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Hi, Ray —
First I want to thank-you for the
work you do in defending the Faith
and spreading the fullness of the
Good News of Our Lord Jesus Christ!
YouTubers, like you are performing
an excellent service in the Church.
After listening to the video from
your Orthodox friend, it reminded
me of a certain segment of religious
people you will tend to always come
across. They will always be in debate
mode.
Because their conscience bothers
them and they have to continually
try to convince others they are right. What I heard in that video is:
- Why the Roman Catholic Church
is wrong.
- Why it can't be stated that
St. Irenaeus believed in this
or that
- Why the Church is in heresy.
What I didn't hear is:
- Any positive proof that the
Orthodox Church was founded by
Jesus, or
- What one icon of doctrinal unity the Orthodox Church has that dates
back to 33 A.D.
What he implies is that the apostolic
churches were one without
Peter.
Let's use common sense.
- Can you point me to one human
family of four family members that
agree 100% on how their lives
should be lived?
- If a human family of four can't agree,
how does he expect the family of
early Christian Churches, without
an icon of unity (in the family this could be the father, single mother, or single father), to agree?
Catholics have that proof, not in
Greek, not in Latin, but in plain
English. Just read
Matthew 16:18-19; and 1 Timothy 3:15 (Note that Church is singular
in these passages.)
Our Lord states to St. Peter, I will
build My Church, on you.
Jesus spoke Aramaic, and there is one word for rock: Kepha.
18 And I tell you, you are Peter [Kepha],
and on this rock [Kepha] I
will build my church, and the
powers of death shall not prevail
against it. 19 I will give you
the keys of the kingdom of Heaven,
and whatever you bind on earth
shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall
be loosed in Heaven."
Matthew 16:18-19 [RSV]
When a person's arguments can be
summed up, in what is wrong with another person's faith,
instead of what is good about their
faith, something is wrong.
I do the opposite here:
also check out my non-Christian
believer commentary as well.
Currently great ecumenical progress
is being made among the Catholic
and Orthodox Churches.
Nevertheless, we have, in both churches,
scandalous Catholics as I'm sure
there are scandalous Orthodox.
- If people want to quote from
books written by people with their
own bias, there is nothing you
can do about it.
- If people want to quote from
authentic books, but quote out
of historical context, there is
nothing you can do about it.
The only way you can discern, what
is a waste of time and what is worth
discussing, is through prayer. Don't
worry about the number of subscribers to any YouTube. You can only do so much.
Keep all those subscribers in your
daily prayers and believe in and
continue to defend the Church.
We are the leaders of the New Evangelization
that Pope John Paul II talked about.
As my temporal father who passed
away two years ago always taught
me:
Michael: A right always takes
on a responsibility.
Our responsibility as leaders of
the New Evangelization require:
- a daily prayer life.
- a solid knowledge of the Catholic
faith Jesus founded on St. Peter
and his successors.
- a high level of maturity and
compassion, listening first, before
replying.
- honesty when answering questions . . . if you really don't know — say so! then do some private research, contact some Catholic friends,
and get back to the questioner.
Here are some good resources on defending
the Papacy:
That's the best I can do.
Keep in touch my brother!
Mike
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