Why Are Protestants So Wrong About Catholicism? | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the Catholic Talk Show today we're going to be talking about why Protestants get the Catholic faith so wrong that's right we're joined by Keith Nester a former Protestant Pastor to talk about why Protestants often misse the Catholic Church one thing's for certain as a pastor of the community here and through rcia um you know bringing the misnomers and the and the misconceptions of our Catholic faith I always really Turn to You Keith and you've been so supportive to people here at the Paris so thank you and welcome back to the show it's my honor to be here guys good to see all of [Music] [Applause] [Music] you all right yeah I Echo that sentiment Keith you're one of our favorite guests to have on the show it's good to see your face the rosary crew is an integral part of uh a group that's been praying for my wife Jen and uh just can't say enough about how much I really love to see your face man oh we love you guys man and uh all of our best to your family and especially to your lovely wife we're praying for her thanks buddy yeah Keith really is one of our Kindred Spirits out there online in in in the space uh you know his his people who are around him and praying the rosary and the rosary crew they listen to our stuff and our listeners listen to Keith so it's all a real pleasure to have Keith on and um and talk about stuff and from his unique perspective as being a former Protestant Pastor to where he can now talk about as a convert why so often Protestants just really misunderstand Catholicism and don't even give it a fair shot right that's the thing that's always kind of upset me is that they're not evaluating for what Catholicism actually is they're evaluating it for what they think Catholicism is there's no inquiry into right yes and then that's being said yeah and that's what we wanted to talk about today and get Keith's perspective on so yeah and you know I've I've relied heavily and I give all of my rcia members uh each year and we've got record numbers this year too so I had to go back on the on your website and pick up the converts guide to Roman Catholicism because really just jumping into um you know some of these uh clear misunderstandings it it creates an opportunity and I think that's what I love about our show so much it's an opportunity to come into contact with what the Catholic Church actually teaches and you know that's a beautiful moment when people recognize you know wow I I didn't know that the the Catholic Church actually taught that I was taught something very different um so this this will be very helpful to a lot of people yeah yeah yeah so Keith why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and why you're uniquely qualified to speak on this topic well I think I'm uniquely qualified to speak on it because I had a lot of misconceptions about Catholicism too for most of my life I mean I grew up um in the home of a United Methodist pastor my dad is a retired Pastor so I grew up in in the Protestant world and I always kind of bounced around though in between different types of churches which is I think part of what we're going to talk about is how within protestantism there seems to be this ability that people have to bounce around within different communities but when it comes to the Catholic church that's sort of on a different level people don't really do that very often some do but most most Protestants would never think about the Catholic Church the way that they think about another type of Protestant church I became a Catholic in 2017 after a pretty long discernment period and a lot of that discernment that I went through and that I've talked to plenty of others who've gone through this too A lot of it is really unlearning a lot of things that you thought you knew about Catholicism and stripping away your misconceptions and then getting to a Baseline and then building it back up slowly based on what's true and what the church really teaches and then you have to combine that with the exper erential aspect of worshiping as a Catholic or understanding the way that Catholic life is lived which is a completely different culture in in many different ways and then throughout all those things then you have the ability to make a decision on what you think about Catholicism but it's it's not just as simple as reading an article or two or having a quick conversation with someone when it comes to understanding what the Catholic church is so for me that was a big part of my story so coming up what did you understand like what were you told about Catholicism you know what in your cultural view was like what did you think of the Catholic Church as a Protestant before you converted well I I looked at the people that I knew who said they were catholic so that's where I started and most of the people that I knew that said they were catholic had real had no real faith in Jesus that I could see they were just kind of going through the motions of life and they happened to be Catholic I mean of course growing up as a kid kids in my school the ones who were who were identifying as Catholics they didn't have any other part of their life that seemed to be on fire for Jesus or A biblically based life the way that a lot of my more Evangelical friends had the ones who were catholic just sort of were like Catholic and name only so that really prevented me from going really much further with Catholicism but then I I I used to listen to or watch this this um or had this publication sent to me that from this Evangelical group out in California when I was like a kid growing up we used to get magazines and I remember there was one that was sent to me and it was said Roman Catholicism in the cult of the Virgin Mary and it was all these articles about Catholicism and it said things like that Catholics worshiped Mary that they had all these uh Idols that they worshiped that they believed that the pope was perfect and all all the different caricatures so my my understanding of my understanding of Catholicism ISM came from Protestants who were just paring different things that they heard and I didn't have any positive examples of Catholicism in my life that I could that I could look to as a way to balance that out isn't that like the phenomenon of of information in our society today whether it's Catholic or not that you hear certain things you believe certain things and then you act or don't act upon them but they're they resonate with somebody and you look at the news cycle and all these different things people's that you know at the end of the day it's God's it's it's a true inquiry into what the truth is and it's never something that happens quickly like you said reading an article it's a lived Faith right and you know I'm listening to you too Keith and just you know thinking back in my high school my high school days I was a cradle Catholic you know I I always wore the crucifix or the Christ head around my neck from the time I was like in elementary school but it was you know Catholic in name only like you described and it's like not that I look back and I and I regret because it's the Felix Kula of my life you know like the fact that I wasn't living my faith and all of the all the faults all the guilt all the shame of my youth and my mistakes you know and turning to Christ at a very pivotal moment in my you know in my late teenage years into my early 20s was just you know evidence for me that Christ can can transform somebody's life in a single moment and and he most certainly did and but like you know listening in it's just you know we're we're all around the same age and and if we were in the high we're in the same school going to school together it just breaks my heart that I wouldn't have been able to represent the Catholic faith as a youth and and and really represent it well and I think that is you know extensively across the board you know that's kind of the situation that that we face that's right now Keith you said something that that struck me that was interesting that your knowledge of Catholicism didn't come from Catholics it came from Protestants right and that really is a that that's a really pivotal statement that how could you really understand something when it's not coming from the source it's coming from somebody who's taking it and either misconstruing it or um censoring it or mischaracterizing