North of the Shire

Anti-Catholic

One particular anti-Catholic of note today was brought to my attention through John Martignoni’s Newsletters(138, 139). His name is Mike Gendron and his mission, at least in a principle part, is to evangelize Catholics. In the world of apologetics that makes him fair game for direct and public response, and once one gets a taste of his imflammatory rhetoric, one ceases to be overly concerned with gentleness of response, or any nuance of the truth.

Seeking the Truth

Here’s a quote from an Apostolic Exhortation called “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” that Pope John Paul II issued on December 2, 1984. This is an important document here because it is the source of a quotation that Mike Gendron uses to misrepresent Catholic teaching. The following deals with our approach to those, among others, who are outside of communion with the Church, such as Mike Gendron.

It should be repeated that, on the part of the church and her members, dialogue, whatever form it takes (and these forms can be and are very diverse since the very concept of dialogue has an analogical value) can never begin from an attitude of indifference to the truth. On the contrary, it must begin from a presentation of the truth, offered in a calm way, with respect for the intelligence and consciences of others. The dialogue of reconciliation can never replace or attenuate the proclamation of the truth of the Gospel, the precise goal of which is conversion from sin and communion with Christ and the church. It must be at the service of the transmission and realization of that truth through the means left by Christ to the church for the pastoral activity of reconciliation, namely catechesis and penance. #25 Dialogue

“…can never begin from an attitude of indifference to the truth.” Absolutely right. And that is what apologetics is about, seeking out the truth and in this case exposing misrepresentations of the truth.

Evangelicals and Catholics Divided

On Mike Gendron’s website, http://pro-gospel.org, he has a talk that he gave at Dallas Theological Seminary, entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Divided” which can be found here in video format.

As the title might suggest to those who have been keeping track of ecumenical activities, Gendron is opposed to the organization called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” and any of the documents of agreement on given issues that they may have issued. In the first part of his talk he makes that abundantly clear, along with a growing pile of invective and hate filled rhetoric against the Catholic Church, including some very offensive characterizations.

A quote from the Catechism

One such characterization and the first to be supported with an actual quote from some form of Catholic teaching is the following which I have transcribed in the relevant part. Just prior to this he describes the lie that Satan presented to Eve in the Garden of Eden, in which Satan accused God of lying to Adam and Eve about the consequences of eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. His rendering of the story of the Fall of mankind presents no theological disagreement so I will not quote it. Rather we pick up as he continues. He says;

…we see that Satan’s strategy is still working today, because now Satan asks the question, “has God indeed said, the wages of sin is death?” Speaking through Roman Catholic clergy he repeats his lie, saying, “you shall not die”. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” venial sin does not break the covenant with God or deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity and consequently eternal happiness.” The lie of the devil is being perpetrated even today…

The quote in context

The quote I have highlighted indeed does come from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1863 as follows;

1863 Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness.”134
While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call “light”: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession.135

His quotation mentions breaking the covenant with God which actually occurs in another place so there he has not misrepresented the meaning. However, he has misrepresented the entire section of the Catechism wherein it discusses the levels of sin, venial being only one of those. The other is mortal sin, and of course there is the sin that most Evangelicals will agree exists, whether or not they agree what it is, namely what has been called the “unpardonable sin”. #1864;

The unforgivable sin

“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”

That is quoted from Matthew 12:31. Mark 3:29 repeats this;

[28]“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;[29] but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

And also Luke 12:10;

[10]And every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

It is important to give those quotations for they will be relevant later as well.

The misrepresentation

What we have then is a selective use of the Catechism at the very least, omitting the fact that in the teaching of the Catholic Church there is also something called “mortal sin” which does lead to death, and that statement in the Catechism explodes Gendron’s theory that the Catholic Church is perpetuating the lie of Satan that the wages of sin is not death.

#1854 and #1855 give us a summary of the whole picture;

1854 Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. The distinction between mortal and venial sin, already evident in Scripture,129 became part of the tradition of the Church. It is corroborated by human experience.

1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

The Scriptural source

The highlighted part with footnote 129, which Mike Gendron is also capable of researching, refers to 1 John 5:16-17;

[16] If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that.
[17] All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.

Clearly St. John is speaking of different levels of sin here, with an emphasis on that which is mortal, or in other words deadly in an of itself. By contrast then, he is also asserting that there is sin that is not mortal.

Whatever can he mean? The Catechism, in the section quoted from, when one reads the entire section in context, is explaining exactly what is meant. (#1854 through #1864)

He disagrees with John the Apostle

Does Mike Gendron want to quibble with John the Apostle on this? Does he not believe in Sola Scriptura? He certainly asserts the authority of Scripture several times in his talk.

