I vividly remember World Youth Day 1993. It was held in Denver, and Catholic Answers staffers were there to distribute our then-new booklet Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth. Young Catholics had come from all over the world to see John Paul II. They saw him, but they also saw dozens of anti-Catholics who were distributing literature that looked Catholic on the cover but was anything but Catholic inside.
At one major downtown intersection the anti-Catholics not only manned the street corners but even stood at the traffic island in the middle of the crosswalk. As young Catholics passed by, the anti-Catholics handed out their tracts. The tracts seemed to be everywhere, and with good reason—these groups had been planning their maneuvers for months. One of them, called Christians Evangelizing Catholics, I knew particularly well, since I had debated its founder several times.
There were so many groups trying to “save” Catholics that they seemed to be crowding one another for the best locations. Particularly prominent were offshoots of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. These groups distributed a book by their religion’s founder, Ellen Gould White, who claimed the papacy was the seat of the Antichrist. Other groups were subtler. One of them handed out a booklet with an attractive drawing of Mary on the cover. It looked like a Catholic devotional work, but inside was a condemnation of Catholic Marian doctrines.
Many young Catholics, when made aware that the materials being distributed by these groups were intended to undermine their faith, did not sit by passively. When I pointed out to some of them that a particular hawker was giving out booklets that attacked their faith, they surrounded him and peppered him with questions until he finally withdrew. Many who had come to Denver just to listen found themselves turning into budding apologists. (One youth boasted to me that he had “liberated” and thrown away stacks of materials used by one anti-Catholic. I said I appreciated his zeal but that the faith did not need to be defended by petty theft. He got the point.)
By the end of that particular World Youth Day there seemed to be not a single young person who did not have a copy of Pillar sticking out of his back pocket or knapsack. Our booklet was undoubtedly the most popular—and most read—piece of literature in town. I was pleased at that, of course; but I wondered what might have happened if Catholic Answers had not been there to counter the opponents of the faith. How many young Catholics would have gone home happy to have seen the Holy Father but more confused than ever about what they were supposed to believe? I think we helped save some of them from “unpoping,” and we have been doing that at each World Youth Day since. I look forward to this year’s event, which will be held in Toronto. Perhaps I will find my old debating opponent there, still trying to make real Christians out of Catholics.