Customer Reviews

Conversations With Catholics

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Mr. McCarthy, a former Catholic, provides a Biblically based, engaging and informative book about Catholics. Unlike The Gospel According to Rome, this book is conversational in nature and focuses on Catholics rather than Catholicism.

Catholicism is defined. The RCC stated their beliefs in the Catechism of the RCC, 1994. On the other hand, Catholics don't necessarily know the Catechism or believe it.

Mr. McCarthy does an excellent job of explaining this phenomenon, addressing key doctrinal issues and building the reader's understanding of Catholicism.

A GOOD READ!

The book is structured in such a way that each chapter is an entity in itself. But each chapter has a different focus on a unique doctrinal belief or practice of the Roman Church. The author uses a testimony of the experiences of individuals and the problems they had with the Roman Church. The major Roman doctrine or practice is then briefly highlighted and critiqued with the applicable Scriptural viewpoint. A good easy to read presentation of some of the unique Roman Church doctrines and practices that will give one a general understanding of both basic Christian doctrine and the traditions of the Roman Church from which these unique beliefs evolved.

Read a book before you become a critic.

Better yet,Read the Bible cover-t0-cover, then think about what you read.

Interesting and informative. It explained a lot of differences in detail. Enjoyed the book and would recommend
it if you have any questions and have an interest to be better informed about Catholicism.

While I am confident the author truly believes everything he says about the Catholic Church, his book shows that he understands very little of what it actually teaches. Instead of examining some of the biggest doctrines that separate Catholics and Protestants in a stoic, intellectual manner, the author takes it upon himself to create an army of "straw men" which he passes off as the beliefs of Catholics and attacks them with little Biblical or Scholastic sense.

Perhaps the most ironic thing is his criticism of the Catholic Church for ignoring or interpreting scripture to suit its own bias, yet he himself does this in almost every page on his book. His criticisms of the Eucharist in particular show a clear lack of Biblical understanding. The point that really shocked me was when he quoted a verse claiming that it showed that Jesus said he was speaking figuratively. I was surprised to see this verse quoted as I had not heard it before and looked it up. I was equally shocked when I discovered that the passage he said supposedly was proof that Jesus himself didn't take it literally had absolutely nothing to do with the Last Supper, and happened much later when He revealed the Holy Spirit to the disciples. From that point on, he lost any credibility in my book.

This book is filled with extremely misleading commentary supported by scattered Biblical passages that are taken -way- out of context. I remember reading this when I was a Baptist considering converting to Catholicism, and I was appalled by this lack of respect for scripture. I'm currently Catholic, so needless to say his book didn't persuade me; however, I did learn something extremely important from this book. I learned that it's important to do research on your own and not to take Biblical quotes thrown at you in support for someone's views without actually looking up the passage yourself and seeing it in its context. I've just started studying Theology in college with the hope of entering the priesthood soon. There are thought-provoking critiques and defenses of Catholic Theology, but this book is certainly not a thought-provoking critique--and if you are looking for one, you'd best look elsewhere.

"There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is of course, quite a different thing." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen

In Conversations with Catholics, Jim McCarthy details the journeys of numerous confused individuals out of the Church. Jim unfortunately distorts the tragedy of the subjects' stories with his own slanted commentary, which is never balanced with the Scriptural support Catholic Christianity. For example, Jim condemns as pagan and superstious the tradition of placing relics of martyred saints beneath altars, while ignoring that this tradition is deeply rooted in early Christian history and is really an imitation of the Heavenly Liturgy described in Rev. 6:9. Anybody, Catholic or not, who reads this book, should balance their theological diet by reading "Surprised By Truth", edited by Patrick Madrid and available here on Amazon.Com. "Surprised by Truth" details the journeys of 11 Converts to Catholicism, most of whom went kicking and screaming all the way, as they gradually realized, through Scripture and history, that their true home was the very Church they were raised to detest. The converts in "Surprised by Truth" differ from the converts in "Conversations with Catholics" in one major facet: they had a genuine understanding of the faith they were giving up.

