How do Chick & Berean Beacon get away with their propaganda...& their hate against the Catholic Church.?

Question

What is being parroted by them is the fanciful history of Loraine Boettner & Dave Hunt , leaders in the anti-Catholic movement. They are tragically misinformed.

Answer 1

Yes, you are right. Actually most fundamentalist just restate the unfounded book by Boettner called Roman Catholicism. He relies on disgruntled former Catholics for much of his book and has no appreciation of the Catholic religion from the inside. In it he makes makes claims and provides quotes, all without sources or back up. He misstates the Catholic position over and over again. Much of what he claims to be "true" in the book can be proved false if anyone were to take a little time to check out Boettner's claims, but they don't. So many have read his book and take it at face value.

"There are literally hundreds of errors of fact in Boettner's book. In any ten consecutive pages one can find ten palpable blunders. These are real mistakes, not innocent things such as typographical errors. There are major errors, and there are minor ones, and they lead one to ask at what point does sloppiness become more than mere negligence?" ---Karl Keating in his book Catholicism vs Fundamentalism.

People like Chick and Berean Beacon have made a religion out of hating Catholicism. They spend more time trying to prove Catholicism wrong then trying to prove their own beliefs right. They are only interested in being right about Catholicism and that makes them pitiful at best.

They are wrong, they are misinformed but apparently happy to be so. The saddest thing is those that read and buy into their agenda. They also, do no research on their own, only regurgitate the same tired misinformation of their founders. Sad...very sad.

They can "get away" with it, because there is no way to stop it. All we can do is counter with the truth and pray that God will enlighten those who hear it. But pride and arrogance are difficult to give up once a person has been so soaked in them.

Additional: Well over 100,000 copies of Boettner's book have been sold.

Answer 2

Berean Beacon

Answer 3

They get away with it because people eat it up. It's the "National Enquirer" mentality -- anything that looks like an expose with an "oooh" factor sells. That, plus essential laziness. Far easier to be spoon-fed factoids that one can parrot than actually looking into whether what they're being fed is true, or someone else's bias. And let's face it, the Catholic Church is an easy target. The version of Christianity put into motion by the 16th century "reformers" was called "Protestantism" for a reason: Its adherents protested, and still protest, against all things distinctly Catholic -- in many cases seemingly only to point out that "we're not them".

One wonders, though, at the motivation for spreading around the anti-Catholic garbage churned out by these writers. Is it to convert Catholics? Not very effective. Any well-catechized Catholic can take one look at this stuff and see it for what it is. Is it to keep people from converting to Catholicism? If the figures the USCCB alone keeps on adult conversions are any indication, this fringe attack isn't making any inroads.

So what's left? I would venture to say that it's to make folks feel good about the choice they've made, church-wise, by making the big bad Catholic Church out to be evil and its adherents either deceived or fools or both. It's self-edification by tearing down someone else. I don't buy for one red-hot minute that Hunt, Boattner, Chick, or for that matter the folks behind that odious "what every Catholic should know" web site that keeps popping up here are motivated by "love" for Catholics. The published ones have made names for themselves (and a bit of money as well); those who parrot their writing are either gullible, lazy, or drawn to sensationalism.

Answer 4

because it's the truth. You are calling for an end to free speech then? Shall we begin the inquisitions again? How dare you assume that this wicked catholic system has it right. Most catholics are ignorant of their own history. I've done 9 years of study and believe me you people have a lot to learn.

Answer 5

You forgot to mention Ralph Woodrow and Alexander Hislop who are also rabid anti-Catholics. There is a huge industry of anti-Catholicism which makes me think that most of these people falsely attacking Christ's Church are purposely ignorant. Those that believe their nonsense are just to lazy or uneducated to verify their claims or to check the Catechism and find out what Catholics really believe and teach. These people personify the teaching about ravaging wolves and false teachers. The sad thing is that with the internet these things can be researched in minutes to find them false but many people full of hate do not take advantage of this resource. May the Lord have mercy on those who hate His Church.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Answer 6

Part of the reason they get away with their lies and bigotry is because not enough of us Catholics stand up and fight for the truth. I'm not advocating rioting in the streets in protest, but the written and spoken word are powerful things. Every time there's Catholic-bashing going on, whether it's in this Forum, the movies, television, or literature, we need to speak up and make our opinions heard.

People like Jack Chick and the ones who run Berean Beacon tend to behave like cockroaches. The minute someone turns on the light, they scurry for the dark corners and hide. Those of us who belong to the Catholic Church need to shine the light of Christ's truth wherever the roaches of hatred and bigotry are gathered.

Answer 7

Several good points made so far. We have freedom of religion here in the West, and there is clearly a market for anti-Catholic propaganda. To be honest, Catholics don't always do a very good job of stepping up to the plate and refuting the errors.

Much of it is bad biblical interpretation and worse history. But as the phenomenal success of the DaVinci Code proved, you can make a lot of money by misrepresenting the Bible and history.

One point is overlooked: Jack Chick has exploited the most readable type of print materials to evangelize: the comic book. Not all of his stuff is anti-Catholic propaganda. His entertaining little stories often point out the reality of heaven and hell to young people who have never thought seriously about such matters.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 8

ignorance of scripture is ignorance of christ, a quote from st jerome(respnsible for translating the sacred scripture to the verncacular of his time), i have said it often that in the same fashion, ignorance of history (church history,salvation history and even secular) is ignorance of jesus christ and the church he established. people buy into it all the time, take the davinci code novel/movie for example. it is very sad and our prayers need to be aimed at ammending this problem, our top apologists are doing a great job, we catholics at every level in the church need to start "giving a reason for our hope" and rectify the problem by not only words but by being a witness with our actions aswell. the truth sets us free, we need to present the truth to others with the guidance and love of the holy spirit working in and through us. it still shocks me how some use anti catholic sources to find out what the catholic church is about, it makes no sense and i pray they come to this realization and use reliable sources, not ones with an agenda. for any interested here are some sites i frequent, helpful to catholics and our seperated brothers and sisters in christ.

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/
http://www.askmeaboutgod.org/
http://www.fisheaters.com/
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
http://www.salvationhistory.com/
http://www.freeforcatholics.com/
http://www.newadvent.net/
http://www.catholiceducation.org/

hope these help and god bless.

Answer 9

I can't believe that Chick is still around. You think this kind of thing would burn out after a while. Such widespread hatred as they have for the Catholic Church has to be helped along the way by Satan to some degree. Its amazing that when the human mind tries to cause confusion, how much confusion and damage can be done. Chick's version of the 'truth' is just evil.

Answer 10

Those two "publishers" aren't having much impact on people except to turn them off, so don't worry about it. I've seen their stuff and the only people who buy it are the "free to be like me" crowd.

The man who started Chick was an ex-Catholic, and I believe ex-seminary or perhaps ex-priest; the man had a lot of issues and anger, and it shows in his output. I'm not Catholic but he certainly isn't doing his particular brand of beliefs any favours putting all that hate out there. He's too extreme for me. I dislike people who try to "convert" others using fear.