it right uh speak to that a little bit like how yeah if you would yeah well I think I think part of the issue is who who would give those answers and who would be listening so in in in the world I grew up in there and I think this is true for today around Christianity there's a narrative that exists in the Protestant world and kind of a a culture of what it means to be a Christian that's just different in Catholicism so there's this narrative and this this understanding of what salvation is and humanity is and how your faith is like this complete individualistic thing based on a decision that you make privately and individualistically okay this decision to follow Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior it it has it has nothing to do probably with any kind of church I mean church is sort of viewed as part of it but not necessarily part of it so there are a lot of people that are very strong Christians from an Evangelical perspective but they might not necessarily have any affiliation or a strong affiliation with any particular Church they bounce around from church to church they watch different things on TV or whatever but they have their Bible and that's sort of like this personalized thing right it's all about the personal relationship with Jesus well Catholics don't really talk like that they don't really have the same narrative around their faith and they don't really live in that universe so the only people that are really talking about Christianity in that in that space is kind of like an echo chamber are other people that are living in that so there's really no you know like for example if you grew up like I did watching TBN okay the Trinity Broadcasting Network you're watching all these evangelists on on Christian TV at night you're never going to see any Catholics on there but you might see different types of Protestants on there they're not all from the same type of church so if that's your world of Christianity Catholics aren't included in that they're not part of it so Catholicism just seems to be like this completely different Universe it's not the same thing so so you really have to go out of your way to hear from a Catholic talk about their faith because Protestants will talk about Catholicism but it's sort of like what they believe you know I'm going to tell you what they believe in Catholicism is usually lumped in with like Mormonism Jehovah's Witness or other kind of like groups that they would view as friends Catholicism is never put forth as the original expression of Christianity the church that Jesus Christ started so for Protestants they look at Catholicism not even just as another denomination but but as some kind of other subculture that may or may not really be Christian so people aren't listening to those voices that unless they're part of that that's why I think it's hard for for Protestants to learn from Catholics what Catholics believe because they're not in the same spaces and it's kind of like an incremental isolation it just continues and continues and you create those echo echo Chambers and it's pervasive like I I hear kids uh even in the Catholic tradition they're born raised brought up in the in in the Catholic church and then you know they're not going to church their parents aren't going to church but now they happen to be in confirmation preparation and then there one of the questions that just came out it's like so are are Catholics Christian are we are we Christian like so not only is it you know like pervasive in the sense of the echo chamber it's also kind of pervading the consciousness of of young Catholics that are being raised in the lineage of the practice of the faith because what's dominating their conversation when when it comes to any form of religion or spirituality is a non-denominational kind of uh environment where Christianity is being lived out and shared in conversation and now Catholics don't have anything to apply to that and now they feel like well are we Christian like we couldn't be more Christian you know like you know down to the OG of of what you're sharing Keith so you know it's also within uh the scope of the need for catechesis within the church with our younger younger generation so absolutely we have to be careful of that too father rich like you said because I talked to Catholics a lot who they fall right into that they say well I'm a Catholic not Christian you know or I'm not one of those born- again Christians I'm a Catholic and we got to be careful with that because no we're we're misunder we're misrepresenting ourselves when we say things like that the the reality is Catholics are born again Christians we're the First on so when when Catholics play into that that narrative and that that culture and they put themselves on the outside of it rather than than Center themselves in the middle of it then it just perpetuates that that misconception yeah and I mean we are we're born of water and spirit we're born again Christians we are Christians like you said Keith we're the original expression of Christianity um and here's something that but you what you just said brought something up for me is that a lot of times Christians Pro uh Protestant denominations will Define themselves by the fact that they're originally not Catholic right your Mainline Protestant Traditions their whole definition and their reason to exist is that they are not Catholic so when you're starting with that premise that we exist because we're not Catholic how could you ever give Catholicism a fair Shake it's baked into the recipe of what they are now Vice Versa Catholics will say we're Catholics we're not anything that you guys say you are but yeah we are we're we're biblical we're Apostolic we believe in being born again we believe in uh scripture we believe in grace we believe in all of these same things but because we Define each other by the Via negativa we are not you because of X instead of we are like because of Y that's where we're getting these divides that become sometimes insurmountable by a by their genetic nature somebody told me I think it's a good it's been really good for me to to to get gain this perspective of what you're talking about he said um you know Protestants will tell you what they don't believe Catholics will tell you what they believe and so in a lot of cases Protestants believe what we believe right but there's so much of it that they leave off the table um and you know that's really helped me to to gain the perspective of yeah these are my brothers and sisters they're they're eating appetizers they're missing the whole meal and dessert and the wine and the the the the comaraderie of of true like um uh Unity as a community right even if we do it poorly uh it's still there uh and then and then where I think a lot of this gets left over which what Keith was saying is that it's now become so much more individualistic with the secular culture in our country right it's it's not like you you look at Christianity have been very fortunate to go to South America Central America Europe uh I mean even even Dubai the expression of the Catholic faith there uh the expression of the African church all of that centers around what we believe right so so you could you could definitely say that they're different than us but it's it's a very shallow of looking at it we we still believe we still receive the Eucharist we still go to confession we still express our faith but but they do it in different ways and so like just that perspective alone it's like you take one of these churches like in a Bible Belt somewhere and the guy's like a really good preacher and the band's really great you take that and you plant that over the expression won't be there it won't be there in the culture it'll be something different like maybe a mission or uh you know we're helping these people and whatever but it it's but you take the Catholic church and you put it everywhere it it takes its own expression it takes its own life it's it's later Gia right it's it's the work of the people and the people's work is going to look very diverse when you go from Parish to Parish state to state country to Country continent to continent you know The Universal Church the expression of it in liturgy centers around the Eucharist the source and Summit of our faith and in our proper worship and praise and Adoration of our God manifesting in the sacral Church you know instituted by Jesus