Catholicism is thought by some to be merely another denomination of CHRISTianity. This is what I believed until I read "Conversations with Catholics." In my search to find out why Catholics did such things as praying to Mary and confession of sins to a priest, I found out that those "oddities," as I deemed them, were only the tip of the iceberg of beliefs and practices that separate Catholicism from Biblical CHRISTianity. In reading this book as a CHRISTian, I found that there were many different areas and instances in which the Catholic church has erroneously strayed from sound Biblical doctrine, taking with it unfortunate masses of believers, in many cases in the dark of what the church teaches, and what they themselves believe. If one is looking for ammunition to "bash" Catholicism, please look elsewhere. But for the CHRISTian striving for knowledge and understanding about Catholicism, and for the Catholic in search of the TRUE Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, this book is a must read. This is definitely worth reading and passing along to a friend. And for the CHRISTian with a Catholic friend, I urge you to study it for yourself and pass it along to that friend. I believe it is what GOD would have you do.

In James McCarthy's book, "The Gospel According to Rome", he presented the Catholic position in a very straightforward manner, then challenged it with his interpretation of specific Bible verses. Unfortunately, in "Conversations with Catholics" it seems like all bets are off, and if you don't believe what he believes, then you must not be a Christian.

The best illustration of this for me was when he met Sr. Teresa on a bus trip across Ireland. He truly enjoys conversing with her to the point that he comes to believe that "maybe she's a believer, a sister in Christ" yet when she tells of making a pilgrimage to Rome to gain a plenary indulgence, McCarthy immediately dismisses her in his mind and feels that she "had no qulams about adapting the explanation of her Faith for my evangelical ears". What conceit on McCarthy's part! Especially when the woman was truly sharing her love of the Lord!

This book's only purpose, in my opinion, is to try try to persuade everyone to the author's viewpoint, and to condemn everyone else that would dare differ. Maybe we all should wake up and accept the love of our Lord in each of us. And maybe one day, with the grace of God, McCarthy will focus his energies on those who truly do not know the Lord, rather than trying to bring Catholic Christians around to his way of thinking.

I read as many Protestant-to-Catholic conversion stories as I can, so reading about the reverse was interesting, although each case is a tragedy. McCarthy basically attacks Catholic beliefs through stories of people leaving the Church. It's painful to read about something so bad being described as something good. However, there's nothing here that other anti-Catholics haven't already covered. Anybody who wants an explanation of anything McCarthy attacks can get one from a variety of Catholic sources. Even putting saints' relics inside altars is a practice that is documented back to the early second century. After a martyrdom, the martyrs' remains would be gathered and buried under an altar in the catacombs, as any objective history of the early Church will reveal. Unfortunately, McCarthy is not interested in practicing and believing the same Faith the early Christians practiced. I find that people who join the Catholic Church join after prolonged research into the Bible and Church history. People who leave, leave quickly out of ignorance because some anti-Catholic gave them a slick tour through selected parts of the Bible or history. That's really what James McCarthy gives the reader here, and no matter how sincere he is, he will have to answer to God for working against this Catholic Church that God Himself founded and promised to defend and guide into all truth. I say read the book, and then test McCarthy's assertions against true Catholic teaching and objective history; you'll have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Even among evangelicals and fundamentalists, the usual anti-catholic crew are finding that they have lost all credibility. Combine his inability to write a proper sentence, with intellectual dishonesty, and lack of any worth while scholarship, this book proves once again that anti-catholics have no business speaking about or judging the Catholic faith. They are not qualified. The author contradicts himself throughout this book and shows that he lacks even a very basic understanding of the Catholic faith. Sure, fundamentalists can continue to sustain themselves in their own little closed circle, refusing to have their claims examined, refusing to engage in discussion and think with intellectual honesty, but they will continue to ever be taken seriously by the Catholic community, and much less, by the academic community. This book is an insult to people who do real work in theology and biblical studies, both Protestant and Catholic alike.