As Promised, the Crusades on the Son Rise Morning Show!

Matt Swaim and I will discuss the Crusades on the Son Rise Morning Show after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central newsbreak--listen live here.

We were going to include the Crusades as part of our monthly Historical Apologetics Series in February, but President Obama's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast last week moved it up in the schedule:

"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."

Pundits, historians, and others have been discussing those comments since last Thursday. The Crusades have been cited before, by former President William Clinton after the 9-11 attacks as the cause of radical Islamic hatred of the West, and they are often brought up as though the Christian West attacked the Islamic East. The opposite is the truth. The Crusades are not just one event, but most of the Crusades were efforts of the Christian West to free the Holy Land from Muslim domination, to defend Catholic Christians in the Holy Land and to make it safe for pilgrims to visit during Holy Week for example.

Of course, the President is correct that Christians, being sinners, have committed terrible deeds; whether or not they were in the name of Christ may be debatable. The Fourth Crusade, with its despoiling of Constantinople, never even reached the Holy Land--Pope St. John Paul II apologized to the Greek Orthodox and the Patriarch of Constantinople accepted the apology, wanting to heal the wounds caused by the Fourth Crusade.

One of the most commonly cited articles this weekend on social media at least was Thomas Madden's 2009 review  in First Things of Jonathan Riley-Smith's The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam published by Columbia University Press. In "Inventing the Crusades" Madden reflected on serious historians' work to correct errors about the Crusades:

It is generally thought that Christians attacked Muslims without provocation to seize their lands and forcibly convert them. The Crusaders were Europe’s lacklands and ne’er-do-wells, who marched against the infidels out of blind zealotry and a desire for booty and land. As such, the Crusades betrayed Christianity itself. They transformed “turn the other cheek” into “kill them all; God will know his own.”

Every word of this is wrong. Historians of the Crusades have long known that it is wrong, but they find it extraordinarily difficult to be heard across a chasm of entrenched preconceptions. For on the other side is, as Riley-Smith puts it “nearly everyone else, from leading churchmen and scholars in other fields to the general public.” There is the great Sir Steven Runciman, whose three-volume History of the Crusades is still a brisk seller for Cambridge University Press a half century after its release. It was Runciman who called the Crusades “a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is a sin against the Holy Ghost.” The pity of it is that Runciman and the other popular writers simply write better stories than the professional historians.

So we continue to write our scholarly books and articles, learning more and more about the Crusades but scarcely able to be heard. And when we are heard, we are dismissed as daft. I once asked Riley-Smith if he believed popular perceptions of the Crusades would ever be changed by modern scholarship. “I’ve just about given up hope,” he answered. In his new book he notes that in the last thirty years historians have begun to reject “the long-held belief that it [the Crusade movement] was defined solely by its theaters of operation in the Levant and its hostility toward Islam—with the consequence that in their eyes the Muslims move slightly off center stage—and many of them have begun to face up to the ideas and motivation of the Crusaders. The more they do so the more they find themselves contra mundum or, at least, contra mundum Christianum.”

At least we can keep trying! UPDATE: Anna Mitchell tells me this interview will be re-aired sometime in the 6:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 a.m. Central hour of the SRMS tomorrow. Matt mentioned that I'll be on next Tuesday to talk about Shrove Tuesday and traditions in England before the Reformation. Get your pancakes ready--next Tuesday, February 17 at 7:35 a.m. Eastern; 6:35 a.m. Central after the bottom of the hour newscast.

Next month: The Inquisition. Spanish or Albigensian?

Monday Morning: Matt Swaim and I Go on Crusade! Deus Vult!

"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.  And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."--President Barack Obama, National Prayer Breakfast, February 5, 2015

History by sound bite is never a good idea and President Obama has been receiving lots of criticism for this remark which some have taken to create a moral equivalence between the Crusades and current ISIS atrocities or between the Inquisition (Spanish or otherwise, I assume) and the ISIS burning the Jordanian pilot alive.

Matt Swaim and I will discuss this in our Catholic History Apologetics Series on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday morning, February 9--in my usual time slot a little after 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central.

Matt and I were going to talk about the Crusades anyway this month, but the President's remarks gave the schedule some greater urgency! Live live here.