himself those expressions are very unique in character but are all centering on the same very source and Summit of Faith it's drawing Us in and it's giving a place for us to invest our labor as a people before God and and there is something very beautiful in that and something I want to kind of add to what you were sharing before delross 2o is you know there's a a local a local uh Evangelical Church that's growing in massive popularity and you know I had one of the followers of of this uh this pastor um expressed to me he has he has cancer very rare form of cancer and and he and I have been interacting for a little while now and um and praying together but he he shared with me in a very vulnerable moment he just said you know father rich I I'm just really struggling because my my pastor is just constantly railing on all these different denominations including Catholicism and and sharing this that and the other and and he said can I just ask you uh some questions you know um because this is what's being said to me and and what a what a gift to be able to have that moment as a priest to be able to share with him like no that's not what the Catholic Church teaches um this is what the Catholic Church teaches but how many other people are exposed to the magazines to the preaching to the that's doing the same thing you're describing is like this is what we don't believe but is that truly what's being represented in whatever denomination was being talked about including Catholicism yeah they they're lies you know yeah and I I think what's what's so interesting about Catholicism it's kind of ironic is that the Catholic church is one of the only churches out there I would say probably the only church out there maybe there's a couple others where you can get a definitive answer on what the church believes about anything because most of these other churches out there don't have a catechism like Father rich is holding up they have a statement of faith on a website that is extremely General vague it it it hones in on a couple of points but it doesn't get down to the nitty-gritty of what really is being taught by the church and the Catholic church has that and that's what's so beautiful about it and so unifying about it is you can say look as a Catholic this is what we all teach and believe but in the in the Protestant world you don't have that there I mean there are very few exceptions I would say I mean I know historically there were the different cids and the different um catechisms and but nobody's really following those today in modern protestantism that's sort of a relic from the past in in terms of like post-reformation stuff so the average the average Evangelical Church you could walk into right now even ones that are denominational you can say well what does your church teach about this and you might find a huge variance for I'll give you one quick example when I was um working as a as a pastor in an Evangelical Free Church for for about two years I was there they had a statement about about baptism that basically left it open to interpretation to each individual Pastor so you were allowed to baptize infants if your conviction was that you should do that but the church didn't officially teach that you could or couldn't it just said we don't know it's up to each Pastor to figure out what they want to do so if I didn't want to baptize an infant um I could say no I don't want to do that but I would need to bring someone else in who would do that so that there's a lot of variations on things even within denominations of course the denomination I spent most of my time in the United Methodist Church they don't even follow their own teaching like their leadership doesn't even follow their own teaching that's why the church is splitting again so really I think what's more ironic is that when you want to find out what other churches believe like you were saying Ryan it's always about well we we don't believe this we don't believe that but when you start pressing them on what do you believe you're going to get very vague answers and you're going to get very general um answers because people always have to leave open the door for personal interpretation of of the Bible and in the Catholic church we can we can definitively say this is what we teach yet it's so interesting that so people don't know what it does teach Keith I love that treatment because like the trajectory and and it's so reassuring and it's and it's opening up my mind the way that we lean in we lean into magisterial teaching we lean into the tradition of what has been upheld in Orthodoxy and what a resting upon the rock that is Peter and the successors of Peter that we have that because that's ultimately what's going to tend us to the unity that that a good shepherd accomplishes with his sheep and you know the importance of catechesis the importance of magisterial teaching because it is that Central Authority that's bringing us together in thought word and action it's it's also the reality of the encounter with Christ that we have in the Eucharist and in confession and in baptism I was baptized as an infant but we have bad pastors like let's not even it started with Judas like throughout centuries we've had people that have just gone off the rails and led lots of sheep astray but the reality of our church is that we have a a working tradition that if even if you had a bad pastor you can still go and receive the fullness of Faith the deposit of our faith by reading the catechism by you know reading you know what we believe and by encountering Christ in the Eucharist when I got kicked out of the Seminary you know everybody's like well why you know I'm surprised you haven't left the church like why aren't you leaving the church it's not you're just going back and I'm like I I encounter Christ in a way that I will never be able to encounter Christ at your church I can't it's impossible I can't you you are the Lord you you're you have the words of everlasting life I'm not going anywhere just like Peter and I and I pray for the guys that that did get kicked out of the Seminary or left the Seminary and stopped going to the church but you know like the the reason that that I just value our friendship and Billy Kramer and Chris Snowden and so many other guys it's just like they're not leaving the they're not leaving the church Alex Sanchez and like all the you know that's the thing we lean in to the Embrace of of Christ and we fulfill the vocation that God is calling us to and you know that's the trajectory but like the opposite and what you're what you're sharing with us right now Keith is eye openening that you know when you kind of enter into this kind of non denominational kind of uh environment where it's left to the subjective uh person to kind of interpret and put into practice whatever they want that's kind of an isolating trajectory and then almost like a fragmentation and in that process I could see culturally the newer forms of what's being born out of this movement which is like I'm spiritual but not religious so now I'm kind of spiritual in isolation I'm in the sea of unknown and I'm going to come to conclusions myself and that is just so Treacher to any form of solidarity and Union of Mind heart body or Soul yeah how can the Holy Spirit who is The Interpreter of tradition who is the one who inspires um scripture how can the holy spirit in Inspire completely opposing views of what a passage means in two people and not be divided how can you divide the Holy Spirit and make the LI a liar of the Holy Spirit that's heresy it's not possible so how can you have disagreement within a church on a fundamental matter of faith and still say that the holy spirit is guiding that church it seems to me to be a logical impossibility when you approach it from the view of the Holy Spirit preventing error among those who that the Holy Spirit guides but these churches will say well you can believe this or that it doesn't really matter and the holy spirit's cool with either of them that's that's not possible that that is a complete mising of the holy spirit so Keith what does keep these churches together is the theological cental force that prevents them from just spinning apart well I think one of the issues is nobody really knows how to answer that question Ryan when you talk to people sometimes they'll say things like well we need to have unity in the essentials but we have we have you