Should Catholics Mix With Protestants?

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Colorado Springs Gazette, with the title “Protestant Services Not Okay for Catholics. ‘Roman Catholics should avoid Protestant services no matter how good the music is.’ That’s the word from Peter Howard, executive assistant to Bishop Michael Sheridan, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs. Howard says Catholics who split time between their parishes and contemporary Protestant megachurches are violating church teaching. Howard addressed the issue in a column for the October 7 Colorado Catholic Herald, the Diocesan newspaper. The column was titled “Why Not Attend New Life?” a reference to New Life Church, the city’s largest nondenominational congregation, which attracts thousands of Catholics every week. 

“Catholic doctrine holds that it is the only manifestation of the faith, and that all other denominations must eventually return to the Catholic fold. 

“In his column, Howard wrote that the Church has consistently discouraged Catholics from going to Protestant services, even if they also attend Mass. He quoted Pope Pious XI, pope from 1922-1939, who said, ‘The apostolic seed cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, for if they do so, they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity quite alien to the one Church of Christ.’ 

“Howard said Catholic children should stay away from Protestant youth groups, which often are designed to attract new church attendees. Bible studies are okay, but Howard says, ‘Catholics would go into such studies with different mindsets than Protestants. They have, after all, 2,000 years worth of Catholic teaching that guides their understanding of the Bible. That’s why it would be difficult for a Catholic to go to a Bible study unless their intention was to help guide Protestants,’ Howard said. 

“‘Churches like New Life are open about their mission to convert non-believers, but Catholics are Christian already,’ the Reverend Ted Haggard says. ‘New Life doesn’t try to convert Catholics. We want to be a blessing to the Catholic Church,’ said Haggard, senior pastor for New Life. ‘We just want to encourage people in their spiritual walk.’ He said New Life would never restrict its attendees from becoming Catholic or attending Catholic Mass, but he doesn’t take issue with Howard’s column.”

Tom: Dave, this is somewhat controversial. A couple of weeks later Bishop Sheridan issued a statement saying that his assistant was out of line in what he said, and he doesn’t go into details, but he apologized for the statements. But, Dave, there’s nothing that this assistant said that wasn’t true, and true to Roman Catholicism.

Dave: Absolutely.

Tom: But you know, my greatest concern here—having been a Catholic 30 years, I understand Catholicism and so on—but my greatest concern here is what Ted Haggard had to say. What is going on here? I know he’s the head of National Association of Evangelicals. He promotes his own ecumenism, but what is he doing here? Does he understand the gospel? Does he understand the gospel of Rome? This is really unforgivable as far as I’m concerned.

Dave: Tom, it actually relates to what we were just talking about: how can Ayatollah Khomeini say, “Everyone who loves freedom, stand for liberty of conscience and so forth, why, they would love Islam!” when Islam is the very antithesis of that, the most oppressive religion the world has ever seen, and yet apparently he said it with a good conscience and really meant it! So how can Ted Haggard—I presume he believes the gospel; he claims to be an evangelical. The Catholic Church denies the gospel, the Mass—I mean, we’ve been over this many times in this program…

Tom: Sure. It’s works salvation; it’s a process according to the Church of Rome.

Dave: The Mass denies that Christ finished the work on the cross, although He said, “It is finished.” And the Mass purports to offer Christ over and over and over, and there is an anathema in the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent that says, “Whoever denies that the sacrifice of the Mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the living and the dead, let him be anathema.” 

“You dare to say this is only in remembrance of a sacrifice Christ completed on the cross, anathema to you. We damn you to hell.”

Okay, so it’s very clear—as you said, it’s a works religion. You have to do certain things, and you can recite them—like attend Mass on certain holy holidays…

Tom: Dave, for a convert, somebody to convert to Roman Catholicism, they have to do works just to show that they’re worthy of becoming Catholic. So right from the get-go, not just that you need baptism in order to find salvation in Roman Catholicism…

Dave: And the Bible offers salvation, as Jesus said, “to those who believe”—that in trusting Him, they have passed from death to life and will never come into condemnation. But the Catholic Church holds out purgatory, and you’ve got to have Mass after Mass said to get you out of there. 

So, now let me just read again what he said: “We want to be a blessing to the Catholic Church. We want to encourage people in their spiritual walk.” What spiritual walk is this? It’s a false walk! They’re being deceived by the Catholic Church. 

I often say, Tom, the people I sit—the many people sitting next to me on airplanes who are Catholics—if Catholics believe what the Bible teaches, the Catholic Church is out of business, because that’s its function is to get people to heaven. 

Okay, well, so he wants to encourage them in their spiritual walk—this is like Mother Theresa saying, “I just want you to believe in God as you conceive him to be. If you’re a Buddhist, I’ll help you become a better Buddhist,” and so forth. 

He said, “New Life would never restrict its attendees from becoming Catholic.” What! So apparently he believes there is no difference in the gospel, that Catholics believe and teach and practice no different from the gospel of the Bible when, in fact, they are absolutely diametrically opposed to one another.

So, Tom, it goes back to what we were talking about: the world has gone mad! You ask me how I explain the open contradiction between what Muslim countries profess in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the UN and what they practice, I’ll ask you: How do you explain the contradiction right here that we’ve been dealing with?

Tom: Dave, you quoted Jeremiah:17:9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
See All..., but I want to throw this in: what we’re seeing is that people are becoming comfortable by holding two contradictory thoughts, and they’re rationalizing that away that there is a problem there!

Dave: So words have lost their meaning now. They don’t mean anything anymore.