ARTICLE 34: CONVERTS AND THE BIBLE We are informed by Rev. Walter M. Horton, professor of theology in the Oberlin (Ohio) School of Theology, that "ignorance of the contents of the Bible and the essential teachings of Christianity has become so widespread among the laymen in the United States, that some of them have turned to Roman Catholicism," because she is "at least definite in her teachings". Surely "ignorance" is not on the side of the Protestant converts to Catholicism. Their conversion, to say the least, is based upon the realization of this theological fact, that indefinite religious and moral teachings are not God's teachings. They realize that Christ, Who is God, willed that there "shall be one fold (not hundreds) and one Shepherd," as John, 10:6 says that when Christ said, "He who hears you, hears Me," as Luke, 10:6 informs us, He commanded them, as He commands everybody else, to listen and to obey one Church, the Church with unvarying religious and moral teachings, and not to listen, or feel morally obligated to obey "two hundred and fifty-six religious bodies" that came into existence fifteen and more centuries after the birth of the Catholic Church on the First Pentecost Day. These converts from Protestantism have asked themselves, as does the professor of theology, (though they answer more correctly)---"Can such confusion of tongues testify to the power (we would add, and the teachings) of the Prince of Peace?" The Catholic Church asks today, and will ask as long as Protestant churches exist what Pope Pius XI asked in his Encyclical on "True Religious Unity:" "Through what argument could men of opposed opinions become one and the same society of the faithful?" as the delegates to the coming World Council of Churches assume their conglomeration of churches to be. Contact Us HOME------------TRADITION www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/goldstein34.htm |