know charity in the non-essentials or we have you know freedom in the non-essentials but who gets to decide what an essential versus a non- essential is that's always where you kind of go we don't know because and here's the biggest thing at the heart of this whole issue most people get Catholicism wrong because they apply a standard to it which it was never meant to be applied to and and what I mean is this people don't understand the concept of the church in Protestant world the church and I'm using air quotes there for people listening is this invisible group of Believers in Jesus everywhere in the world but we don't really know who it is we don't really know who it isn't there's no there's no um Community or accountability it's just the church is kind of everybody who's really a Christian in Catholicism there's there's very much a an understanding of what Jesus meant when he said I will build my church the concept of a church that has the authority to teach the faith and to guide its people infallibly and when I say that you know what I mean that's a concept that people outside of Catholicism don't have their standard for truth is the Bible that's why you're always hearing people say well where in the Bible this where in the Bible that where in the Bible this where in the Bible that and this isn't in the Bible and that isn't in the Bible I I just I've been I have this conversation probably five or six times a week with people sometimes we have to help people understand that that Paradigm of looking to the Bible alone outside of the understanding of what the church is is where most people get hung up because they're trying to apply this standard to the Catholic church that was never meant to be applied to it which is the standard that like you said Ryan how do we know what we believe what's holding us together everyone wants to just say well we're biblical Christians we believe the Bible but as you just pointed out that kind of falls apart the moment there's any kind of disagreement or contradiction so to me I always Point people to the fact of saying if if you don't need the church to teach and preach the faith then why isn't there one universally understood protestantism why isn't that a just like just like you have a catechism that all Catholics believe why isn't there a Protestant catechism that all Protestants believe and they're all unified in that the fact that there isn't it self-destructs according to to that standard anyway but people aren't used to looking at the Catholic church that way they're used to saying well we start with the mindset of the Bible alone but you have to back them up and say why do you do that right and they don't really have a good way to answer that well unfortunately probably the real answer is that you had you know electors of the Holy Roman Empire are using religion and politics to get more land in the 15th and 16th century Germany and they use the Bible and they use this new printing press as a way to get more land and not to have to pay taxes to Rome and this and that they don't understand that they've been pawns at a long historical seedy evolution of people using religion as a political tool you know I mean you have the 30 Years War you have all these different things that go on and now they're here 400 years later and they like why did you do that I don't know that's what we do right and I and I like to the point that you're making Keith is like if you don't have a criteria of Who You exclude how could you have a criteria then of who you include how can you say this is a Christian if you can't say this isn't a Christian right how can you say this is the right interpretation of the Bible if you can't say this is the wrong interpretation of the Bible how can you say where is that in scripture and then have an essential like the Trinity when the Trinity isn't in scripture how can you agree on the Canon of scripture when the Canon of scripture isn't in the Bible so there's a lot of logical just inconsistencies in protestantism that are baked into it from its Inception but now here we are are 400 years later and you've got these people who have evolved in this path right you know you got this I would say this um natural selection of traits and characteristics in their faith that don't really serve them anymore they they've grown Wings when they're underwater animals right they've grown things that don't make sense um in in the interpretation of faith and it's just a byproduct of the history of where that's LED them from yeah there but there's a beauty there's an absolute Beauty to consequences there's a absolute Beauty and poetic nature of what's happening right now and to see this kind of convergence of thought where people are sitting there conscientiously thinking you know does this make sense to me you know does this make sense and and where do I go from here like this kind of this return and and your testimony is a beautiful a beautiful one Keith that we've we've covered in previous episodes to and just hearing your testimony uh today this this return to this Oneness is is happening because there is really a central Authority and it is the person of Jesus Christ and and he is he has established a church through Peter yeah that Shepherds intends the Oneness and and you know as as a pastor as as as a priest seeing the fruits of of the talk show sharing the faith witnessing people kind of turning is is such an inspiring inspiring thing and when I when I look the lens that I look at it is you know we're all Catholic at one point you know prior to the Protestant Reformation we were all every single one of us we Catholic in our family line you know for the most part like we were all at a level of identity and this is what I tell people all the time who were baptized Catholic and then they go on kind of a cycle of searching because that's what's popular to find your own way but then they come back and they say you know father I've been I'm I'm I'm Protestant etc etc I'm like okay there's ways that we can do rcia bring you in blah and then they come to say well father I was baptized in the Catholic church I'm like what's a Catholic always a Catholic you know father I received First Holy Communion and then I went off I received confirmation I went off of my my own way it's like no once a Catholic always a Catholic like in the Bloodlines of what we what we are familiar with looking at the history books it's like we're just a degree of separation there's a lot more that we can celebrate in in unity that that we just need to kind of unveil for people what are these misconceptions you know very clearly yeah it's not like protestantism formed out of whole cloth out of the seafoam in the 1500s there was something before protestantism what is that were no Christians saved for 1500 years did Jesus say hey I'm peace out to Heaven se you in 1500 years with the truth so when you start to confront these things and then with the fact that we made earlier that fundamentally I we agree on 90% of Doctrine we do agree on 90% of Doctrine but we're defining ourselves on what we don't agree on so if we start focusing on what we agree on like with the Eastern Orthodox we agree on a lot with the Eastern Orthodox there's a few things that we don't but that's why we're so much closer I think in practice to them um or even in the ability to reunite but so how do we get to that point with you know these Protestant denominations because we're coming from the same route and I think Keith is a perfect authority to answer that question is like what are the steps forward toward greater unity and and ACC humanism and and ecumenical relationships to bridge this Gap well I think the the best thing that we can do is live out our Catholic faith boldly and publicly which is what I love about you guys you know and because the thing I love about about the cathic talk show and all of you guys is that you you live out your Catholic faith in a way that I think is going to connect with a lot of people who who aren't necessarily searching those for those answers on their own they just kind of come across you guys and go okay these guys kind of talk like me they sound like me and yet you're giving them the truth so we've got to be out there we've got to be willing to live our faith boldly and proudly as Catholics not shy away and and act like we're we've got some kind of disease oh I'm Catholic I can't talk to you or I can't