Years ago I would frequent a discussion forum for locals in my hometown. The forum had a religion section, and the Catholic Church often took quite a beating there with no one to defend it. I was a recent revert to the Faith, and in my newfound zeal I took it upon myself to fill that void. Discussions about the Faith usually centered on it being “unscriptural.”
“Where is that in the Bible?” they would say. Of course, I had my handy Bible guide next to me for quick reference, and I would throw out the suggested verses.
The problem with many such guides is that most of them—at least the ones that were available to me—paraphrase only the important verses. They don’t tell you anything about their context or how to use them when defending the Faith. Even when I did understand the verses in context, I was not prepared for the Protestant responses. Many of them were very good, and it required a lot of digging to find the counterargument.
We’ve come up with an idea that will aid Catholics who find themselves in similar situations.
We are going to create a section on Catholic.com that contains a list of topics accompanied by Bible verses you can use to defend Catholic teaching on that subject. When you click on the verse, it will reveal a brief explanation of why it’s important and how to use it to defend the Faith. Beneath the explanation, there will be a list of common objections to the verse and how to counter those as well. No more scrambling for a response.
This project will be rolled out in phases. Over the next twelve months, we plan to introduce ten new topics per quarter. Our first batch will include:
- Purgatory
- Mary (Mother of God)
- Baptism
- The communion of saints
- Intercessory prayer
- Contraception
- The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
- The Bible alone?
- The papacy
- Confession
We don’t have a name for the project yet (we’re hoping you can help us with that), but Catholic Answers apologists have already started working on the content.
It’s going to take time and money to make this project a reality, but we are confident that it will empower the hundreds of thousands of Catholics who come to our site every month to become better defenders of the Faith.
This is where you come in.
We could use your help raising the funds needed to get this project off the ground. If you’d like to make a donation, click here—and please give generously.
— Jon Sorensen | Chief Operating Officer