For Some People it is Always the 19th Century

Francis Beckwith linked this series of talks by Pastor Tony Bartolucci that critique Beckwith's book on his return to Catholicism, "Return to Rome."  Beckwith is very charitable in saying that he is honored by the attention paid to his work, even thought the attention is critical.

Pastor Bartolucci begins his talk with this story from a slightly older pastor, the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen as a way of setting up what he sees is the problem. Pastor Bartolucci observes:

During his introduction Dr. Bahnsen states:

I am going to preach a sermon to you . . . that in all honesty I never in all my life thought that I would do. I cannot imagine needing to preach this sermon. But I must. . . . I must preach, and others as well must preach, about a problem we are facing in our day and age that really is quite unexpected.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic community. . . . The vast majority of people around me who were religious . . . were not very much Evangelical Bible-believing Christians, they were Roman Catholics. . . . I knew what it meant for them to fornicate, to swear, to be drunk, to go to confession, have their mass, and to repeat it week after week after week. I knew what it was for them to adore Mary, to learn in their Missals how to pray to her. . . .

I didn't think people found Roman Catholic theology all that credible. When I saw people changing religiously it was in two ways as, I grew up. They either were converted--they left the Roman Catholic way of looking at things, or paganism, and came into the church of Jesus Christ believing that their sins were forgiven by the grace of God through the intercession of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atonement--they either became converted and Christians as we understand that born-again experience, or they left the Catholic Church and became even more pagan.

The problem according to Pastor Bartolucci pace Dr. Bahnsen is the inexplicable and mysterious phenomenon of apparently normal Protestants exchanging their living faith for the dead faith of Catholicism, filled as it is with unregenerate sinners of the kind that Dr. Bahnsen, and it seems Pastor Bartolucci, grew up with.

To which I noted in Beckwith's comments, "Wow!"  You just don't expec that kind of screed to be actually uttered by people living today.

Which lead commenter "Paul" to post: 

Peter, I have listened to all of part 1. I'm looking at the transcript now and I'm having trouble finding the "anti-catholic diatribe". Maybe you could provide an example or perhaps define "anti-catholic diatribe"?

To which I responded, after picking out some of the obvious statements made by Pastor Bartolucci (in italics):

With all due respect, are you serious?

I hate to say this , but if a person can't see that Pastor Baroloucci's plays on classic Anti-Catholic tropes, that person needs to take the beam out of hi own eye before ever complaining about the mote in his neighbor's eye.

The difference between playing the bigot card and making a non-bigoted, reasoned argument for the superiority of one system over another in general turns on the extent to which one makes an appeal to the themes and tropes of bigotry. Such tropes are invariably used to trigger sub-rational emotional responses of agreement rather than to advance a reasoned argument. We know, for example, that one such silly anti-catholic trope among Protestants is the notion that Catholicism is a dead religion of works. Protestants have essentially read Catholics into the role of Jewish legalism in their misreading of Paul.

So, not even dealing with Pastor Bartoloucci’s many strawmen arguments, but focusing on his use of subrational tropes that appeal to traditions of Protestant bigotry, we see:

(Quoting Dr. Bahnsen:) I knew what it meant for them to fornicate, to swear, to be drunk, to go to confession, have their mass, and to repeat it week after week after week.


Now, isn’t that a classic? Those Catholics, drinking and fornicating all week – unlike the upscale and well-behaved Protestants – only to go to confession on Saturday, just to start over again like the foreign riff-raff that they are.

Because, obviously, no properly American Protestant would ever fornicate and drink during the week.

Come one, this one goes back to the 19th Century. I’m amazed that it is still being recycled in the 21st. It’s such a cliché that it is painful to read.

This isn’t quoting Father Flannery over a drink at the local bar.

I’m sorry was that an Irish priest? Drinking? At a bar?

How like them Irish Catholics with their weekly fornicating and drinking.

Because, again, we know that a good reformed Presbyterian would never go to a bar for a drink.

But them Irish with their priests, you know how they are.

Seriously?

In fact, as a new Christian I held the Roman Catholic Church in contempt. Not the rank and file of the people mind you, but the system and those that promoted it. I looked at it as a false religion that promised heaven but delivered hell.


Yup, he’s got no problem with the rank and file, except for their weekly fornicating and drinking and going for drinks with Father Flannigan at the local bar to talk about Nostra Aetate.

But, heck, it’s not anything that having the “true gospel” won’t fix, because no one with the “true gospel” ever goes out and drinks or fornicates because all saved Protestants are going to Heaven and never misbehave.


So sorry, Francis, they could not have stayed within the stench of dead religiosity, and those that go back to that prove that they were not regenerate in the first place.

Right, so those like me are just plain idiots who can’t smell the stench of dead religiosity. How weird that I don’t find it dead.

Hey, I guess I’m one of those weekly fornicating, drinking and swearing guys.

The American Episcopal Church is to Rome what marijuana is to heroin. It serves as a nice stepping stone to a greater high (or a greater evil)

Nothing hateful, bigoted or anti-catholic in that analogy.

You have to admire Pastor Bartoloucci's willingness to smear the the Episcopalians with the anti-catholic brush.


Regarding the singer Dion’s return to Catholicism: I sat there staring at the computer in dismay. I literally felt the blood run from my face. How could he do such a thing?

Perhaps, Dion maturely found a more complete truth in the Catholic Church?

Nah, that's not possible. The answer must be that Dion's been perverted by Satan, like all those "rank and file" Catholics, with their weekly drinking and fornicating and confessions, but likes the rank and file.

At some point it all begins to sound like the Left who will describe American soldiers as rapists and murderers, but will always emphasize that they "support the troops."

No one was more key in that regard than a man that I would later weep over (along with his wife) for his defection to Roman Catholicism.

And that wasn’t when he was a child. But, then, who can blame him when his former church leader starts to run around with drinkers and fornicators.

Hey, what was wrong with Pastor Bartoloucci if he only learned that one of his major supporters had never been regenerated until after that man had left for Catholicism. What if everyone in his congregation is like this man and isn't entirely regenerated?
 
Cue spooky music.


There is no life-saving Gospel in Rome!

That simply hasn’t been my experience, but what do I know, I'm Catholic and so by definition part of that weekly drinking and fornicating and confessing crowd that takes the old Irish priest out to get bombed.

Hey, and I'm Irish also, so obviously I'm an alcoholic.

I've jokingly stated that Pope Benedict should award him a plenary indulgence for what he has done to advance the Church's efforts to bring Protestants "back home to Rome!"

Stop it, Pastor, you're killing me!

There's nothing that doesn't bring a bunch of 17th Century Protestants a good belly-laugh like an indulgence joke.

These are all very, very old anti-catholic tropes. I have no problem with anyone celebrating the strengths of Protestantism. Give me a few seconds and I could dash out my paean of praise to Protestantism. But this one sided appeal to the popular prejudice of Protestants is unchristian to say the least.

Paul, of course, could not see why these statements weren't merely fair and true expressions of plain-to-see facts.  So, I explained, and then Paul wanted to bring up ghastly things said by Catholics, to which I asked if that made it "all good" for Pastor Bartolucci to say.  On reflection, I guess this means that Paul is able to spot bigotry when he wants.

Anyhow, for a ride through the 19th Century, take a look at the comments, particularly when the uber-Calvinist shock cadre arrive.