Image above: "Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, given a late Gothic setting in this illumination from the Livre des Passages d'Outre-mer, c. 1490."

Full disclosure: I am a former Crusader! That is, I attended Kapaun-Mt. Carmel High School and our mascot was/is The Crusader!

New Apologetics and Church History Series on "The Son Rise Morning Show"

Matt Swaim and I will kick off a monthly series of conversations about Church History and Apologetics on The Son Rise Morning Show this morning during the last segment of their second EWTN hour--a little after 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Western. Listen live here.

You may find some background on this topic here.

Next for Our GKC Reading Group: The Thing

In a couple of weeks our Wichita branch of the American Chesterton Society will start our reading of G.K. Chesterton's The Thing: Why I am a Catholic. We are reading it from the Ignatius Press edition of the Collected Works: Volume III.

It seems to me that this Chesterton work might be excellent reading for the New Evangelization, which both Blessed Pope John Paul II and Emeritus Pope Benedict have proclaimed. As Dale Ahlquist notes in his Chesterton 101 lesson for this book:

The essays in this collection were originally written for Catholic publications and are somewhat different from his other journalism because here Chesterton is writing for a specifically Catholic audience. And yet his vigorous defense of the Catholic faith seems to invite all comers. But as for addressing Catholics, there is one passage that is strikingly relevant to modern Catholics who seem intent on “reforming” things in the Church, whether it be the liturgy, the moral teachings, or the fundamental doctrines of the faith: “In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them,” says Chesterton, there are two kinds of reformers. “Let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”

I watched Raymond Arroyo interview Al Kresta about his new book, Dangers to the Faith: Recognizing Catholicism’s 21st Century Opponents on EWTN's The World Over. Arroyo quoted Kresta from the book saying that Catholics, including the laity, in the 21st Century still aren't prepared to defend the Faith, still aren't prepared to account for our joy in Jesus Christ and His Church. Even after the great teaching pontificates of Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as Kresta said, the hay is still in the lofts of the barns and hasn't reached the horses below. But so many lay evangelists have labored to get their messages out--the entire "Theology of the Body" effort for example. George Weigel has written and spoken about Blessed John Paul II in books, articles, interviews, and speeches. Father Charles Connor presented a season of exploring "The Thought of Pope Benedict XVI" on EWTN. Ignatius Press has published dozens of Pope Benedict/Joseph Ratzinger's books before and during his papacy. I don't think it's for lack of effort on the part of teachers. Many of them have been in the loft, preparing the hay for our consumption.

Perhaps it's us, the students--switching metaphors from the farm to the classroom--who aren't attentive and don't take the time to listen and learn. (We have met the enemy--the danger to the Faith--and he is us!) Or to quote G.K. Chesterton's response to the question "What's wrong with the world?"--"I am." "What's wrong  with the Church?" "I am."

So, if you are in Wichita, Kansas on February 21 and want to read Chesterton on Catholicism, you're welcome to come to Eighth Day Books (2838 East Douglas) at 6:30 p.m. We'll enjoy some pre-Lenten snacks and discuss the first ten essays in The Thing. Eighth Day Books should have Volume III of Chesterton's Collected Works in stock. Warren, the proprietor, has C. S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, George MacDonald, Charles Williams, et al, in a special section on the first floor. 

As a sample, here's an excerpt from the essay titled "Why I am a Catholic," in which Chesterton discusses the Dissolution of the Monasteries:

It Is perfectly true that we can find real wrongs, provoking rebellion, in the Roman Church just before the Reformation.  What we cannot find is one of those real wrongs that the Reformation reformed. For instance, it was an abominable abuse that the corruption of the monasteries sometimes permitted a rich noble to play the patron and even play at being the Abbot, or draw on the revenues supposed to belong to a brotherhood of poverty and charity.  But all that the Reformation did was to allow the same rich noble to take over ALL the revenue, to seize the whole house and turn it into a palace or a pig-sty, and utterly stamp out the last legend of the poor brotherhood.

