"The Purging of Purgatory From New, Pro- Catholic Book"

Having finished my manuscript for "Winning Catholics to Christ" and awaiting final embellishments and editing, I decided to read the new book pictured above to see if we missed anything. This led to an "Afterword" to my book (which will be self-published, Lord Willing, in 2020).....

Afterword:

Addressing Karlo Broussard’s New Book “Meeting the Protestant Challenge, How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs”

It is no secret that Catholicism in America and elsewhere has fallen on hard times. An open letter by Catholics in very high places to Catholics in very high places accused the present Pope of “the canonical delict of heresy” last year.  It went on to say that this has created “one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church,” but it’s not the only one!  You see, approaching 2020, the seemingly endless stream of sexual allegations against the Church has left many Catholics disillusioned and fleeing, looking for viable alternatives.

It’s undeniable that in the wake of the aforementioned concurrent crises, many Protestants are reaching out to Catholics and saying “Hey, Catholicism was never built on Scripture anyway.  Come with us.”  And it is no surprise, therefore, that Karlo Broussard and others are seeking to stem that exodus.  But what IS pleasantly surprising is how the BIBLE is delved into so much in Karlo’s new book!  I have never known Catholics to be so concerned with God’s Word, and I’m happy that they are.

I bought and read “Meeting the Protestant Challenge” AFTER I finished my own book because, frankly, I wanted to see if I “missed anything” before we published.

 

By God’s Grace, I didn’t.

Mr. Broussard and I mostly covered the same issues, and he writes exclusively for Catholics who speak with Protestants even as my book was written for Protestants who seek to win Catholics. But, in my opinion, and I say this respectfully, HE missed some key things when he came up with his “50 Biblical Objections” (more later on.)

Most of the book’s 50 chapters start out with quotes from official Catholic teaching documents to establish Catholic doctrines and THEN Scripture is brought in…to refute Protestants who challenge the doctrine.  As I read the book I thought “It’s too bad the doctrines don’t flow out of Scripture FIRST. The cart is before the proverbial horse.” Catholics who read Mr. Broussard’s book are thrilled because most have never been taught much of the Bible before and will therefore view it through the lens of Catholicism, instead of vice versa. But those of us who’ve been blessed with long periods of exposure to Scripture will see many inconsistencies in this book, even as we do in Catholic teachings.

Key issues in Karlo’s “50 Biblical Objections” book were not included, and should have been, but I’ll only pick one. Question: “WHY DID JESUS SPEAK DOZENS AND DOZENS OF TIMES ABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL, BY NAME, BUT HE NEVER SPOKE ABOUT PURGATORY?” This legitimate question was examined in my book in one of my two, prominent chapters on Purgatory where I described it as “Rome’s Cruelest Doctrine.” But though the book in question now mentioned Purgatory, it wasn’t until page 240 and it wasn’t even given its own section, it was subsumed under Section VII” which is called “The Last Things.” I would suggest that this all-important question was not addressed more thoroughly by Broussard because there is no Scripture passage (even if you count the Apocrypha, which Karlo does) that the word “Purgatory” appears in.

So, in that sense, the question answers itself.

How the all-important issue of “Purgatory” could be virtually swept into a corner by Mr. Broussard is simply hard to understand, unless you concede that he was deliberately minimizing it.  After all, Purgatory generates untold millions of dollars of revenue for the Church each year, and is responsible for perpetual anxiety, pain and sadness amongst every Catholic to one degree or another. As “Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs” go, “Purgatory” is usually in the top 3 of every Bible-believing Christian I know when Catholicism is mentioned….yet it is barely skimmed over by Broussard in 2 chapters while other doctrines he addressed get between 5 and 12.

I do not recommend that a Christian bothers to buy and read Broussard’s book, I only did so for the reasons stated.  But if you do read it, you will find answers from Scripture to the key issues he raises in my book, the one which you are holding, as well as questions that Catholicism simply cannot answer honestly from the Word. If you are in discussion with a Catholic who is using Broussard's book as a reference, ask them that question above and stick with it until they concede that Jesus never mentioned “Purgatory” by name like He did to Hell and Heaven, then ask Why.  

The "purging of Purgatory" is the huge Achilles Heel of the book.