"If the Vatican had its way, we’d be paying for every last organ transplant for every last illegal alien patient in the world."

In the world! Terrible. I'd need that money for my next six-pack. If the Vatican made that demand.

Anyway, since there aren't nearly as many organs available as the need requires, Michelle has nothing to worry about.
Pavel Chichikov | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 12:41 pm | #

Sorry, this belongs in the thread above.
Pavel Chichikov | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 12:43 pm | #

A google search reveals a large number of wacky fundie sites bringing us the truth about "John Ratzinger".
Scrappy | 04.21.08 - 12:59 pm | #

I think John Ratzenberger is the "True Pope." He's infallible on every subject.
Patrick Rothwell | 04.21.08 - 1:06 pm | #

Let's put out an ad that says Jerry Matatics is not a sedevacantist.

The sedevacantist logic that the chair is empty sits on a chair thats missing a leg.
iClaudius | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 1:09 pm | #

Does Gerry think somebody else is the Pope? If he thinks that there is a true pope, and just that it's not Ratzinger, then he technically wouldn't be sedevacantist.
Stephen | 04.21.08 - 1:21 pm | #

Darn it, Patrick, you beat me to it! "Cliffy I"
Brian | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 1:31 pm | #

John Ratzinger, John Ratzenberger and Gerry Matatics:

"Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?"
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 1:37 pm | #

Patrick's evocation of "Cheers" has me imagining a new version of the series -- I don't know, "Jeers" is the first title I can think of -- in which the bar is populated by cranky sedevacantists:

"Howya doin', Norm?"

"How do you think I'm doin', Cliff? Vera and I just drove 350 miles roundtrip to assist at a real traditional Latin Mass. Not that 1962 Bugnini-ized, modernized Mess, but the real thing. You know, before Pius XII changed the Holy Week rubrics."

"You had it easy, Normy. My car broke down, so I was stuck at a bowdlerized SSPX Mess. What are you looking at, Sam?"

"Stop bellyachin'. Diane dragged me to the "Baseball Mess" in DC with that manifest heretic, Benedict-Ratzinger."
Brian | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 1:46 pm | #

+J.M.J+

>>>Does Gerry think somebody else is the Pope? If he thinks that there is a true pope, and just that it's not Ratzinger, then he technically wouldn't be sedevacantist.

I doubt it. "Sedevacantist" is a term he "grudgingly uses as shorthand when describing his views," according to this site:

http://sharpens.blogspot.com/200...inger- true.html

So he apparently doesn't believe in any of the popelets running around as pretenders to the See of St. Peter. He really is a sedevacantist, even if he doesn't like the word (why not?).

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 04.21.08 - 1:47 pm | #

I listened to a number of teaching tapes while I was pondering becoming a Catholic... they were for the most part very helpful, but I found Matatics' tapes dull and pedantic. I listened to a couple, but never asked for or wanted to hear any more.

I say this not to gratuitously trash someone who is busy trashing my Church, but only to point out that those witnesses who really challenged and expanded my thinking, the ones who made things "click" (for instance I gained a great deal from listening to Scott Hahn and Jimmy Akin) were the ones who seemed to have grasped in Catholic teaching something grand and great and this infused their thought with light and vitality. I found myself repeatedly thinking "A'ha!" or "Yes, of course!". It changed my life and my understanding.

Matatics said a lot, and I'm sure it was all right and correct enough, but there didn't seem to be anything tying it all together... just disparate bits of data, which makes me wonder whether he ever really "got" Catholic thought.

I'm guessing not.

I pray he gets over this Lone Ranger thing and eventually is enabled to humbly and joyfully submit himself to the Church.
Tim J. | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 2:04 pm | #

Boy, this makes me sad. Over a decade ago, when he was still solidly Catholic, I had a chance to talk to Gerry after a presentation he gave. A very kind, generous man. (And in his talks, I found him to to be a marvelous and inspiring speaker.)

It's both very sad and astonishing to me to see him lose his way like this.
John | 04.21.08 - 2:46 pm | #

This is sad with Gerry but it wasn't unpredictable. Seems sede-vacantism has a fair number of converts in its ranks including those Dimond Bros here in NY.