Historical Apologetics @ Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Homiletic & Pastoral Review, which recently went to a web-only format, published an article I submitted on "Knowing Enough History to Defend It: Catholic History and Apologetics":

While many seem to disregard the study of history as a wasteful pastime, events in Catholic Church history are often used to attack us. Based on ignorance, prejudice, or confusion, people know, or think they know, something about our Church’s past that is scandalous, cruel, or just bad. They use this misinformation or some distorted view of an event to attack the Church’s credibility on current moral issues, as if to say an institution that can perpetrate such misdeeds in the past can’t tell me what to do with my body (artificial birth control, abortion, fornication, etc.); it can’t tell me what’s right and what’s wrong.

Catholics should be prepared with at least a brief reply to commonly cited events and issues in the Church’s two millennia past. In the words of Blessed John Henry Newman, we need to be Catholics “who know so much of history that (we) can defend it.” We might not be able to change someone’s mind when she asks us about why the Church was so mean to Galileo, but at least we can demonstrate that we know our history. If she’s not willing to listen to a dissertation-length explanation, a few points might help her understand better. The fact that we know may impress her, open the door to more friendly conversation, and grant an opportunity to witness the reason for our joy in being Catholic. This article offers some guidelines and hints for answering these historical questions.

Please read the rest there. I meant for it to be a survey of helpful hints on answering common questions about Church History, inspired by Blessed John Henry Newman. If you want to read the original--that is, Blessed John Henry Newman--on Church History, you should peruse the five letters he wrote to John Rickards Mozley, his nephew. When Newman speaks about the "light" side of the Catholic Church, he is much more eloquent than I am:

But leaving the highest and truest outcome of the Catholic Church and descending to history, certainly I would maintain firmly, with most writers on the Evidences, that, as the Church has a dark side, so (as you do not seem to admit) it has a light side also, and that its good has been more potent and permanent and evidently intrinsic to it than its evil. Here, of course, we have to rely on the narrative of historians, if we have not made a study of original documents ourselves. It would be a long business (assuming their correctness), but an easy business too, to show how Christianity has raised the moral standard, tone, and customs of human society; and it must be recollected that for 1500 years Christianity and the Catholic Church are in history identical. The care and elevation of the lower classes, the championship of the weak against the powerful, the abolition of slavery, hospitals, the redemption of captives, education of children, agriculture, literature, the cultivation of the virtues of piety, devotion, justice, charity, chastity, family affection, are all historical monuments of the influence and teaching of the Church. Turn to the non-Catholic historians, to Gibbon, Voigt, Hurter, Guizot, Ranke, Waddington, Bowden, Milman, and you will find that they agree in their praises, as well as in their accusations, of the Catholic Church. Guizot says that Christianity would not have weathered the barbarism of the Middle Age but for the Church. Milman says almost or altogether the same. Neander sings the praises of the monks. Hurter was converted by his historical researches. Ranke shows how the Popes fought against the savageness of the Spanish Inquisition. Bowden brings out visibly how the cause of Hildebrand was the cause of religion and morals. If in the long line there be bad as well as good Popes, do not forget that long succession, continuous and thick, of holy and heroic men, all subjects of the Popes, and most of them his direct instruments in the most noble and serviceable and most various works, and some of them Popes themselves, such as Patrick, Leo, Gregory, Augustine, Boniface, Columban, Alfred, Wulstan, Queen Margaret of Scotland, Louis IX., Vincent Ferrer, Las Casas, Turibius, Xavier, Vincent of Paul—all of whom, as multitudes besides, in their day were the life of religion.

And when he answers his nephew's questions about the St. Bartholomew Day's Massacre and the "bad" popes, Newman is direct and "unapologetic" with his apologetics:

