In the late 19th century, liberal theology predicted the end of apologetics as the child of an entrenched, defensive, and doctrinaire faith. It was wrong. Apologetics is alive and well, especially on the web, where initiatives aimed at comparing different interpretations of the gospel (e.g. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical) flourish.
It can be said that YouTube has become the encyclopedia where one can find apologetic comparisons and confrontations of all kinds. The field that is emerging as a growing reality is that of Roman Catholic apologetics, especially targeting evangelicals. This seems to be primarily a North American phenomenon where religious discourse has always been characterized by religious pluralism, strong passions associated with religion, and multiple changes of religious affiliation in people’s lives.
Traditionally, American evangelicals have been proactive in evangelizing Catholics with a specific intentionality. The result is that so many American evangelicals were born Catholic and became evangelicals later in life, thanks to Billy Graham’s campaigns and the many parachurch initiatives dedicated to evangelism in universities, for example.
This is no longer the case.
The call to the “new evangelization” by John Paul II and Benedict XVI has repositioned a growing number of Roman Catholics from being recipients of evangelical zeal to becoming active players of “catholic” evangelization. Today, it is no longer evangelicals who “evangelize” Catholics, but it is also Catholics who “evangelize” evangelicals with targeted and planned initiatives. Apologetic efforts are now bidirectional.
Mapping Roman Catholic Initiatives
Hence, projects such as Bishop Robert Barron’s “Word on Fire” have exploded with videos, books, and courses designed to attract disappointed evangelicals toward Catholicism. Barron is a solid Roman Catholic theologian who takes the experiential and personal language typical of an evangelical narrative of faith and weaves it into the sapiential and liturgical tradition of Catholicism steeped in updated Thomism. And it is attractive.
Consider also the work of priest Mike Schmitz, as telegenic as a Hollywood actor. He uses the experiential language of faith by anchoring it in Roman Catholic sacramental practices and inviting people to discover Catholic wholeness within the Roman Church. He, too, has a large following.
Barron and Schmitz are priests who apply a type of indirect apologetics. They speak to an evangelical audience to attract them to Catholicism. Another sector of American Catholic apologetics involves intellectual laymen who conceive their “mission” as eroding the credibility of evangelical faith and magnifying the consistency and robustness of Roman Catholicism.
Among others, four names can be mentioned.[1]
Trent Horn, from Texas, is a brilliant and fine apologist who is very present on YouTube and the spearhead of an agency called “Catholic Answers.” His channel is “The Counsel of Trent”—the pun is intentional and tasty. He is a Catholic “convert” from a colorless Christian theism and carries the pathos of the neophyte who has discovered Catholicism.[2]
Scott Hahn, a former Presbyterian pastor, is a very prolific author who is trying to present Roman Catholicism as the biblical faith par excellence. His biblical theology is sacramental, Marian, and papist, but his Catholic language weaves together the experiential language typical of the evangelical way of giving one’s own testimony or talking about the gospel.
Matt Fradd is another successful Catholic apologist. His channel, “Pints with Aquinas,” is a clever container of light, entertaining talk interwoven with biblical, historical, and doctrinal references all aimed at presenting the superiority and soundness of the Roman Catholic framework of faith and thought.
Finally, Jimmy Akin, also a Texan in a cowboy hat and the voice of “Catholic Answers,” has a look far removed from that of a bookworm or a vestry-goer. Yet, his mission is to discredit the reliability of the evangelical faith and present, as an alternative, the depth of the Catholic faith.
Much more “Roman” than “Catholic”
All these voices belong to the traditional Roman Catholic world, very much attached to the vision of the “new evangelization” advocated by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Similar phenomena to American Catholic apologetics can be seen in Brazil and Australia. Where evangelicals have a significant presence, Catholic apologetics is trying to attract people from evangelical circles who are searching or disillusioned.
On the other hand, American evangelicalism is going through a critical phase characterized by cultural polarization, intense fights, and widespread disenchantment. Some are disillusioned and look to Roman Catholicism as an intriguing alternative. The stories of former evangelicals converted to Rome show that they “crossed the Tiber” because of the shallowness of evangelical practices and lack of historical awareness of the faith. To them, these Catholic apologists present the Roman Catholic faith as intellectually robust, liturgically deep, and institutionally united.
North American Catholic apologists adhere to Tridentine Catholicism, emphasizing Catholic identity markers (e.g., Tradition, the papacy, the hyper-veneration of Mary) and anti-Protestant attitudes. They herald an understanding of Roman Catholicism, which is solid and without cracks and holes. For them, Roman Catholicism in its entirety (institution, sacraments, devotions, history) has always been right. They interpret Vatican II in continuity with all-time Catholicism and gloss over the controversies and ambiguities that emerged from the Council and are amplified under the pontificate of Francis.
Their tone is assertive and polemical. For them, Catholicism has always been the same and will always be the same. Protestants are schismatics, not to say heretics. This is a very “Roman” mindset.
Different is the approach generally found in Europe by Roman Catholic theologians. Here the majority interpretation of Vatican II has made Catholicism mellifluous, always seeking affirmation of the other and a point of contact with all. Tradition is not denied but always thought of on the move and open-ended. It is difficult here to have an apologetic discussion. The prevailing attitude is “ecumenical”: Differences with the evangelical faith are not seen as contradictions to be resolved but as different nuances of the same reality to be embraced together. Their approach is very “catholic.”
In other words, Pope Francis would say to evangelicals, “We are brothers and sisters, and we are already united. Let’s walk together: Differences are to be welcomed and harmonized.” Instead, these North American apologists say, “You evangelicals are a new religious movement; you have broken with the one church; come back to Rome if you want to discover the true faith.” These are two very different attitudes, though children of the same Roman Catholic system.