I think cradle Catholics seem better prepared for the ups and downs (which can have cycles as long as centuries) than these impatient converts who are hell bent on hastening the return of Jesus. When they don't see perfection , they move on.

Let us not forget that Gerry started as a Catholic Answers Lies kind of guy. Practically at papaloltrist vis a vis JPII, at times. Even his fellow traveler, Drolesky (now with the CMRI) could go this way. He'd dump on rad trads for questioning John Paul and in the next breath say that Cardinal Ratzinger was two faced. Search the Christ or Chaos archives if you doubt me.
When Ratzinger became pope, he fell off his rocker!
Both of these guys were little different than your typical modern day apologist (usually converts) types. They just had a little more smarts and a whole lot more foolish pride.

I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts that if Benedict lasts another decade or is succeeded by a like minded pope, some of the lay apologists that are trashing Gerry now will be jumping ship themselves.
There's NO WAY the Jimmy Aikens are going to sit by while Rome says things like: "pro multis means for the many", "the Mass of Pius V was never abrogated", "Protestant Churches are not true Churches." Especially when you've got cranks like Ferrara talking about "Papal Masterstrokes" as his book on EWTN looks less and less kooky while The Remant Newspaper is turning into a cheerleading rag.

These are interesting time indeed
Dave L. | 04.21.08 - 6:16 pm | #

Dave:

You have a higher regard for your mind reading powers than your actual record warrants.

http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/ def...ultis_for_.html

http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/def...rum- pontif.html

Also, if you could point me to a single place where Jimmy has ever dissented from the Church's teaching on our relationship with Protestant ecclesial bodies, I'd appreciate that.

Failing that, a full apology from you for your rank bigotry against Protestant converts would be appreciated or else kindly leave me blog and go find someplace else to tell lies.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 6:36 pm | #

Hello Mark,

This just goes to show you can prooftext your Denzinger's as easily as you can Scripture.

Nor is that a "convert" trait per se. Most Sedes aren't Protestant converts.

This is a shame. Matatics is an extremely knowledgeable and gifted apologist. But he was taking this line already back when I saw him on his speaking tour three years back. He's been building toward this for a while.

Nonetheless, I have hope he'll regain his senses and composure.
Richard | 04.21.08 - 8:02 pm | #

"But he was taking this line already back when I saw him on his speaking tour three years back."

Actually, it long predates that. I wrote about Gerry's flirtation with sedevacantism in 1995.

Back then, he tried to be low-key because most of his speaking engagements (and so most of his income) were at "Novus Ordo" parishes. As those gigs slowly dried up, he became more overt in expressing his leanings; the more overt he became, the more those gigs dried up.

Now he drives around the country, renting small meeting rooms at Holiday Inns, sometimes finding that fewer than half a dozen people show up--and not even all of them are backers of his.

A year ago, he was flush, being paid a six-figure salary by a wealthy California businessman to tutor the fellow's young children. Gerry was able to dispense with the speaking engagements for a while. He even succeeded in converting the man to sedevacantism. Despite that, he ended up losing the most remunerative job he ever had. Now he is back on his road tour again.
Karl Keating | Homepage | 04.21.08 - 9:12 pm | #

Jacob Michael wrote a great article on the inherently protestant nature of sedevacantism:

http://www.lumengentleman.com/co...tent.asp? id=205

The question that has to be asked of every sedevecantist, I would say, is simply this: if two sedevacantists were to disagree over the interpretation of a past Church document, then how would the problem be resolved? To make sure to try to read things in context better, etc? But who gets to determine what is proper understanding of the context, etc. and what is not? It's not a question of how we are to interpret, but a question of who gets to decide that the criteria for interpretation has been properly applied. Right now, Matatics, like James White, will not point to another human being on this earth other than himself as the final authority in determining whether something has been properly or improperly interpreted.

Let's pray that both Matatics and White give up their errors and embrace the truth.
kevin | 04.21.08 - 9:43 pm | #

Kevin, you are absolutely correct. I assume that a sede would say that such and such is "self-evident" from past encyclicals and councils, much like a sola scriptura protestant would argue about the bible. And judging from the amount of fracturing in the radtrad community, they are just about as fractured as the protestants (or would be, if there were that many of them).
Mike | 04.21.08 - 10:18 pm | #

Jake's article is a keeper.
BenYachov(Jim Scott 4th) | 04.21.08 - 11:10 pm | #

You're exactly right, Mike, this is just like protestant private interpretation--in this case, it's simply over encyclicals and council texts.