I think such insane acts as St. Bartholomew's Massacre were prompted by mortal fear. The French Court considered (rightly or wrongly) that if they did not murder the Huguenots, the Huguenots would murder them. Thus I explain Pope Gregory's hasty approbation of so great a crime, without waiting to hear both sides. After a period of luxury and sloth, the sudden outburst of the Reformation frightened the Court of Rome out of its wits, and there were those who thought the one thing needful was to put it down anyhow, as the destruction, at least eventually, of all religion, morality, and society. Perhaps they were right in this fear; and thus they got mixed up with mere politicians, unscrupulous men, and became in the eyes of posterity answerable for deeds which were not properly theirs. I was reading the other day a defence of Pius V. against Lord Acton, the point of which was that in no sense was it the Pope who sanctioned the plot for assassinating Elizabeth, but, the Duke of Alva. Yet who can deny, true as this may be, still that to readers of history the Pope and the Duke are in one boat? Then, again, their agents, or the sovereigns who sought their sanction for certain courses or measures, went far beyond the intention of the Popes, who nevertheless, from their political entanglements, could not resume the powers that they had once given over to them. A large society, such as the Church, is necessarily a political power, and to touch politics is to touch pitch. A private Catholic is not answerable for the Pope's political errors, any more than the shareholder in a railway in 1875 is answerable for the railway's accidents in 1860, nay, or in 1875.

You say that at least the Popes ought publicly to confess, when it is proved they have gone wrong. Does Queen Victoria confess the sins of George IV.? Do principals feel it generous to abandon their subordinates, or loyal children acquiesce in attacks on their parents? As to controversialists, they are pleaders at a bar, and are afraid to make admissions lest these should be turned against them. To speak out is in the long run the wisest, the most expedient, the most noble policy; seldom the possible, or the natural. Why are private memoirs kept back from publication for thirty or sixty years? No party can be kept together if there is no reticence. But in fact, except among controversialists, there is no want of candour and frankness among us; witness the fact that Protestant attacks on us generally are drawn from the admissions of Catholics. Baronius, writing under the Pope's eye, speaks in the strongest terms of the evil state of the Popedom in the dark age; Rinaldus, his continuator, speaks against Alexander VI.; St. Bernard, St. Thomas, and many others speak against the conduct of the Roman See in their own times. So do Pope Adrian VI., Paul IV., &c. So do holy women in their writings, such as St. Bridget.

Book Review: Rebuilding Catholic Culture

One of my summer reading picks for the Son Rise Morning Show Friday.

I received this book as a premium for making a contribution to PRI (Population Research Institute).

Book description from Sophia Institute Press:

Rarely does a book come along that so succinctly explains the decline of modern culture, articulates a defense of the Church's teachings, and offers a hope-filled path for building a civilization grounded in Catholic truth.
In these pages, Dr. Ryan Topping does all three, pulling back the curtain on the false philosophies of the secularists and showing that in the West today the most formidable threat to freedom is not failing economies or Islam, but secularism. Our best defense, he claims, is a vibrant Catholic culture, and our best hope for creating it lies in the principles found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
This book takes you on a masterful journey through the relevant portions of the Catechism, distilling sophisticated theological concepts into words that are simple, clear, and direct, while unpacking its core teachings on faith and morals that nurture true civilizations.
In Rebuilding Catholic Culture, you'll also discover sensible ways to begin restoring Catholic culture — right now — in your own life and family, and in our larger communities as well: in the theater, the classroom, in our hospitals, and even in the public square.
This profoundly accessible book will renew your confidence in the world-transforming character of our Creed and in the potency of our Faith to shape and redefine the culture of the West.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Aidan Nichols, OP
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. On Faith: How Catholics Believe
2. On the Creed: Why Christology Matters
3. On Worship: How Liturgy Transforms
4. On Sacraments: When the World Is Enchanted
5. On Virtue: How Character Forms Conscience
6. On Law: What Love Commands
7. On the Family: How Love Grows
8. On Prayer: What Christ Pleads
Conclusion
Bibliography
Image Credits
About the Author
Index

The organization of the book is very neat, you see: two chapters each for the four parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Dogma; Liturgy; Morality; Prayer: Faith and the Creed; Worship and the Sacraments; Virtue and the Law; Family and Prayer. Throughout the book, Topping considers the state of Catholic culture today, examining the impact of the Second Vatican Council, secularization, etc, and often juxtaposing the decline of Catholic culture with the teachings of the Church in the Catechism. So modern church architecture ignores the role of beauty and order in liturgy; modern thought about conscience, as expressed by Robert Bolt in A Man for All Seasons, contrasts to the true meaning of conscience; current ideas about marriage contrast with the true definition of marriage, the family, and children, etc. I particularly enjoyed Topping's section on Dante's Purgatorio, with the introduction that its only in that part of the Divine Comedy that there is any conflict and drama: the souls in Hell have no hope; the souls in Heaven have all they need and want: the souls in Purgatory are working to expiate the punishments for their sins on earth--they have hope, they will progress, they will achieve sanctification, and they will join the saints in Heaven. The motto for Purgatory, in contrast to Hell, could be "Embrace hope, all ye who enter here."