do this because you're a Protestant so therefore you must know every verse in the Bible way better than I do cuz I'm just a measly little catholic no we have to be out there and we have to show people the beauty of our faith so I think there's things that we can do individualistically to bring Catholicism into our everyday lives into the relationships that we have with people but then at a church level I could say and I'm not an authority on this part of it I just have opinions I think what the Catholic church needs to do is be more boldly unapologetically distinctively Catholic not try to do things that sort of make us like the world or make us like protestantism you know a lot of you can run into those those parishes that they try to model themselves more towards Protestant churches because they think that's what going to attract more people but I think what we need to do is be boldly Catholic and show people the beauty of our faith because that's the thing we need more than anything is to to reveal it to the world not not to not to try to like trick the world but just to reveal it that's that's so good best thing that we can do I I TR truth attracts you know truth is something that is received and it's good medicine and it and it heals the heart and it heals the mind and it rids us of Lies you know and so speaking of a lot of lies Keith and and you know we've touched on uh some of the Dynamics that that c if we if we start shifting more clearly into like misconceptions what are some of the leading misconceptions um that Protestants have related to Catholicism I think the biggest ones are that Catholics worship Mary um I get that all the time well if you're you know Jesus is the only mediator Jesus is the only mediator and I can't I I wish I had a dollar for every time I had that conversation so that Catholics worship Mary worship the saints that Catholics believe that the pope is perfect that Catholics don't believe the Bible is the inspired inherent infallible word of God that Catholics think you have to earn your salvation that Catholics worship statues that they um that they don't believe that you need a personal relationship with Jesus that you don't need Faith you just need to do the right things I mean those are the general ones that you hear all the time and it it amazes me that people still believe that but they do they do that's the narrative that people have over and over is that the Catholic Church preaches a different gospel where does that come from where where are those where does that kind of line of thought originate with it is that is that is that from the Protestant Reformation uh the leading figures of that is that just kind of a a folk theology I mean where does that kind of line of thought come from I think because there are a lot of people out there in the Protestant world that are railing against the Catholic church and that's why they are saying these things there are entire YouTube channels focused on propagating these things there are books about it there are all these different things that are out there in the world that put forth these lies in an authoritative way in according to this little formula of the Catholic Church believes this but the Bible says that therefore the Bible's right the Catholic church is wrong so there are a lot of loud voices out there promulgating these lies and deceiving people why why are they doing that do they have something to gain I mean why would we don't sit here and go through the catechism of or or the teachings of the Baptists or the lutherans and try to knock that down why are they specifically targeting the church why what's their motivation it's I mean you're right I I can't tell you how many Protestant Services I've been to over my life where I've heard about the evils of the Catholic church but I've never once heard a homy by a priest about the evils of some random Protestant Church the reason why I think is because because when a Protestant Pastor can do that he knows that a large group of people that are listening to him have some affiliation with Catholicism a lot of them are ex- Catholics or or might they might be Catholics and if he can put himself as an authority over the Catholic church and show people how smart he is is and how they're wrong and he's right that's going to suck more people into his funnel into his influence into his teaching so ultimately they believe that what's that and donor base well yeah yeah I mean if you can if you can demonstrate to to the world why the evil Catholic Church doesn't know know the Bible but you do that's how you bring people in but they don't do it just to Catholics but but um it's pretty common to do that yeah there's this dude uh this is like a microcosm of everything we're talking about I had some uh Jehovah's Witness come to my door knock knock I was actually waiting for a nurse for like a blood test so I opened the door I was a little tooing you know to this guy I'm like come on in so he was already in my house great and then he's like wow okay starts cracking up in the bot I was like oh boy this my first time I had some time but he was telling me what he believed and and he was showing me in scripture where he believed it and I know that he received it and that he was trying to share that with me mhm so I was like well who told you that and he's like well I became a Jehovah's Witness he told me the story they knocked on my door this and that right I said well how do I know if the guy that told you this is telling you the truth yeah and he says well I I believe it's the truth because he told me and it makes sense and I was like well who told that guy so we went up a ladder to an office in New York that were where the head of the Jehovah's Witness was so I said so some guy in an office in New York it's not even a church told this guy who told this guy we went down the authoritative channels we went down to the authoritative channels and he goes yeah that's you know that's what he believes and we're all talking about Authority and everything but what it told me was that they told him something this works they tell this guy something this works and the reason why it's all desperate is because you have to say something that works if they leave you got to change what you're saying because you're not getting people through the door which all comes back to your success as a pastor right because your success as a pastor is not if you Shepherd one soul to Christ One Soul To Heaven it's got to be a lot of them it's got to be a building a culture and that's why they change what they say because whatever they're saying's not working you know little tickle the ears and they sound like they sound like like the hill song guy when he comes out and like abortion they give this like it's almost like a CEO trying to apologize for something without you know alienated the base of the consumer you know what I mean like does does it feel like that to you like that's kind of how I it's like Bud Light advertising on UFC right right well I mean but even in that case the CEO gets up there and there's no apology there's no alien and obviously they handle it the wrong way but but this is like they they play with they play with Doctrine Faith they play with what they are expecting other people to believe or navigate through as a source of success in their lives whether it's well intention or not yeah and their their little Pope in an office building in New York is just that he's their little Pope and it's still one person's interpreting and you have follow Authority right somebody's auth it's inescapable to have any affiliation between multip mle people without one person setting an authority that is just how logic works I mean I'm sorry I mean I didn't create logic but that's what happens and and kind of going back to what you were saying before when the student is ready the teacher will appear right so this guy was not ready to to to take this on like I mean he I mean this is this is a perfect microcosm what we're talking about you know I said do you understand that what you believe is something somebody told you and that they're the authority and I said your religion was started in 18 whatever right and what happened from you know all this stuff just blew his mind he's like you know what I just want to go back to believe in this man I want to go back to knocking on the doors because I've got somebody I got to go report to