Danny, in Jackson, New Jersey, listening on EWTN, you are on with Tim Staples. Hi guys.
Welcome. Thanks for taking my call. I have a brother-in-law,
he, you know, he was raised Catholic also,
and stuff like that. And he--over the years, he was reading a lot of Protestant
books and a lot of things like that. And I noticed he started thinking a lot
like them, you know? And I told him, I said, "If you keep on doing that, you know,
you're gonna...you're gonna start thinking what they believe, and believing what they believe.
Oh yes. So anyway, it came to fruition now, he's very anti-Catholic.
In the last few years he's just been posting these things on Facebook, you know, and all the
family members are getting very upset. He posts these videos from, like, YouTube,
like the history of the evil Catholic Church, and these things
are like so ridiculous. Yeah. If you know your faith at all, you know that they're
lies and stuff like that. But when I try to talk to him, I even send them stuff
from Catholic Answers to, like, you know, to refute these claims. Yeah. He--he's just
got like a wall up. He doesn't...Yeah. He just, "I thought the Catholic
Church is this," you know, the typical stuff. We worship statues, worship Mary,
the Pope is the Antichrist. So, you know, my sister-in-law today was telling
my wife that, you know, she was upset some of the stuff that was put on Facebook.
What--I know have to pray for them and I do. What would be the best way to...
to, like...you know, talk to him-- Danny, you know what--
yeah, let me jump in because
you already took part of my fire. You know my friend, the most important thing of
all is that you pray for him. Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for him.
My friend, pray your daily rosary, offer up a decade,
two, a rosary a day. I will tell you, Danny, that was the secret to Matt Doula that
you mentioned before. I would find out later, after I left the Marine Corps, he
was offering his mass every day for me, and he was praying a rosary for
me everyday. I didn't--and that was for a whole year--and I didn't know it at the
time, Cy, but I was a goner because of it. Now, it took a couple years for that to,
you know, to come to fruition, but Danny, of course that's the most important
thing. I would suggest something else as well. Here is what I do, and I've done it
many times over the last...hard to believe, 29 years that that I've been
Catholic. My goodness, 29 years, Cy! It seems like yesterday. But anyway, Danny,
ask your brother-in-law: "What is the single most absolutely crazy thing that
you could never believe about the Catholic faith?" One thing, not ten things,
not a hundred things. I tell you, Danny, most people make the mistake of trying--
you know what I'm doing now? I got myself two thousand emails behind as of
Christmas time--actually by about early February--and I told
everybody, everybody who emails me: "If you email me 45 questions, I'm gonna answer
one." All right, now, I tell everybody now: you send me one. What is your biggest
bugaboo about the Catholic faith? And I'll answer that. And then we can go from
there. Let me tell you, I've got my emails down from 2000 to about a hundred and
seventy now and counting. And I am determined, I'm gonna get them all done.
But Danny, it's the same thing with you. One thing. If it's worshipping statues,
okay. Let's deal with that. Let's knock this thing every which way but loose.
Let's turn it upside down, and if you--let me tell you, Danny, what happened to me
was, Matt Doula got me on one thing and it was "calling no priest 'Father.' Don't
call your priest 'Father.'" He answered that thing every which way but loose, and even
though, Danny, I never even admitted to him--you know my
story--I never even admitted to him he was right. He was right, and it bugged me to
no end. Now we went on to thing after thing after thing. And he answered, he
answered, he answered. But you gotta start somewhere. Start with one thing.
That's number one. Number two: It may be, Danny, that it's just not time to talk to
him. And that's a hard one for you and I to be able to to come to
and say, "You know what, I'm just not ready." I'll give you an example; My father and my
brother Mike. My father, who just died about a year and a half ago, and a good
Catholic; and my brother Mike, who is now a Catholic as well. But both of those
guys, when I was evangelizing my mother, my brother Terry, my brother Ted, those
two didn't want anything. My dad got mad. He's like, "I don't want that stuff in my
house." My brother Mike would just get up and walk away. You know what I found,
Danny? It does no good to speak to the back of somebody's head. It doesn't work.
All right? So sometimes it's just not time. It took
14 years with my brother Mike before he became Catholic. Took five years with my
dad. My brother Terry was wide open. Took six months and now he's a Catholic
priest. Everybody's different. But here, final thing I will say to you Danny; Take
James, chapter 1, verse 5, and this is a prayer that you can pray that you know
will be answered, and it will be answered in the affirmative. Isn't that cool? Here is
a guarantee from God. You ask for this, you get a "Yes." And it's this: "If any man
lacks wisdom--" and that's what we're talking about, wisdom. Should I talk to
this guy, or should I not? "If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who
upbraideth not--" in other words, he's not going to say no, right? He will
respond yes. "He gives liberally wisdom to all who ask." That's what the scripture
says in James chapter 1 verse 5. Now, wisdom comes with age most often, and
with experience. It's going to take time and hard knocks,
but you pray for wisdom, and God will give you wisdom concerning this
situation. Thank you very much Danny.