Another aspect of this book I appreciated is that Topping gives us insight into the decline of Catholic culture in Canada and the triumph of secularism there. Topping offers sketches of a history similar to Russell Shaw's comprehensive American Church, tracing a story of accommodation and acculturation.

I agree with the publisher's blurb that this book "will renew your confidence in the world-transforming character of our Creed and in the potency of our Faith to shape and redefine the culture of the West", but it still makes me sad that we have had to undergo such decline and fall.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Catholicism Pure and Simple

Books are marvelous things: there just cannot be too many of them (although my husband might demur) because each one of them is a human voice speaking human thoughts to another. There are many books of Catholic apologetics, many books that explain what the Catholic Church teaches--some are basic, some are detailed and advanced, some are encyclopedic and designed for quick reference--and each serves a purpose for different readers. Father Dwight Longenecker states his purpose and the outline of his book Catholicism Pure and Simple clearly:

This book presents the basics of the Catholic faith in simple, straightforward language. You will not find here complex philosophical arguments, insider churchy talk or complicated theological language. I have avoided hi-falutin' references and obscure quotations. There aren't any academic notes or quotes in Greek, Latin and Aramaic. This is meat and potatoes religion. This book does not answer all the questions or make all the arguments. It simply starts by explaining why we believe God exists, and then goes on, step by step to explain who Jesus Christ is, what his life and death mean and how the Catholic Church came about. It explains what it means to be a Catholic and how one lives the Catholic faith. This book is an excellent text book for someone who is in RCIA or confirmation class. It also provides an excellent back-up and refresher course for Catholics to know their faith better.

Although he does not use "complex philosophical arguments", Father Longenecker does begin with common philosophical issues--religion and human nature; suffering and free will; human longing for meaning and love; happiness, morality, creation and order, the meaning of life--and addresses the reader directly in discussing these issues in the first section, "Is Anybody There?" He then reviews the history of Revelation from the Old Testament to set up his presentation on Jesus in Section Two, "The God Man."

After an introductory chapter in which he addresses God's plan to go beyond the prophets and kings of the Old Covenant by sending His Son to bridge the divide between God and man, Longenecker begins the story of Jesus with His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary--who, in her Immaculate Conception, "was simply all that a human woman should be." He makes an excellent connection between her free will "Yes" to the angel's message of the Annunciation and God's preserving her from all sin so that she would be able to make that decision: "this fulness of God's grace meant that Mary was fully human and fully free."

In the next four chapters, Father Longenecker describes Jesus's life and death, His teachings and actions, the miracles and healings; His revelation of the Father, His Passion and Death, and of course, His Resurrection and appearance to His followers.

Section Three, "The Fire of Life" covers the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the transformation of the Apostles, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity--and the meaning of these actions in our lives with our Baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls; our transformation; our cooperation with God's work in the world; the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit; and the Church.

Section Four, "The Great Battle" lays out the struggle between good and evil in the world, and our individual role in battling against evil (and working for good)! This brings Father Longenecker to the Sacraments and Prayer, The Holy Bible, saints and the Church--with a special chapter on the Holy Eucharist in the chapter aptly titled "The Ultimate Weapon"!

Section Five, "Welcome Home" is focused on the Catholic Church, from the viewpoint of the Parish, Church History (including the Great Schism and the Reformation), the hierarchy and the Magisterium, and the uniqueness of the Church as both Divine and human, Holy and sinful, Perfect and wounded, Infallible and yet capable of personal error. Finally, Longenecker addresses the Four Last Things: Heaven and Hell, Death an Judgment, providing a very coherent overview of Purgatory.

Father Longenecker sent me a free copy of his book in return for my honest opinion and review. His vocation as a pastor and as a father (he is a former Anglican minister, a married man who was ordained a Catholic priest under Blessed John Paul II's "pastoral provision" for former Anglican ministers) shines forth in every page on this book as he anticipates and addresses common concerns and issues. He blogs here and his website is here.

