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Hi, Dominick —
Thanks for the question.
If your friend is ignoring your denial of these false accusations about
our faith like:
- Worshiping Mary and the saints
- or the Pope taking the place of Jesus
Just tell him, you have no idea what church he is talking about.
Tell him he is attacking a straw church meaning a church that doesn't
exist.
If he tells you he has heard this from other Catholics, tell him:
No, you have heard it from:
- other uncatechized catholics in
the pew, or
- from those who have left the Church for other reasons.
These
people:
- never knew what the Church taught, or
- they did know and left on moral grounds or over bitter, subjective family fight issues.
The question you want to ask your friend is:
- If he really wants to truly understand what the Church believes
and teaches, why is he listening to them?
- Ask him, if, as a Catholic, you were interested in the Baptist faith,
would it make sense for a Catholic:
- to go to lapsed Baptists
- those
that claim to be Baptists, but were anti-Baptist, or
- to faithful, practicing Baptists?
The only place your friend should go to find out what Catholics believe,
is to faithful Catholics who are willing to dialogue with him.
If he doesn't want to, he is nothing but an anti-Catholic himself,
who, for some reason, wants to distort your faith and our Catholic faith.
If your friend is sincere, the key to truly resolving this situation is for you
to know what the faith teaches. Buy a cheap copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read it in portions. He probably has some very good questions.
He's
not going to get the correct answers from lapsed or fallen away Catholics.
If your friend is not sincere, and sadly there are many Protestants that love to debate with Catholics just for the sake of debating, over time, you have to learn to discern a faith-sharer who is really open to accepting and embracing Catholic Christian teachings and those who only have two interests:
- attacking the Church's faith on false grounds, and
- wasting your time.
I would also encourage you to start-up a local Catholic Apologetics program at the parish level, with the permission of the pastor of course. It's a great way to meet like-minded faithful Catholics, who, over time, you can share questions and answers with!
Although the Bible is not the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15) you can give him a Biblical defense for Catholic teachings and the faith here:
Just print the web page out and give it to him to read.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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