Dear George:

In times of my past friendships have been terminated because I did something the friend did not like. Years of friendship would come to an end because of some slight or due to some action I took that the friend disapproved. I guess years and years of good solid friendship meant nothing. Perhaps the person was not really a friend after all.

Proverbs 10:2 and 1 Peter 4:8 both teach, "Love covers a multitude of sins (offenses)." The essential meaning of this teaching is not that a person should enable another person's sin, or excuse it, but that the failings of someone with whom we have a relationship does not end because of an offense. As it says in 1 Cor 13, "love endures all things."

The friends who disagreed with me, or who found out I have feet of clay, and terminated the friendship were not thinking with the mind of Christ. In fact, their actions were childish. It is unfortunate, but that is the way it was.

If these Q&As have been helpful to you, I would encourage you to not dismiss them because of one post. Were not the answers before helpful? Is there any reason to think that future answers will not be helpful? Surely you will not indict me wholly because you did not like one answer (out of the thousands of answers on our Q&As)?

That is, of course, your decision.

As to my answer, all the answers I write are based upon the knowledge and wisdom God has given me, and upon the promptings of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean I am always right. I made a mistake in a answer just this last week in which a reader thankfully corrected me. It does not mean that I always make the right decisions about how to answer a particular question.

It seems, however, that you are doing what you accuse me of doing -- presuming my motivation and judging me (which you say shouldn't be done).

In fact, we are to judge people, that is, their ideas and actions. I suggest you read the essay, Three Secrets Strategies of Satan. It is a demonic lie to say we are not to judge. What we are not to do is to judge hypocritically, with double-standard, or with condemnation to hell. We are not judge a person's heart.

In my post, I did not judge the person's heart. I judged his words and ideas to not be the type of questions that come from a Catholic. And, I suggested that if he was a Catholic, then he needed to find some education about the faith.

After thirty-five years in apologetics it is not hard to see disingenuousness when one sees it. Jesus did the same thing. He saw through the Pharisees and did not answer their questions.

The specific questions of this person, and more importantly, how he worded the questions, and the wording of his other remarks indicate that he is either not Catholic, or one very confused Catholic indoctrinated and inculcated in Protestant Fundamentalist anti-Catholic propaganda and revisionist history. We have had many people post on our Q&As pretending to be Catholic in order to bash our faith.

Before it is even possible to have a rational conversation with such a person, he must come up to speed on the basic Catholic teachings and have a respect for his own Church to which he claims to belong.  Some of this gentleman's questions were not even legitimate, they were accusations along the same lines as "when did you stop beating your wife," or "why do Catholics worship Mary." These are not questions, they are accusations couched in question form, similar to what the Pharisees tried with Jesus.

Maybe you do not see this, but in my judgment, based on experience answering tens of thousands of questions over more than thirty-five years, my own experience as a fundamentalist baptist before I became Catholic, and dealing with pretend Catholics, ignorant Catholics, misguided Catholics, anti-Catholic Catholics, liberal Catholics, ultra-traditional Catholics, cafeteria Catholics, Catholics who really want to be Protestants, and every other sort out there since I have been Catholic these past seventeen years, I believe my post was appropriate. Ultimately, I will answer to God for every answer I give. I have no problem being judged in the same way I judged.

By the way, you state, "Many people who have studied theology and several version (sic) of the Catholic Catechism are asking similar questions to Joseph." That is nonsense. No Catholic who has studied Catholic theology and the Catholic catechism asks those sorts of questions in the way that he asked them. There is a difference in tone and wording between a person with genuine curiosity and desire to know, and a person who is disingenuous and merely accusing or bashing the Church.

I do answer, however, the substance of those questions all the time. When those kinds are questions are asked appropriately I answer them. In fact, I have answered questions like that at least many hundreds of times in Q&As, chatrooms, discussion groups, mail lists, face-to-face encounters, and on the phone.

Thank you, however, for your concern.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary