Questioning the Church

by Michael Shackleton · February 6, 2011

I am a 44-year-old Catholic but I think the Church has failed. After attending the Amazing Discoveries 2010 series run by Mr J Carter of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, I learnt more of the Bible there than I learnt in the Catholic Church. Our Church needs to come clean and transform itself from paganistic and unbiblical practices, having insufficient or no biblical references, such as Baptism, Confirmation, the sabbath, statues and celibacy. – Tommy Hartley

Your last sentence above is a very sweeping one, suggesting that the preacher of the Amazing Discoveries series made similar generalisations. Evangelical preachers who show unmistakable bias against the Catholic faith are not new. Basing their Bible punch-lines on their own interpretation, their constant pitch is that the Catholic Church relies on unscriptural traditions and pagan corruptions of Christ�s teachings as found in the scriptures which, of course, is simply not true. They also make a point of telling us how many other Christians are now joining their ranks, as if the truth of their preaching is demonstrated by sheer numbers alone.

It is not difficult for fundamentalist preachers to pick up the Bible and apply disconnected texts to all kinds of situations, frequently with warnings of the doom that is to come to those that ignore them. These fundamentalists and whatever group they belong to, do not often show any informed grasp of the history of Christianity and the indispensable part the Catholic Church has played in it.

The Church and the Bible grew together. The Church was preaching and spreading the Gospel even before the New Testament books were gradually put together and accepted as authentic under her authority.

Fundamentalist preachers take up the Bible without any positive nod to the Catholic Church which preserved it through the centuries. They often pluck biblical teachings from the vacuum created by ignorance of the faith and practice of the Catholic Church, and use these to sway people to join their ranks.

You do not say what prompted you to attend the Amazing Discovery series. Why not rather make an appointment with your parish priest or another informed Catholic and frankly explain what your misgivings are? That could be the way to convince you that Church doctrine has no pagan or unbiblical side to it. Even buying or borrowing a copy of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, may help you see just how uninformed fundamentalist preachers can be.