Support a Catholic Speaker Month (SCSM)

I'm participating in the 2012 edition of Support a Catholic Speaker Month hosted by Brandon Vogt. On my C.V., I cite one of my few speaking engagements (with a full-time job, I don't get around that much:)

Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri Diocese’s Bishop Helmsing Institute Apologetics Conference Presentations: "How Catholics Survived the English Reformation" and "Church History and Apologetics", March 13, 2010

The Keynote Speaker at the Apologetics Conference was Jim Burnham of St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers :

Jim Burnham is an internationally known cradle-Catholic author and speaker. He is the second-born of ten children. Jim and his wife, Lisa, have been married 11 years and have five children.

In 1989, Jim graduated as valedictorian from Michigan's Hillsdale College with a degree in philosophy.Questions from evangelical class-mates forced Jim to rediscover the amazing biblical and historical basis for his Catholic Faith.

Shortly thereafter, Jim and his father founded San Juan Catholic Seminars, a lay organization devoted to explaining and defending the Catholic faith. At first, it only presented out-of-town speakers. Then Jim teamed up with a local priest, Father Frank Chacon, to give local seminars themselves. Since then, San Juan Catholic Seminars has grown into a full-fledged apologetics ministry, offering seminars, tapes, and the hugely popular series of Beginning Apologetics booklets.

Jim has given "practical apologetics" seminars all over the world. He is on Catholic Answers' speaking bureau. He has appeared on EWTN's "Carpenter's Shop" series, as well as many Catholic radio shows. Jim is the co-author, with Steve Wood, of Christian Fatherhood.

When I contacted Jim, he remembered meeting both me and my husband, Mark. I reviewed my notes from his talks and would highly recommend him as a speaker. He integrated Church history into his apologetics talks very well and with his practical background in apologetics, he provides both experience in delivering and knowledge in conveying the truth.

St. Edmund Campion in St. John's Chapel, Tower of London

Fresh from his latest torture session, bereft of books or any sources but his memory and his wit, the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion debated, with other seminary priests, a group of Protestant divines on August 31, 1581. They all had a copy of his book, "Rationes Decem" and they could ask him questions, while he could only answer questions, not ask them. This was the first of four debates and was held in the Chapel of St. John in the Tower of London (image to the left from wikipedia commons).  Campion had offered the challenge to hold such debates, but perhaps had not reckoned with the fairness of the situation.

James V. Holleran recounts the story of these debates, records and reports of them in his 1999 book, A Jesuit Challenge: Edmund Campion's Debates at the Tower of London in 1581, published by Fordham University Press. As Holleran notes, Campion's "Brag" to the Queen's Council called for these debates and his "Ten Reasons" gave the debates their starting point. A brief summary of the Ten Reasons:

1. Protestants reject the parts of Scripture that don't support their doctrine.
2. Protestants distort the parts of Scripture to support their doctrine.
3. Protestants have a weak notion of the Church.
4. Protestants should accept Catholic teaching on the Mass, the Communion of Saints, and the authority of the Pope as Vicar of Christ in His Church.
5. The Fathers of the Church don't support Protestant views of the Church, the Eucharist, the Communion of Saints, and the authority of the Pope as Vicar of Christ in His Church.
6. Protestants ignore the authority of the Fathers of the Church, even of the Apostolic Fathers, since they can't find support for their doctrine in their lives and works.
7. Anticipating Blessed John Henry Newman: "To be deep in [Church] history is to cease to be a Protestant": Church History does not support Protestant doctrine of the Church, the Sacraments, the Priesthood, etc.
8. Some bad Protestant mottos (like "good works are mortal sins")
9. General weakness of Protestant arguments (as against clerical celibacy because marriage is a good thing),
10. Catholicism is the True Christian religion, the Church founded by Jesus Christ on St. Peter and the Apostles (the Pope and the Bishops as their successors): for 1500 years, everyone agreed this was true.