right he's just like not ready so and and the difference is these guys are going to this church they've been given the grace of inquiring who is this guy is everything he's saying to me true I feel good after I leave church my son he baptized my son right he's got the hooks in so now everything he says to you is is the god truth right and if it isn't it crushes your worldview if it yeah if it isn't you now it's just like what have I done you know Marina and Jeff left the Met it's the Met these friends of mine became Catholic on a trip me and uh father rich took guess you got to shoot hogs out of a helicopter to get coming some like Jeff so but but she left the Met uh about a year later or 6 months later you know instead of hey good luck to you like I mean if somebody left to our church I wouldn't be mad at them I'd be worried for them the these people disowned this woman right this is in 2022 right disowned her no more phone calls no more so what is the premise of the unity what is the premise of the unity of these Christians right and I'm sure it doesn't happen to everybody I'm sure some people are reasonable what is the premise of that Unity this is so good what is it that we're all being lied to and we all have to age on it this this is this is what is fundamentally innate in the human person created by God so the catechism of the Catholic Church States and this is where to your point Keith now we're like resting our head on magisterial teaching and let's take this question SC informed by scripture and and let's look at it so um cical Point 44 man is by nature and vocation a religious being coming from God going toward God man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God the problem is and the structure that you just created is where mankind steps into the position and seat and authority of God right h and then what happens in the hurt and disenfranchisement of folks that may be interacting Loosely or uh completely isolated from the church or a subject of the church that's hurt and then by way of Scandal is separated they separate themselves from the church is that now we need some type of authority figure that says that they are God that's different than this and now I have to establish a relationship a click a power for a community in light of that because I need a place of belonging I need person and Community thank you Norris Clark like thank you thank you philosophers that have have I need these structures around me so that I feel secure in my bond with God but there's there that's questionable because you're actually placing your Authority in some person that is an influencer in this unknown office in Manhattan that is where did he get it from where did he get I hate to be a cynic guys and you know I'm not a cynic right I'm not a cynical guy I don't know buring comes out and then 10 years you got Wendy's you got buring you got this and that chipot comes out you got 15 burrito places Taco Bell comes out you got 10 taco places A Bar opens up another Bar opens up next door a CVS opens up a Walgreens right across the street that's what happens right someone opens a church and they like hey these guys got some power and power is pretty attractive that gets me girls and money I like that stuff I like power they've got power well I'm going to open up a little competing shop here I'm going to open up my own little Burger King right next to the Catholic church and cynically if you look at history I'm sorry that is what it is Martin Luther intended to reform the Church but then was manipulated by po politicians to become a pawn in those politicians getting more money and getting more power and because of that so many Souls have been LED astray and cut off from the unity in the body of Christ and from the one Vine of Christ and the unity that Jesus Christ prayed for in his great prayer and it's all because of perverted and perverse reasons of desire for power and to be fair this happens in the Catholic church that that there there is a a a priest who became very powerful and very influential and I know people that were in the ground work of this amazing still amazing Ministry in our church one of the best for years and and you know once he got called out for something guess what he did he went and got into a strip mall and he started his own church and he tried to bring everybody out of that church yep the Catholic church with him to the strip mall and that happens all the time and and it's just like influence and power and ambition you know like the the humility we're called to is real and you know it's it's it's a dangerous situation to place yourself into positions of influence and power and that's why I I rest on Bishop EST sending me into the influencing of online Ministry and I had a number of brother priests saying like Rich you know how can we be of best support to you getting into this ministry so that you don't lose your vocation you know because that's a that's a real issue you know and then look how many guys that were in you know media and and and you know and then next thing you know they're now an Episcopalian priest they're now a you know the blank oh I was in a uh I was in a movie a Scorsese movie well a year later I'm married with a kid I was on Oprah year later I'm married with a kid oh I got this huge Ministry a year later I've got a mistress and a four-wheeler and whatever right Keith how many people did you bring with you from your uh to bring over right now I'm I'm right now I'm working on zero um actually I guess you can count my wife there's one guess in the most in the most beautiful um reverse way you'll know him by your fruits that you haven't brought anyone with you that you're right you know well I it's funny because there have been people from my old my churches that have become Catholic but they haven't like joined the Church of Keith and that's the biggest difference right it's like what you guys are talking about is and I and I saw this you know and I I this is what I wanted to be I mean my dream was to start a church one day and have it blow up and become this giant mega church I mean when you're when you're in Ministry Your Heroes are the guys that have done exactly that they're the guys that you know they're the Rick Warren they're the bill holes the the mark driscolls that you know those guys that have have gone out on their own and there's this movement of God and they've started these big movements that's what everybody's trying to do all those guys in the strip mall are trying to be that they're trying to grow this thing that ultimately is revolving around them and their interpretation and their understanding and their ability to teach the truth that's why and it's very centered on them that's why when someone leaves it's like it's like you just you know shot my dog or something like that is what it feels like to them because it's so much about them personally whereas like in the Catholic church and I know people are people I know I know priests feel you know they feel pain they feel hurt as well when people are people but no Catholic priest is walking around his Parish with the same sense of this is mine that a lot of these other guys are doing in their in their you know Church communities that they've started and I I remember hearing a a pastor in one of my old towns who had started this church and he was chewing out this group of people that had left and he literally called them spiritual adulterers because you know he heard that some of the people there were going to other churches during the week for different things like you're a spiritual adulterer no and I'm like is that even a thing you know I mean that's that's what God said about the Israelites not some dude in his little church that he started and then people went down the street to the other one because they had a better band or whatever but again it all goes back to the idea of how do we know what the Christian faith is it's revealed to us through a church not from a guy in his Bible in the year 2023 yeah and when we when we understand that that Paradigm is illogical as you were saying she a minute ago like there's all logical contradictions and like Ryan delross you were talking about well who told you well who told you well who told you you're going to wind up with some guy going well this is what the Bible says the Holy Spirit revealed to me and I'm sorry but that's just loow hanging fruit to say well