One of the frequent
complaints one hears about Catholics is that we cannot think for
ourselves and basically live on a daily diet of whatever the Pope spoon
feeds to us and tells us to think.
I’m reminded of this as reader Peter Sean Bradley sends
along this latest bulletin from the world of anti-Catholic experts on
Catholic faith, wherein Fundamentalist pastor and radio star John MacArthur tells you something I bet you never knew:
That’s why when you go into a Catholic Church you see all the candles everywhere, certain people praying for certain people. As long as the candle burns, the prayer goes on. And as long as the prayer goes on, the merit in the prayer is accumulating on the benefit of the person in Purgatory and the merit is being drawn out of the treasury of merit which merit essentially belongs to Christ, belongs to the saints who have excess merit and to Mary.
I know what you’re going to say. That a candle is a sign of light and
hope and that it’s just a gesture of love to God, to his saint, and to
the people you are praying for.
You might even note that in the Old
Covenant, lights were lit in the Tabernacle as a sign of prayer to and
love of God.
You might even note that the author of Revelation saw the
Church represented by a lampstand (Revelation 1:20). You’ll probably
even say that the idea of accumulating merit from the treasury of saints
just so long as the candle burns never entered your mind (not that
there’s no such thing as merit, of course. It’s actually a very sensible idea.).
But what do you know? You’re just a stupid Catholic who believes
everything he’s told. The people who uncritically regurgitate whatever
MacArthur tells them are way smarter than you.
They think for
themselves when they cut and paste claims like the one above without a
movement of the gray matter.
It is as critical, self-aware intellects
that they paste and repaste the list of Roman Catholic Inventions ,
credulously swallowing the urban legend that it comes from a former
priest who saw the light and completely ignorant of the fact that it
originates with professional anti-Catholic Loraine Boettner.
They are
also ignorant of the fact that The List contain such obvious falsehoods
as:
• Latin used in worship—AD 600 (Response: So why did Jerome translate
the Bible into Latin two hundred years before AD 600? And what does
this claim signify, anyway? If most people spoke Latin at that time, why
shouldn’t Latin hav been used in worship? Does Boettner find it
sinister that English is used in worship today?)
• Prayers for the dead—AD 300 (Response: This will certainly come as
news to Judas Maccabeus who prayed for the dead over four centuries
earlier. See 2 Macc. 12:42–45.)
• Council of Valencia places the Bible on the Index of Forbidden
Books—AD 1229 (Response: There was no Council of Valencia in 1229
because Valencia was in Moorish hands at the time.)
Or items of numbing inconsequence like:
• Wax candles—AD 320 (Response: Why does this matter? How does
Boettner know wax candles were first used in AD 320? Given that the use
of electricity was still far in the future and that worship frequently
occurred before sunrise so Christian slaves could attend, how else does
Boettner expect the Christians to have read Scripture in the dark?)
• College of Cardinals begun—AD 927 (Response: Actually, the term
“College of Cardinals” dates from the mid-twelfth century.
Cardinals
elect the pope. The office was created to protect papal elections from
outright meddling by rival Italian clans.
It was a creation of human
ingenuity in response to a particular need, much like an Evangelical
church’s finance council, or a Board of Elders being charged with
finding the new pastor at the Baptist church down the street. So why is
this particular bit of administrative innovation significant?)
• Baptism of bells instituted by Pope John XIII—AD 965 (Response:
“Baptism of bells” refers to a common custom of christening church
bells. It’s about as dastardly as breaking a bottle of champagne against
the bow of a ship.)
Yes, The List has been a staple on the Internet for so many years
that the vast majority of the people who regurgitate it don’t even know
where it originates.
Yet it continues to circulate, like a bad penny and
every e-mails I get with it attached is usually accompanied by
unconsciously ironic admonitions to “think for yourself and stop letting
others tell you what to believe” from people who are completely unaware
they’re parroting something they’ve never thought about or checked out
for themselves.
Such people typically seem to assume “If there are so
many claims against the Catholic Church, it stands to reason there must
be something to the idea that Catholic doctrines are basically pagan.”
But the reality is that 0x0x0x0=0, not “If you throw enough mud, some
will stick.”
The reality also includes, “You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor,” as Christians ought to know.
SIC: NCR/INT'L