But let us proceed.

The source of the quote in the Catechism

The quotation that he cited from the Catechism is itself a quotation from John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation, “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” which itself adds, if quoted in full, a reference to mortal sin;

For this reason venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity and therefore eternal happiness, whereas just such a deprivation is precisely the consequence of mortal sin. #17

Heinous accusation

Now Mike Gendron has made the statement that Satan has been speaking through the Catholic clergy regarding venial sin. But we have shown that John the Apostle made the same statement as the Catechism. Was he also the tool of Satan? And therefore is the Scripture speaking the words of Satan through him? And if so, does that mean that the first Epistle of John was not inspired by the Holy Spirit but rather by Satan?

Those are strong charges, but ones which we must lay at the door of Mike Gendron, because he is making such a charge himself about the Catholic clergy who are repeating the thoughts of John the Apostle. Perhaps he ought to tone down his 18th and 19th Century Orange Lodge sounding bluster because he is slipping close to blasphemy, whether inadvertently or not.

A more civil approach

Perhaps he should be honest and say that he does not agree with the Catholic teaching on various levels of sin. That would of course entail that he make some kind of interpretive analysis of 1 John 5. It is clearly a chapter of Scripture that requires some deep thought and reflection, because no matter whether Protestant or Catholic, there are some statements that need to be read in the light of some theological creed or framework, because on the surface, in the “literalist” sense, they appear to be contradictory. They must be read in the larger context of all of Scripture to begin with, and they also, for we Catholics, must be read in the light of all of the Apostolic Tradition.

Do Christians, can Christians sin?

For example, the very next verse of 1 John 5, #18;

[18] We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.

It appears to be saying that if we are “born of God”, in other words Christian, we don’t sin. Some might say we can’t sin. Interesting. Yet who among us, Catholics or Protestants, is going to say that we have not sinned, since “getting saved” or being baptized, or put another way, since believing in Jesus Christ? And if we are into verse slinging we might want to go back to the first chapter of this very Epistle. 1 John 1;

[6] If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;
[7] but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
[8] If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
[9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[10] If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Forgiveness for Christians

Again, strong words. And who is he talking to? He is writing to fellow Christians. In the very first line of the second chapter he says;

My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;

What do John the Apostle and the Catholic Church believe?

Let’s go back over this in light of the Scripture we have just looked at from the first and second chapters of 1 John. As to what John the Apostle believes we can safely say that he believes just what the Catholic Church teaches. We as Christians can fall into sin, and the requirement in that case is forgiveness, for which we have an “advocate with the Father” in the person of Jesus Christ.

(Here we as Catholics would elaborate on the theme of advocacy, pointing out that this advocacy is Jesus Christ pointing to his own sacrifice on the cross, which same once-for-all sacrifice we participate in and offer up in union and communion with Jesus Christ and the whole Church at every mass)

Not only can Christians sin, although they ought not to if they appropriate the gift of power from God to resist sin (1 John 5:18), there is more than one kind of sin, the venial which is not sin unto death, and the mortal, which is sin unto death. Above and beyond that there is also the unpardonable sin.

And we also believe that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9) One manner of doing that is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Moreover, there is no sin, other than that one, that God cannot forgive, whether mortal or venial.

What does Mike Gendron believe?

An interesting question. We can see from the attack that he makes on the Church that he believes that there can be no such thing as a venial sin. All sin is mortal sin. Alright, but he must contend with the clear statement of John on that one.

If all sin is mortal sin, does he then believe in Once-Saved-Always-Saved as many Evangelical Protestants do? If so he would have to contend that John is not speaking to believers at all, otherwise why would he be warning them about deadly sin, if there was no chance that they might suffer the consequences of that sin, having already been saved? If on the other hand, he believed it was possible for a believer to fall into sin, all sins being deadly, and lose his salvation, then John’s reminder that forgiveness is always available if we confess our sins, does make sense in context.

If he were to read the Catechism a little more thoroughly in this section he would also find that that the Church teaches that the accumulation of venial, non-deadly sins, if not repented of and confessed, most often will lead a Christian into a place of mortal sin and separation from God.

Misrepresentation of Catholic teaching

Clearly, Mike Gendron’s accusation is a clear misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, whether or not he disagrees with the idea of more than one kind of sin. It seems that he is either being disingenuous, or very sloppy in researching what the Church does teach and in either case, for a man who’s professed mission is to lead Catholics from the darkness of false religion, he is knocking down straw men for those who do even a minimum of research. Moreover, in this case he has to answer John the Apostle on the issue.

This is the first that I have found in his talk and he is just getting started. Stay tuned.