The plan of the debates was to go through these Reasons with the Protestants asking Campion to defend his position. The debates did not go through all the Reasons because Campion did too well defending his position and the organizers did not want to allow Campion the opportunity the argument from history. Once he had the opportunity to remind the audience at the debates of England's Catholic history: monasticism, the close relationship with the Papacy, the saints of England, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Marian devotion (Our Lady of Walsingham), St. Augustine of Canterbury sent from the Pope to Canterbury, the beauty of the churches before desecration and destruction--as Campion would say after he and the other priests had been condemned to death, "In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors--all the ancient priests, bishops and kings--all that was once the glory of England, the island of Saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter. For what have we taught, however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these lights--not of England only, but of the world--by their degenerate descendants, is both gladness and glory to us." Te Deum Laudamus!

Here are some more resources on St. Edmund Campion from the Jesuit Institute, including the text of his "Brag" and a link to the Ten Reasons and this prayer:

Father,
throughout the ages you inspire heroic men and women
to preach your gospel
and proclaim the truth of your love.
We pray that the example of St Edmund Campion
may encourage us to stand up for what it right;
to hold to what is true;
and to love even those who persecute us,
for Christ's sake. Amen.

Charles Kingsley, RIP

Charles Kingsley died on January 23, 1875. Clergyman, proponent of "muscular Christianity", novelist (Westward Ho! and Water Babies), and Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, he also provoked Father John Henry Newman, Oratorian to write his Apologia pro Vita Sua in response to Kingsley's attacks on Newman's honesty--and that of all Catholic priests.

Kingsley had reviewed Froude's History of England in Macmillans Magazine and commented: "truth, for its own sake had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy . . . [and] Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage."

Although Newman contacted Kingsley asking him to point out where and when he had ever said such a thing, Kingsley ignored that question and just offered an apology.

An exchange of letters ensued which resulted in Newman's pamphlet Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Newman: A Correspondence on the Question Whether Dr. Newman Teaches That Truth is No Virtue. Instead of letting the matter drop, Kingsley flailed out in his own pamphlet: "What, Then, Does Dr. Newman Mean?" A Reply to a Pamphlet Lately Published by Dr. Newman. In his pamphlet Kingsley foolishly broadened his charge: not only had Newman made a statement he denied having made and which Kingsley was unable to locate, Newman had also lived a dishonest life. Throughout that text, Kingsley presents one of his main themes (found for instance in his novel Westward, Ho!): that there is something un-English about Catholicism, that the latter is foreign, deceptive, and manipulative--and that somehow becoming Catholic (Romish, Romanist are Kingsley's perferred terms) Newman had betrayed his country, wasted his Oxford education, and ignored the virtues of his English heritage.

Of course the Apologia pro Vita Sua put the lie to that charge, vindicated Newman completely, and made Kingsley look rather ridiculous. Kingsley was not sophisticated enough to face Newman's argument and persona; I remember reading that their verbal duel was like a country bumpkin challenging a trained swordsman, the former armed with a stick, the latter with a fine rapier. By giving Newman the occasion to write about his religious opinions from his youth to his conversion to Catholicism to demonstrate his honesty, Kingsley also gave Newman the opportunity to convince Anglicans who had remained in the Oxford Movement that he had been sincere in his efforts in that cause and to persuade Catholics that he was truly a Catholic, not with one foot in Canterbury and the other in Rome.

Newman Center Presentation Next Week

The St. Paul Parish/Newman Center at Wichita State University is very dear to me, as I've noted before. It was there that I made an adult commitment to practicing my Catholic faith as fully and truly as God's grace and my cooperation makes possible--where I met my husband Mark--where I discovered Blessed John Henry Newman--where I made some great friends--where I learned to love beauty, history, literature, the good, the true and the beautiful. All in a Catholic student center! (And we had dances, too!)

I'll be going back there next week (Wednesday, October 12) to make a presentation on "Church History and Apologetics", giving the students--WSU/the Newman Center has welcomed a big freshman class from the local Catholic high schools this year--some tools for understanding Church History and answering common objections. My presentation is part of a series on "Catholicism for College Students". I'm sure the Newman Center would welcome any "student" who wants to learn more about the Catholic Church!

Also, please pray to Blessed John Henry Newman that I present the Truth about the Catholic Church with charity and clarity. Thank you!