what about the other guy down the street who has the same Bible does he have the same holy spirit because he's got a different view of that there's this endless this endless cycle of of fear and a lack of assurance for all the times that Protestant talking about you Catholics don't have Assurance of Salvation I would say this you don't even have assurance that what you're teaching is actual Christianity you can't you don't know that we do right because our church goes all the way back to Peter and Jesus so we have this assurance and that's why the catechism is so important and that's why for me is a as a as a Catholic convert I have so much peace because I don't have to wrestle through that hazy world of trying to figure out theology anymore I just have to work on obedience which is a lot harder but it's a lot more freeing because guess what that's and I don't mean to say this in a in a like a prideful way but that's in my control and what I mean is this I have the ability through the grace of God to obey God he's not called me to do something and then not giv me the grace to be obedient to it but I can know what that is because of the church apart from the church I really am left with my own thoughts and somebody else's View and I have to decide and work my way through that and that is very that's very troubling and I think that's why a lot of people have so much anxiety around which church they go to when they leave a church because they're afraid what if I've left the guy that was telling me the truth or what if I'm with the guy who's telling me a lie how do I work through that there's a lot of anxiety when you talk to a lot of Catholic converts father Rich I'm sure you experienced this there are people who just when they become Catholic they can just breathe they go oh now I can rest in the bosom of of holy mother church and I don't have to solve all these problems anymore I just have to get about the business of living a holy life because when your whole life is spent trying to figure out theology you're not worried so much about Holiness you're worried so much about what if I'm wrong and when you can just rest in the knowledge of the truth that comes to you from the church you don't have to worry about that anymore now you can focus on being with Christ and becoming a saint which is what we're supposed to be doing anyway that's why we say welcome home yeah when people come Keith something you said reminds me a great classic joke so this guy's walking down the city streets one day and he sees this bridge and there's this guy standing at the edge of the bridge he's like hey pal what are you doing man you don't want to jump don't you got don't you want to live guys like I don't want to live anymore he's like come on man don't you believe in God he's like well yeah I believe in God he's like don't jump you believe in God he's like what church you go to he's like Baptist he's like me too he's like reformed or Southern he's like Southern like Missouri sinard absolutely third or fifth he's like fifth I'm third jump you Protestant scum so it just shows that I mean you start you get so many divisions in protestantism like how do you know what's right and kith that's what you're saying there's no rest there's no certainty that you're in the place that okay this church was founded by this pastor this church was founded by this reformer this church was a split off from you know John Wesley split off from the anglicans whatever right to where we are now 60,000 denominations of Christianity you have Catholicism who 60,000 literally founded by Jesus Christ and on his Apostles directly tied to the apostles I just I think that's an insurmountable fact that for 1500 years you had Catholicism founded by Christ Apostolic succession all the way through them we we've turned the inspiration that we should be helping people to to seek the truth and to to being consumers of something that kind of just works in their life you know like and I don't want to I don't want to miss the opportunity to because you know like the the show's focus is on you know what what Protestants get wrong about um Catholicism and we're talking you know fantastically on like dynamics of of what's happened philosophic but just for some folks out there that are listening in Keith like just kind of going into this like very singularly you know does the church worship Mary and how do you respond to somebody that is of the perception like I'm 41 years old like you know maybe I've been conditioned to believe that the church does how do you address that yeah I just take him right to the catechism I'll just I'll just take him to the official teaching of the church and and say no that's not what the church does I think it's so important to be clear where where Clarity is needed and to confront that and it's it's really there there are there are things that are matters of just asked answered does the church worship Mary no but then there's the question behind the question well then why do the Catholics pray the rosary why do the Catholics have statues of Mary why do the Catholics ask for you know prayers from Saints now you get to have these amazing conversations so you start with the with the nope that's not true nope that's false whatever and then we dig into why the church does what and and once you do that man it's a different conversation and oftentimes it's a longer conversation and it leads to many many other questions but my my those are the most fun conversations I have when we can get past that initial you know yes or no and then into the why beautiful things can happen but we have to be able to help people to get there and the best way to to answer those misconceptions is to be willing to have those conversations and show people no that's not what the church teaches look up the catechism of the Catholic Church what it says about Mary she's a created being that she was graced by God by The Graces of Christ that's how she was conceived immaculately not by her own uh Grace but by the grace that comes from Jesus so we start with what the church teaches and then we can take it a step deeper to talk about well why does the church teach this and what one of the things I like to do with people is when we get into a lot of these conversations is to instead of operating from the framework of the default position for Christianity is protestantism and why why is Catholicism different I flip that around and say okay tell me when your denomination stopped um asking for Mary's intercession or stopped believing that Mary was a Perpetual virgin because Martin Luther believed these things like and I I will show people just from from history why the Catholic teaching is the default version of Christianity and then I will ask them well what why did you guys switch when did that happen and oftentimes people they don't believe that so one of the biggest misconceptions that we haven't addressed yet really maybe we've addressed it indirectly is that when we said that Catholicism is the or original expression of Christianity that's about Doctrine and that's important because now you're not talking about well when did the Catholic church start doing this now you're saying when did The Protestant Church stop doing this and why and I think that's a way more interesting conversation to have than well when did the Catholic church start believing in purgatory I like that I like that J position yeah so Keith a couple things well first do you ever regret that you have to call the people who watch your YouTube channel the rosary crew and not nestorians oh man I know like it's so funny because I'll make you I made a video about Mary being the mother of God and people are always saying you know she's not the mother of God she's the mother of Jesus and and I'm like well isn't Jesus God well I'm like yeah that that's a heresy called historian ISM that the church dealt with in the fifth century and all you know I'll go through that and then people are like wait a minute that wasn't from you but um I don't know like I I wish I wish it wasn't a heresy I wish it was more like some kind of religious order or whatever so I could claim it a little bit better ordering the story yeah it's it's it's tragic you know I mean um so then but speaking of that how can people engage with you more I mean I know our listeners a lot of them know about you but for the ones who don't um where can they learn more I mean