Anti-Catholicism

I am humbled and ashamed of how I used to think about the Catholic Church. This is hard for me to write about, since I used to follow the Reformed Protestant view of the Church. That is, she is idolators, morally flawed, and theologically apostate.

What arrogance I showed!

At the same time, I knew that she was the leader of the pro life movement. She of all institutions in the world was standing against the evil that is Planned Parenthood. Without her leadership, the pro life movement would not have gotten as far as it has.

That is one of the things I could not reconcile with my anti-Catholic stance. The one I was against was the one who loved life and defended the unborn. Maybe I was wrong about her.

Well, I was wrong.

There is a leader in the Reformed movement, the OPC, who is right now slamming the man who did the undercover work to expose Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby cadavers. Yes, the trafficking in human organs and body parts.

Instead of going after Planned Parenthood, this leader is attacking the one who exposed them because he allegedly lied. In the mind of this leader, lying seems to be a greater sin than murder.

This leader in a Reformed denomination has said little or nothing about what Planned Parenthood is doing. He is using this as a way to slander the Catholic Church.

Now, I was never that extreme, I hope. There was a lot that I always had admired in Catholicism. My objection had to do with the fact that she was apostate because she had quit preaching the Gospel. Her focus was wrong. A lot of other things had gotten in the way of preaching Christ and His salvation.

In the last 20+ years, that has changed a lot. The New Evangelization started by St. Pope John Paul II is brining about a different focus. She is not sitting on the glories of her past, but is reaching out with the Gospel in new ways. She caught me in her net, and I am happy about that.

So, for me, this is one more step away from Reformed teaching and deeper into the heart of the Church, the Body of Christ, His Bride, His beloved.

She is acting in a Christlike way, defending the humanity of the unborn made in the image of God. These Reformed types are acting like I don’t know what. It is a puzzlement. It really, really is.

Then they try to make clever, witty remarks about the whole thing. It is a moral tragedy all around. The behavior of Planned Parenthood is as disgusting as any disgusting thing is. The behavior of these Reformed guys is, well, difficult to understand.

I used to try to adapt to Calvinism. There are pro life Calvinists, and I think lots of them. So it would be unfair to say that all Calvinists are like these guys. They may very well be an aberration.

Maybe I will look around to see what other Reformed people are saying to get a better balance. I hope so.

After all, it was Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop who were pioneers in the pro life movement. Their book Whatever Happened to the Human Race? was powerful. I would like to think they represent the Reformed position on abortion, not these guys I have been interacting with.