The Hypocrisy of Catholic Answers

I had to break my hiatus to share two interesting campaigns by Catholic Answers.

It appears from the two campaigns that the Catholic Church has a problem: the majority of Catholics are ignorant of their faith and susceptible to a variety of prey including Mormons, liberal Catholics, homosexuals and the dreaded “anti-Catholics”. In fact, according to Catholic Answers, the Mormons have been quite successful in gaining Catholic converts:

“Many people have been doing just that—especially Catholics. In fact, in recent years the majority of converts to Mormonism have been Catholics.

It makes sense, when you think about it.

Catholics are targeted by Mormons because many Catholics can be swayed easily by Mormon arguments. That’s because many Catholics don’t know their own faith.”

...With all the talk in the media about Mormonism, more and more people are curious about Mormonism and are visiting Mormon web sites.

But these web sites are deceptive. They do not explain the true beliefs of Mormonism. They try to convince readers that Mormonism is a Christian faith—in fact, the true Christian faith!

As one Mormon web site put it, “Mormonism is the religion most consistent with biblical Christianity. We do not apologize for our beliefs. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true Christian church on the face of the earth.”

The problem is … people fall for it—especially Catholics.

In fact, Mormons count Catholics as their main target.

Over half of the current converts to Mormonism are Catholics.

Mormons target Catholics who don’t know their faith.

Sadly, that’s the majority of our fellow Catholics. They’ve been nearly defenseless against Mormon propaganda.

...With our new special report on Mormonism, we can “inoculate” Catholics from the half-truths and skewed history presented by Mormon missionaries.

By getting this report into the hands of Catholics all across America, we can bolster the faith of Catholics and keep them from leaving the Church."

-Why Catholics are easy targetsfor Mormon evangelists

Toward the end of the article, some interesting facts are mentioned:

“FACT: Each year, the Mormon church baptizes 300,000 converts. (That’s 800 a day—or another million every three years.) Half are former Catholics.”

...P.S. The Mormon religion is not what is styles itself to be. Even our Protestant brethren agree that Mormonism is non-Christian. And yet, Mormonism is flourishing in America.

Mormons especially target poorly-catechized Catholics. (Worldwide, Catholics make up half the converts to Mormonism.)”

If those facts are true, that’s a loss of half a million Catholics over three years. I’m too busy right now to look up membership statistics, but that seems like a pretty good bleed just to Mormonism alone. And it must be a concerning loss, for Catholic Answers is willing to appeal to the opinion of their “Protestant brethren” for support against Mormonism while throwing this same “brethren” under the bus in the next campaign.

The next threat to the ignorant Catholic masses (and the second need for an “inoculation”) is the “one-two punch” of homosexual activists and “radical anti-Catholics” at World Youth Day:

“And it’s what our Catholic youth will be facing when they go to see the Pope at World Youth Day in July.

In fact, our Catholic youth are facing a “one-two punch.”

On one hand, there will be the homosexual activists promoting the “gay rights” agenda, and then there will be the radical anti-Catholics—who always descend upon World Youth Day like birds of prey.

...How do I know this?

Because this is exactly what the anti-Catholics have done at every World Youth Day for fifteen years now—since 1993.

They print slick propaganda pieces designed to look like Catholic literature, if you judge by the covers. They hand these pamphlets out by the thousands to unsuspecting Catholic youth.

But inside is the worst anti-Catholic propaganda you’ve ever seen.

Using clever but deceptive arguments for which the anti-Catholics are famous, these slick propaganda pieces get the reader to doubt many of our most important Catholic beliefs and practices,”

...This started in 1993, in Denver, Colorado. We were there—and we created a special little booklet about the Catholic faith, designed to inoculate our Catholic youth against anti-Catholic propaganda.

...Any time you have swarms of Catholic students in one place, there are bound to be tens-of- thousands that aren’t well-catechized and don’t have a proper understanding of the issues.

Thus, they’re highly vulnerable to slick propaganda—not only from anti-Catholic Protestants and dissident Catholics, but this time from the radical homosexual activists too.

...P.S. With your help, we can thwart the anti-Catholics and the homosexual activists at World Youth Day—and help make this event a glorious one for the Church and for the salvation of souls.”

-Sydney or Sodom?

Note the hypocrisy of Catholic Answers when comparing the two “P.S.”s of the two campaigns. In the first campaign Protestants are brethren whose opinion is consulted, in the second they are “anti-Catholics” with “slick propaganda” that must be thwarted. I have seen this conflicting attitude many times so it is worth pointing out.

In both articles, Catholic Answers is looking for donations as they “simply don’t have that much money right now. In fact, we don’t really have any of it”. So the issues for Catholic Answers and the Church seem to be manifold: an large population of Catholics ignorant of their faith, a slow bleed of Catholics to Mormonism, the continued threat of homosexuals, liberals, and Protestants, and a lack of funds to do much about any of it. While I do lament Catholic youth being duped by people with liberal sexual agendas and Catholics falling into the further apostasy of Mormonism, I am glad to see Catholic Answers reveal their hypocritical motivations in sometimes calling Protestants their brethren. Protestants who are sympathetic to Catholicism should be paying attention to this.

Addition: I highlighted another Catholic Answer's campaign against "zealous anti-Catholics" a few months back.

(back to obscurity)