Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Matthew 28:20
I have always felt that God had a special purpose for me, even from childhood. I now realize that it was true (but not just for me, for everybody!). This motivated me to always want to make a difference, and led me to the political arena as a young teenager.
The debacle of Watergate effected everyone. For me, it seemed that there was some unseen force that had just unseated the man I worked hard to elect. My search for that 'conspiracy' led me first to extreme rightist groups like the John Birch Society, and onward to the hate-filled world of the Klan and neo-Nazi type groups. I read so much of their material that I literally became 'hooked on hate' just as strongly as others get hooked on drugs. Ironically, I never had (or did have) any personal relational problems with anyone because of their race or religion.
While my parents decried my radicalism (a professor in college called me a 'militant square'), the mainline Protestant church I attended provided little theological defense against the deceptive lies of White supremacist (British Israel) propaganda, which itself is a logical outgrowth of allowing everyone to interpret the Bible in 'their own way.' I was introduced to the 'conservative variety' of Protestantism when a Baptist preacher on my front porch prayed the 'prayer of salvation' with me. But, because this was just another form of man-made religion, I continued on the road to extremism.
I eventually ended up in New Orleans with the KKK of David Duke, but just for a few months. I quickly saw the cult of personalities and moral degenerates who 'led' the racist right. While I was turned off by the messengers, I was still possessed by the message.
In the early 1980's, I fell in love with and married the young lady who was to be my wife. As the clicking of fingers breaks a television hypnotist's 'spell,' this glimmer of human love broke the spell which hate had on me. Still politically motivated, I looked to the 'new right,' with preachers like James Robison and Jerry Falwell. While listening to their political message, I also heard their Protestant message. I ‘rededicated my heart of Jesus' at Falwell's Church in the early 1980's. I had moved from the road to hell to the 'baptism of desire' where I was trying to do know and do God's Will, but I still had a long way to go to the truth.
A few years later, I received a taste of reality and purgatory. I had become involved in the local Republican Party and quickly rose to high office (Treasurer of the 5th Congressional District). While hesitant at first, I began to think that my past had been laid to rest by letters apologizing for my involvement with the hate movement that I had sent to local newspapers a few years before. This facade quickly disappeared as a young reporter took my story of how 'Jesus had turned my life around' and transformed it into an 'expose.' After suffering great humiliation, my shooting star political career blackened forever.
NOTE: while this is a chapter of my life I definitely would like to bury, it is there. Embarrassing as it is, I know that if I don't bring the skeleton out of the closet, an enemy will do so to harm whatever small amount of good I am trying to accomplish. . The painful experience was also eye opening: I had been accusing non-whites and non-Christians of being something that they weren't. Now, I was being condemned for something that I wasn't (or at least, had put behind me).
I had never really stopped to try to listen to what God might want me to do...I preferred to do what I liked and ask Him to use that in some way. I also took at face value the story that the Protestant reformation was a 'restoration' of the original New Testament Church, redeemed from 'Roman' paganism. It would take 18 years before I finally learned the truth.
With political aspirations dashed, I followed what I felt was God's initial call for me and attended Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist Seminary, obtaining a Master's Degree. I then went on to Pentecostal television and local church ministry. Leaving the 'ministry' after five years and returning to secular work, I used Meade's Handbook of Denominations as a travel guide, visiting one Protestant sect after the other. I had escaped the devil's pit of racial hatred, but he had kept his hands over my theological eyes, so I wandered in the wilderness.
I viewed the parade of preachers and singers in 'conversative' Protestantism who used their talents and testimony to promote themselves more than Christ. I came to the point that I told my wife: "If this is all there is to church, I am going to just stay home and read the Bible." Like most the the nominally 'Christian' world, I was trapped in the heresy of indifferentism, believing that all denominations were equally legitimate ways to God. The ones that I thought were 'better' actually we just less defective than the others: all were man-made. I began to make a list of 'orthodox' (non-liberal) groups in every denomination, which required some research. Then I wondered, "Are there also 'conservative' Catholics?"
I discovered the Mary Foundation, and listened to their tapes. On a sightseeing trip to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, I walked into the historic Catholic Church there and found a copy of TAN Publications. I even kneeled to the statue of Mary and asked the Blessed Virgin: "If there is something to this Roman Catholic Church, show it to me."
As I read about doctrine, I found that Reformation did not 'restore' the New Testament Church: it gutted it. The continuous and historically verifiable theology of the Roman Catholic Church was dissected with each individual 'reformer' taking what he liked and discarding the rest. The fracture of Protestantism today is like the foundation of a house on sand: the few initial breaks are now innumerable splinters and cracks of 'denominations' and cults.
I got out the Bible, and used Protestant sources to 'check out' the informational leaflets on Catholic doctrine I had found at the Catholic Answers website. The claims checked out. I then tried every way I could to avoid the Church, looking instead to the Orthodox and Anglicans. The sticking point for me was the Pope: 'one' man in charge of the Church? I finally realized that just as the Apostles were to have successors, the 'leader' of the Apostles also had an office that would have to be filled by someone in the future. God has always had one clearly designated leader for His people on earth.
Each point of Catholic theology was grounded in Scripture. Most Protestant beliefs about Catholics are a result of hearsay and statements taken out of context. How does the Bible show legitimacy? By genealogical listings in an unbroken chain. How can we tell who the 'true' Church is today? Through an unbroken chain of leadership and consistent teaching that stretches back to Christ. Only one body fulfills that requirement: the Roman Catholic Church.
Without the Church's Magisterium and Tradition, anyone is literally able to interpret the Bible as they choose. If that is the case, what makes Baptist theology better than Mormonism? Why stop there: if everybody is right, all religions must be equally right, too. There is only one correct interpretation of Holy Scripture, and there must be a single source entrusted with that truth. Again, that is the Pope and Magisterium of the Church.
There is no way to be an authentic Catholic and racist or anti-Semite. Unbroken Church tradition teaches that the Gospel is for all men. Period. Had I known the Church in the mid-70's, I could have avoided Satan's pit of hate.
I am disturbed to see so many Catholics who are trying to 'reform' the Church and make it just another Protestant denomination with fancy robes. I believe that one reason so many Protestant men and women are being drawn by the Blessed Virgin into the Church is to reinforce traditional, orthodox Catholicism. I also doubt if anyone has been drawn to the Church through 'ecumenism' which is a serious error in judgement on the part of the Church's contemporary leadership. Finally, Vatican II (a pastoral council designed to present the unchangeable in a contemporary way) has been used to Protestantize the vast majority of the Church. The 'spirit of Vatican II' is a blank check used by the enemies (both deceivers and dupes) of Christ to do more damage than the 16th century 'reformation'.
TO NON-CATHOLICS: this site is my way of saying: "Look at what I have discovered and learned!" Pray daily for you to see God's Truth and do His Will. Even Protestants believe that those in Heaven pray for those on earth: the Virgin Mary is in Heaven, so, as here to pray for you.
TO CATHOLICS: this site is designed to call you back to your lost heritage (often called Traditional or Traditionalist). The Old Testament 'new' Temple of Israel (following the 70 year exile) was a shadow of Solomon's glorious edifice, and many Jews longed for the past. The post-Vatican II Church is only a shadow the glorious Pre-Vatican II Church. The Jews could never regain their heritage but we in the Catholic Church can and must. As a great Catholic leader of the 20th century said: "Our past is our future".