This is to say that when we do apologetics with Roman Catholics, we must understand what kind of Catholics we are talking to. Evidently, there are different types: Some are more “Roman,” others are more “catholic.” One must learn to deal with all of them because, after all, they are different resultants of the same system: The “Roman” (focusing on doctrines, sacraments, and institutions) and the “catholic” one (embracing, inclusive, and ever-expanding).
Evangelical apologetics must adapt and contextualize, always starting from a view of Roman Catholicism as a “system.” It can hold together traditionalist, progressive, ecumenical, devotional, etc., tendencies, and that, bending without breaking, is rigid and elastic at the same time.
Proof-Texting and Selective
The apologetic strategy that North American Catholic apologists follow can be defined as “proof-texted” and selective. Usually, they pit biblical, patristic, and magisterial citations by setting the argument based on their reading of accumulated texts. In a sense, this strategy betrays the Protestant-majority cultural milieu from which they come. It is as if they had to defend the faith with a Protestant-like methodology ad fontes (back to the sources), piling different texts and founding their apologetics on them.
Those who are a little familiar with the universe of Roman Catholicism know that the latter has, yes, its own internal textual outlook, but its main internal cohesion is determined by ritual and devotional practices and a sense of belonging to an institutionalized religion. The Catholic apologists defend Catholicism with a “proof-text” method, fishing for a text here, a text there, but with little, if any, attention to the historical, institutional, devotional, ideological, and political dynamics, all of which are instead present in the “living flesh” of Roman Catholicism.
The point is that Catholicism, contrary to what they would have us believe, is not first and foremost a religion of the books, let alone the religion of the Book, i.e. the Bible. It is the religion of oral tradition, liturgy, symbols, collective imagination, and visual and auditory senses; it is the religion of the living tradition that expresses a Catholic sentiment more than a written text.
Certainly, the Roman religion is codified in texts, but its heart beats elsewhere. Texts, writings, and learned quotations, however accumulated and piled up, do not make Roman Catholicism. In it, the lex orandi (liturgy, devotions, etc.) shapes the lex credendi (doctrines, texts, etc.). I found it curious that many of these apologists, perhaps with no experience of Catholicism outside the American “Bible Belt” bubble, treat Catholicism as an average evangelical treats his faith: On the texts, with the texts.
Their quotation of texts is obviously selective, focusing on the “right” ones and overlooking those that do not match their apologetic defense of Rome. In listening to them, one must question the Catholic argument that the Church Fathers express a Roman Catholic consensus and that the evangelical faith is a modern novelty always contrary to the ancient church.
In addition to “proof-texted,” selective is another adjective that describes these Catholic apologetics. It is selective in its choice of supporting texts and selective in its perception of Roman Catholicism. For these Catholic apologists, Catholicism is a philosophically oriented, historically grounded, liturgically persuasive, and historically coherent religion; it is a whole characterized by adherence to texts, spiritual excellence, intellectual consistency, and artistic beauty. For them, Catholicism is the realization of the fullness of all that is beautiful, true, and good.
Evidently, this is an idealized perception of Roman Catholicism that selects what of Catholicism one wants to see and elevates this part to the whole. It is an approach of those who live in a province of the world where Catholicism has not shaped culture and social institutions but where it has established itself by borrowing the fruits of a Protestant culture, seeing its limitations and deformations, and thinking that Roman Catholicism is the fulfillment of everything.
When one listens to North American Catholic apologists, one wonders if they have ever seen the tongue of St. Anthony in Padua, the candles with organs of the human body offered to Our Lady of Fatima, the holy water of Lourdes, the pierced and blood-spurting sacred heart of much Baroque iconography, the votive shrines with the offering of plenary indulgence, etc. These are all devotions and teachings that run contrary to biblical revelations and yet are all pieces of Catholicism authorized by the magisterium that clash with the sweetened vision held by its defenders.
Finally, in their selective appropriation of Catholic texts, Catholic apologists fail to refer to the ordinary magisterium of Pope Francis (who has reigned since 2013) and who, until proven otherwise, is their pope. They ignore him, indeed detest him. And this, too, is selective and indicative of a tailor-made Catholicism. Theirs is a very cherry-picking type of Catholicism.
In short, they want to see only the Roman Catholicism that suits them. Their perception is often one-sided and very narrow compared to the complex global and historical realities of Catholicism. Often, the fascination towards Rome among troubled evangelicals is characterized by a certain idealization of Roman Catholicism which can be significantly removed from reality. Roman Catholicism has its own intellectual traditions, but it is also home to folk traditions, syncretistic practices, and mystical trends that run contrary to this image of a solidly intellectual religion. People who turn to Rome often have a selective and faulty view of evangelicalism and a selective and idealized perception of Roman Catholicism.
In dealing with Catholic apologetics, one must keep in mind that the evangelical faith is the faithful, though always in need of reform, response to the biblical message. It is the apostolic and historical witness to the gospel, though not uncritical of unbiblical accretions and deviations accumulated in history and always self-critical of its own deficiencies. It is part of the one church whose head is the Lord Jesus, although lived in different denominations. Ultimately, it is the faith that honors the lordship of Christ and the supreme authority of Scripture in all matters of faith and life. With all due respect to these Catholic apologists, Rome fails to do that.
[1] Other names are Tim Staples, Michael Lofton, and Cameron Bertuzzi, all of them former evangelicals.
[2] I had the opportunity to have a friendly debate with him in “Unbelievable”, a show on Premier Radio. The video is here.