The impulse of a Catholic should be to yield in submission when they come across something the Church is officially teaching that they don't grasp intellectually--esp. stuff that you think contradicts what has come before. Situations like the one Gerry finds himself in are exactly what faith in the Church and its authority to teach are for. It may not be until that act of faith is made before God will allow you the gift of intellectual understanding--this was certainly the case for me, as someone who formerly espoused some of the sspx's problems about the Vatican II texts.
kevin | 04.22.08 - 1:09 am | #

What matatics will finally do is just that : spreading distrust toward the Church.... He will gain few converts for is own religious beliefs, but will give to catholic many (false) reasons to have doubt toward the Church leaders and teachings....
Gégé | 04.22.08 - 5:45 am | #

+J.M.J+

Matatics apparently had a falling out with the St. Benedict Center at some point b/c of his sedevacantism:

http://www.catholicism.org/ matat...conference.html

Though I don't agree with them on everything, this one section of that article really got me:

Gerry’s speaking engagements all over the country recently have informed people that many traditional priests aren’t, in fact, priests. Thus, the convinced faithful who can’t find a priest who meets Gerry’s specs will probably stay home rather than risk going to a Mass Gerry holds to be invalid. That’s a lot for a man to take upon his conscience. His 300-city-and-town “Mega-Tour” is preaching this despairing gospel of a pope-less and (virtually) sacrament-less, bishop-less, and priest-less Church. Those heeding Gerry’s word are led to join the ranks of the “home aloners” — those devout souls who stay at home on Sunday, praying the Rosary and reading their Missals — if they fail in their Arthurian quest for a real priest.

And those who die without sacraments because of it can accuse Gerry Matatics on judgment day.

Wow.

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 04.22.08 - 8:38 am | #

"The name for people who deny that the Pope is the Pope is "sedevacantist"."

Actually Mr Shea, you're only half right. They might also be sedeprivationists, which is a distinct (and I would say less heretical, if there are shades of heresy)strain of thought.

Disclaimer: let me stress (since you're very quick to ban people these days) that I'm merely trying to inform. I don't agree either of these positions, I never have and, please God, never will.
www.thecontrariansreview.com | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 10:50 am | #

since you're very quick to ban people these days

I am? Documentation please? How many people have I banned in, say, the past month? I can think of one.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 12:07 pm | #

"I am? Documentation please? How many people have I banned in, say, the past month? I can think of one."

My perhaps unfair statement is cheerfully withdrawn. The difference, I see now, is one of interpretation of facts rather than facts. No doubt one or two in a month doesn't seem like many.

By the way, pretty cool reach with sedeprivationists, eh?
www.thecontrariansreview.com | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 12:26 pm | #

Dave LIAR is in a position of being 60% right. Aiken had a long track record of talking down to people who held a position on pro-multis different than his own. When Arinze clarified this, he jumped on board. But, a lawyer like Ferarra could point to all of the instances when he sung a different tune. How many times will he stand for being corrected before he too declares himself pope?

Nevertheless, the lay convert apologist phenomenon is disturbing. First is our reliance on it. Where are the priests and where are the cradle catholics? Depending on a steady infusion of former protestant ministers doesn't point to a healthy situation in the Church.

And I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the sede issue. You'll fnd a lot more former prots in your local sede chapel than you will in a typical novus ordo parish. And the sedes are motivated by the dollar as much (MORE!)as any layman trying to feed a family. Ever see a poor sede chapel?? Those people have bucks and at times, they sound like Americanists of the Novak-Weigel-Absp.Ireland persuasion.

Why are these former protestant ministers so gung-ho to jump head first into apologetics when they should be on their knees in thanks for the God who could forgive them for years of trying to pry Catholics away from the True Church? Can't they give up the pulpit? They might not be ready to lecture us.

