Forty Answers to “Forty Reasons I Am A Catholic”: #28

Thanks for joining me today as we continue our series examining and responding to Catholic apologist and philosopher, Peter Kreeft’s book, “Forty Reasons I Am A Catholic” (2018).

Claim #28: I am a Catholic because the Catholic Church alone in the world today is hard with courage in a world grown soft with self-indulgence, consumerist and sexual

In this very short chapter, Kreeft claims the Roman Catholic church possesses the opposite dimensions of hardness and courage in the face of moral decline and relativism, and softness and unconditional love in ministering to souls. He submits the canonized saints as shining examples of this duality. Kreeft claims the Roman church is the only institution in the world today that has the courage to oppose sin, immorality, and pragmatism, and the love to minister to people. He presents the RCC as the beacon of truth in a world increasingly confused regarding gender and sexuality.

Response

Kreeft self-servingly presents an idealistic image of the Roman Catholic church to the reader. Even casual students of church history are aware of the corruption that has permeated the RCC in its 1500-year history. Rather than opposing moral decline and relativism, popes, prelates, and priests were often at the vanguard. The RCC was focused on the accumulation of wealth and political power throughout its history. Rather than “ministering” to souls with unconditional love, the RCC controlled its members with an iron fist, demanding absolute obedience under the threat of persecution and even death. The canonized saints? As we’ve pointed out previously, several of the canonized saints were involved in the persecution of Protestants. The notion of canonized saints itself is a blatant example of RC-ism’s spiritual deadly false gospel of salvation by sacramental pseudo-grace and merit that has entrapped billions. Courage? What about pope Pius XII? Did he have the courage to stand up to Hitler and the Holocaust?

In recent decades, the perversions and abuses of celibate priests and the hierarchical cover-up has become a scandal of tsunamic proportions. Catholic sociologist and ex-priest, Richard Sipe, determined that at least 30% of priests are homosexual. Rather than being a stalwart defender of “morality,” pope Francis pragmatically “bends the rules” in an attempt to stanch the mass exodus of disillusioned members. Church progressives, including the pope are gradually transforming the church into L**T-friendly. It’s distastefully audacious for Kreeft to boast about the RCC being the only entity “hard with courage” in a world grown soft with sexual self-indulgence in light of the twenty-two-year-old pedophile priest scandal tsunami.

Kreeft is not an idiot. He’s fully aware of the RCC’s very dark history. But in order to lure his non-Catholic readers, he presents an idealized, hagiographical, fictional image of the RCC.

It is rather God’s Word, the Bible, that is the beacon of Truth in an increasingly troubled world.

Next week: Claim #29: I am a Catholic because I need dogmatic certainty about God, and Christ, and salvation