McBrien Again

HE'S BACK!                     

Thanks to Amy Welborn of Open Book for pointing me to Fr. McBrien's latest article on converts to Catholicism.  Check McBrien on Converts.  What a thing to come back to after vacation!  Of course, McBrien believes that Vatican II rejected "the one, true Church" teaching--which it did not--and therefore all these new Catholic converts of the famous variety, like Robert Novak, Sen. Brownback, Larry Kudlow, etc. are converting to a Church and Faith that no longer exist.  He blames "conservative church folk" for pushing an antiquated view of Catholicism on these poor, unsuspecting--and apparently, non-reflective--non-Catholics.  As usual, he prefers the opposite way of "doing Church": he's happy as a clam to see Catholics sink into a soup of mediocrity such as afflicts many main line Protestant communities.

Too bad he doesn't look instead at why a book of famous converts converted by liberal churchmen would be a thin volume indeed.  Or, more seriously, why anyone would choose to be Catholic if it's simply the same as being a member of another denomination or as sure of a path to salvation as, say, the Unitarians.

Not  long ago, (see April 21 post below), he was willing to embrace Pelagius and take Pope Benedict's clarification about Limbo as a reason for the non-efficacy of Baptism.  Here, he's just being so 19th century Anglican, donning the professorial air, leaning back to take a cynical view of faith and society, comfortable with his own academic profession, all the while oblivious to the need of the Church for a mind like his that would be charged with zeal of St. Paul and the Passion of St. Peter to preach the Gospel like the world's salvation really depended on it.  It does, you know, Fr. McBrien--the world really needs a Savior and there is only one:  Jesus Christ preached by the Catholic Church he founded. 

Comments

[Joseph S. O'Leary]

For a defense of McB see http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/neocath-rage-at.html

[Carole]

Hi, I appreciated Amy Wellborn's observations about RMcB. I must say, I don't understand him at all. I consider myself a 'convert' to the faith into which I was baptized. I nearly abandoned the faith until a good protestant introduced me to Jesus in a personal way, and through Scripture--and then I fell in love with the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Church's teaching authority and all things else about being Catholic. Because of my protestant connection, I also love ecumenism, and think it is good for us to rub shoulders with each other. But I take tremendous joy in reading about others who have also discovered Catholicism and decided to make it their own too. Loving Christ and the Church this way, I don't understand people like McBrien (or O'Leary for that matter) who seem to discount the discovery of the truth of Catholicism and falling in love with it, and wanting others to do so too.