And since when is being a convert automatically a job qualification? Our own Sgt. Joyce Kilmer continued to write poetry after his conversion; and while people were quick to compare him with Chesterbelloc, he was known to say, "I have nothing to teach cradle Catholics..." Hyberbolic for sure, but where is the modesty in the hearts (or at least words) of Staples, Aikens, Hahn, etc?

Years ago, people would quip that converts were "more Catholic than the pope." But that was a reference to their apparent piety as contrasted with an Italian bishop
they never saw.
My husband would never get to be a guest on Journey Home. Any one who tries to ask him what he converted from gets the answer "horse-pucky."

It's a little off putting at first. But how refreshing to hear someone who doesn't want to recast the Church in the image of his "conversion experience" but rather allow the Faith he has embraced continue to mold HIM. He doesn't look back at the foolish things he once believed.
Anne Thompson | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 2:43 pm | #

I'm just guessing based on personal experience of course, but it *could* be that Protestant converts are telling people about the Catholic faith because they are enormously grateful for it and are trying to do their best to bear witness as the Lord commanded. But I don't have the power to see into souls that so many saintly Traditionalists like Anne do, so I could be wrong.

Gee, I wonder why people are turned away from the Real Pure Catholic faith Anne so ably represents?
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 3:21 pm | #

Mr. Shea,

You really ought to address her arguments. Notice that there are qualifiers "(or at least words." Also her skepticism about the apologetics industry is certainly prudent and merited in many cases.

You really to do come off as very spiteful and dismissive at times, especially when you play charity police for traditionalists. It is unbecoming in the extreme and I suggest, and fervently hope, beneath you. You might at least be more polite when addressing a lady. I'm not sure if it's true in your case but often the people who shout "pharisee," or "judgmental" so easily need to tend to the beam before the mote.

All that said, your blog remains quite informative and interesting.
www.thecontrariansreview.com | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 5:07 pm | #

My apologies for defending three good men from somebody who is virtuously spreading scandal and rumor about them without the slightest provocation. When will I get it through my head that when a Traditionalist decides to smear somebody's reputation simply because they are a convert and not one of "our own" as Anne so charmingly puts it, that is the Traditionalists perfect right.

Converts, to the back of the bus! The Real Catholics are here to show you your place.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 5:20 pm | #

What petulant dross.

Protestantism has more apologists to begin with, I would say exponentially, than Catholicism does, and these apologists are the ones doing the reading, studying the history, and having the debates. Why on earth would it shock us that people who have made it their job (not even just a vocation, but a literal job) to research and weigh the truth claims of the Christian churches might be more liable to conversion than those who take no interest in such matters?

Which is to say: the preponderence of Catholic apologists who are former Protestants has little to do with some reluctance to leave the pulpit, but rather with the fact that their whole way of life has been informed by a sort of intellectual missionary zeal to begin with.

Where are all the cradle-Catholic apologists, you ask? They barely register. For one thing, "talking people into it" isn't how Catholicism defines its missionary efforts, and the mandate for such talk is simply not the focus of the Church's sacramental and intellectual life. The focus of the Mass is the Eucharist, not the homily. The object of Catholic study is to better understand God, and prayer, and charity--not the historical-critical method. Tradition, not rhetoric, has pride of place. Anne asks why priests aren't doing the brunt of our apologetical work. What priest would have the time? What priest, being a priest, would think that was even his job? He has more important things to do. Being a shepherd. Administering the sacraments.

But though such things as I noted above are not the focus, there is most certainly a need for them on the periphery, and we are fortunate indeed that so many Christians have been trained in these pursuits, however wrong their starting positions might have been. It comes down to a question of just how we should treat Protestant converts. Should they, as Anne has suggested, be kneeling in gratitude and humility? Certainly. But to say that this is all they should do--to say that the Protestant convert has nothing to teach the cradle Catholic--is not only misguided but also insultingly wrong.

If you want to see scandal and wretchedness and apathy and the soft tyranny of the lukewarm in the Catholic Church, why, look to your cradle Catholics. Look to that broad and greasy middle for whom Catholicism is an inherited chore rather than a marvelous gift. Look to that swath for whom it is more of a "cultural marker" than a relationship with Christ. Look to those who preface statements of rank, idiotic heresy with the magic words "I was raised Catholic..."