I know you got some books you got a lot of Ministries and you got a lot of cool things going on tell us about those yeah so you know the ministry that I kind of started is called down toe and that's just down to earth ministry.org down the number twoe ministry.org um but really I just I just kind of started making YouTube videos um you know like four years ago just on the weekends my wife and I would go to mass come home and just say hey let's make a video about something okay and that kind of started everything and then of course the books um so I'm pretty active online with these things I'm pretty active on social media I do the best I can to respond to people when they reach out to me and I do a lot lot of that on you know Instagram Keith Nester Catholic and and Twitter and you know through email and things like that so people can reach out to me it's it's The more I've been doing this or the longer I've been doing this the harder it is to keep that you know Speedy engagement with people but you know every once in a while the Lord will will lead me to certain people that I just feel like are dropped right in my path because for whatever reason what I'm talking about is resonating with them and and we've had some incredible conversations with people who have come into the church and and things like and I love doing that you know um so if people reach out to me hopefully hopefully they'll get a response sometime before Jesus comes back but we'll see um I know you just did a 6,000 mile trip across the country you know what was that all about that was amazing so you know my wife and I and our dog Lucy we travel around in this this motor home van we call it the rosary vehicle I know it's not very original RV and we started doing that in 2021 and we just we we pick a destination or sometimes it'll be like a speaking engagement someplace and instead of getting on an airplane we'll just drive and we'll stop in different cities along the way and pray the rosary with people and people will invite their friends sometimes it's at parishes sometimes it's at parks or whatever and we've done our sixth trip we just got back from we went all the way to California and uh it was an incredible experience I mean it was almost as good as when we went to go visit the delac crosses at their home in in uh Texas but um it it was just awesome I love being out on the road I love getting to meet these people that we're interacting with online I had a woman come up to me in in um Southern California saying Keith I've been praying with you every single day since day one and she drove hours to come to pray with us and and people will will will come out and and spend time with us and we get to experience this community that that is that is every day on the rosary crew in person in these places and it's just the coolest thing ever we absolutely love doing it that's why we're we love talking to you because we're so much alike we love hanging out with with folks that uh support us that listen to us we love hearing stories of conversions and he's experienced that his pair are several listeners coming in for rcia and different things like that awesome so um yeah I mean this is this is the great joy that we have you know and it's and it's no it's no one's individual work it's like the work that we get to share in that is the work of God it is the one work like Bishop PM talked about and and to participate in that you know is is truly a joy so we want to invite all of you guys to check out the YouTube channel of Keith Nester by going to you youtube.com Rosary crew with Keith Nester and something that I've been experiencing most recently Keith is um just a call and the mve movement of our lady just kind of dominating the ministry these past couple of few weeks now uh in from October and just um and just calling all the parishioners all the families all the children to start praying the rosary together and and it's uh it's beautiful to see what happens when we humble ourselves and participate in that Universal prayer you know of of Jesus Christ in the in the recounting of the Our Father And The Hil Mary and the glory be these scriptural prayers that are associated with the mysteries of Jesus Christ who is our Central worship you know we we turn to him adoration and and praise and worship Belong by right to the lamb who was slain and and meditating on that through the rosary is such a powerful Tool uh so thank you for promoting it to the extent that you do and it's awesome to connect with you today well thank you guys so much I mean you guys are a big part of what we do I mean I feel like the rosary crew and the Catholic Talk Show are kind of you know they go hand inand and every every every time you guys do a live show on the rosary crew people are always in the live chat going Catholic talk show coming up next Catholic talk show coming up next and I and I told them last night that we were going to be filming today and they were like no way that's amazing that's like we have to do a we have to do a a rosary crew Catholic Talk Show collab sometime where we get everybody together and do a big event and invite her but it would be it would be something to to that would be cool to do the rosary together and then jump into show Absolutely that would be fantastic let's do that like a lot like we could do it like we could do a live show in like like a Parish Hall or something like that where we invite the public to come we all pray the rosary together and then we do like a a show together like that live stream or not even live stream recorded with the people there that would be just amazing I've got a great idea Keith I've got a parish right across the street and if you could hop in that beautiful Rosary vehicle that RV come down here with your family and let's let's make that happen that'll be awesome that be great i' fly out for that thinking about because um we we were trying to figure out where we were going to go this winter and uh I know like you guys our our pilgrimage to the Holy Land is getting is getting uh pushed back but uh so Stella and I were thinking where should we go this winter because we got to go someplace to warm and I was like man we should go back down to Florida you know it's aw go let's make it happen let's make it happen that'll be that'll be a blast yeah well uh Keith again we appreciate it uh shout out to everyone on the rosary crew uh shout out to your ministry and everything that you do we make sure that there's links to it um in the video notes below uh so go and follow Keith uh look at his books that he's got and down toe ministries.org uh Keith always a pleasure and uh next time we got to be on your channel absolutely man can't wait love you guys love you too Keith all the best to you and to all of our followers on Facebook Instagram and Twitter make sure that you're sharing the content getting the beauty of our Catholic faith to the furthest ends of the world in all of the Nations the proclamation of the Gospel is alive and it's alive through you an instrument of God's glory and his grace sharing the beauty of our faith is what inspires all of that reality that Christ encaptures captures in the Gospel of John chapter 17 that we would be one and that desire of the father of our Oneness can only be worked out through your testimony and really humbling ourselves to this one work that we are called to so thank you for joining us on the Catholic Talk Show each and every week to our patrons out there thank you for your financial support you help us continue to produce this show and support people like Howard our editor Kyle and all the family that's behind the scene working to create this content God bless you if you're thinking of think of supporting the show go to Catholic talk show.com patreon you'll see all the tears to support us and we have some cool swag to send your way to say thank you in between time from now until next week let's continue to exercise our faith and one way is by joining the rosary crew today God bless [Music]

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

Views: 72,574

Keywords: Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Ryan DellaCrosse, Father Rich Pagano, Catholic Radio, Catholic TV, Catholic Show, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Bishop Barron, Breaking In The Habit

Id: UNe1eb8jkS4

Length: 68min 17sec (4097 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2024