a commitment of pastors and especially of confessors to highlight the close connection that exists between the Sacrament of Reconciliation and a life oriented decisively to conversion.

The entire address, entitled “Benedict XVI on the Sacrament of Confession” was published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and is found online through Zenit News service. It’s shorter than you expect so why not take a moment to read it through.

Jesus said to the shepherds, “Feed my sheep.” Catholics need to be fed and deserve to be fed by their priests and Bishops.

Canada’s Catholic Bishops Pleading for Conversion

I don’t wish to sound cynical here but in my experience at Mass for the past four years in Canada, it has been a relatively rare occasion when a priest or a Bishop has issued a call to conversion, let alone a strongly worded plea.

Don’t misunderstand me. I hear the Pope constantly reinforcing the Church’s teaching and urging the daily spiritual conversion of all Catholics.

But for me it's been a lamentable concern that such a call is an uncommon thing in Canadian Catholic churches.

So when I saw this headline, it seemed misplaced. I clicked through to the news release on the CCCB website and the actual document entitled “Our Relationship with the Environment: The Need for Conversion.”

What do you think?