Protestant converts - all converts! - are uniquely able to teach the cradle Catholic what it means to see the Church as a prize and a glory to be cherished--and that might never have been gained. They demonstrate with their very deeds what it means to approach the Church, and to approach God, with the love, and yearning, and conviction that One who is wiser than any of us once said would demand hatred even of one's own family rather than an acquiesence to what is easy and cheap.

It is certainly easy to see why one would feel less than well-disposed towards learning about one's own faith from someone who had previously made a career of preaching error, but if one allows one's self to wallow in such disdain for long, the limits of this thinking begin to recede. After all, in that case, what could Newman teach a cradle Catholic? What could Augustine? What could Paul?

So, in summary, the chief virtues of former Protestants practicing Catholic apologetics are:

1. Apologetical work actually gets carried out, rather than being done poorly or neglected altogether. This is also one of the merits of letting former Protestants sing in Catholic choirs, produce Catholic art, contribute to Catholic charities, and so on.

2. Their particular potency in evangelizing other Protestants.

3. The manner in which they remind (and simply teach, in some cases) cradle Catholics what it means to see the Church as a Lady on a distant hill, a lamp in one hand and a sword in the other, rather than as a sort of comfortable jacket.
Nick Milne | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 7:57 pm | #

+J.M.J+

How about Protestant converts who become Catholic priests? Do they have a right to teach/do apologetics? Would it be okay for, say, Fr. Neuhaus?

What about Fr. Frederick Faber, Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, Fr. Ronald Knox, Cardinal Wiseman, Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Manning, etc. - converts all. Were they wrong to teach, explain and defend Catholic doctrine? Many were former Protestant clergy, after all.

Hmm, wasn't Chesterton also a convert from Protestantism? and never a priest, IIRC. Guess he should have stayed on his knees thanking God rather than defending the Church.

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 04.22.08 - 9:15 pm | #

Mr. Shea:

I just got home from debating against gay marriage at CSU East Bay, Hayward, in the San Francisco area). Ten days before that I was debating Jalal Abualrub, a Salafi Muslim scholar, in Fullerton, and two weeks before that, Nadir Ahmed in Norfolk, Virginia. Somehow, someway, in the midst of all of that, I somehow manage to run the entire "anti-Catholic" show as well? You give me a great deal of credit!

Just for your information, I have NOTHING to do with running Iron Sharpens Iron. I have been a guest on the program, like many others. But I learned about Gerry's appearance on the program in the exact same way you did. Whatever the "James White Axis of Realio-Trulio Reformed Anti-Catholics" is in your mind, out here in the real world, you just swung and missed---again.

James White
www.aomin.org
James White | Homepage | 04.23.08 - 12:31 am | #

James:

I'm relieved to discover that you no longer oppose the Catholic Church, are not Truly Reformed, and have nothing to do with those who are. You should really change your site to reflect this.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 04.23.08 - 1:01 am | #

Hey Mr. Keating, why don't you or one of your apologists debate Gerry on the topic of Sedevacantism? It will never happen because Gerry has demonstrated over and over again what historically the Roman Catholic Church has taught. The modern Roman Catholic Church is not what the church has always taught or believed.
My3Sons | 04.24.08 - 3:03 am | #

To My3Sons, and James white (because I have visited his site)

I have always been reluctant to debate between apologists. Does the truth depend on a debate between apologists or scholars? Someone wins or loses a debate; and after ? He have been tired, insufficently prepared, not enough trained, ill, or whatever you want...
One argument can be convaincing; but is it true ?

To My3Sons alone, concerning catholicism, either you trust in the Church whom visible head is the pope and the bishop in communion to each others and in communion to Christ, either you trust "rational" arguments or whatever type of argument you choose... But that's no more catholic paradoxally : its personal view of salvation and truth.
Gégé | 04.24.08 - 4:41 am | #

"Hey Mr. Keating, why don't you or one of your apologists debate James White on the topic of Sola Fides? It will never happen because James has demonstrated over and over again what historically the Christian Church has taught. The modern Roman Catholic Church is not what the Christian church has always taught or believed."

--I'm sure Karl Keating and Catholic Answers get notes like that 24/7, My3Sons.
kevin | 04.24.08 - 12:06 pm | #