Catholicism: A Defense of the Faith

Introduction

This book is dedicated to the United Hearts of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the Daughter of God, the Mother of God, and the Personal Spouse of God.

Hello there. Thanks a lot for clicking on this book. I hope it benefits you.

Firstly, let me begin by saying I am not a theologian, so please do not cite me as an authority. I do, however, try to conduct as much research as I can before I publish a chapter so that I don't mislead anyone (or myself for that matter).

**Update, April 29, 2021: -This is the millionth time I'm editing this thing, but I've added a bibliography at the end with all the sources I use for each chapter. I've only done this for one, but once I've properly organized this book, you'll be able to find the endnotes for all of them. Each will have a link that you can copy and paste on a search engine. I would have done footnotes, but that would just make chapters way too long

For an easier read, I will try to avoid citing any material that is difficult to get online. If you find a quote from, say Luther, and the link I provide takes you to someone's blog post rather than the Amazon page where you can buy the book, that's why. Some of the material used is also bulky, so I'll provide links to websites that only contain the relevant paragraph(s) in context for easier navigation.

Ok, back to the 2019 intro**:

And I should probably have started by saying this...but anyway, I decided to write this book because I didn't feel like there was enough Catholic literature on Wattpad. Most of what I've found is indeed very useful, but it doesn't tackle a majority of doctrines which many people misunderstand.

I have also come across fairly popular Protestants here who criticize Catholicism from a point of very little and very clearly biased knowledge. And in the name of the truth, I'd like to have a place I can refer people to when they have questions or preach misconceptions.

I'm not trying to be Superman or whatever, but I like to think of this as my attempt at defending the faith.

I'll try to tackle a number of things, including (but not necessarily in this order):
1. Catholics and whether or not we are Christians/our origins
2. Jesus and who He is to us
3. Veneration of the saints
4. The Blessed Virgin Mary: her sinlessness, immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, her as the Mother of God, etc. And please allow me to state here that we do not preach that she is a part of the Trinity, nor do we worship her
5. The Pope
6. The 10 Commandments because Catholics and Protestants have different compilations of them
7. Traditions of the Church v/s sola scriptura (the belief that all doctrine must be clearly stated in the Bible for it to be valid)
8. Corruption in the Church
9. The current sex abuse scandal
10. The Rosary (and the Hail Mary)
11. The Holy Eucharist; proof that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, it is not just a symbol
12. Sola scriptura
13. Sola fide (salvation by faith alone)
14. Protestantism (non denominational Christians also fall under the category of Protestants)
15. The Mass
16. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 and other 'misunderstood/controversial' Bible verses
17. The Bible, including why we have 73 books and the difference between the Apocrypha and deuterocanonical books
18. Homosexuality
19. Sex: sexuality, contraception, etc
20. Mortal and venial sins, indulgences, Purgatory, Heaven and hell
21. The Angels
22. Religious life: priests, nuns and monks and their vows

...

And other stuff that might come along the way.

Update: Other stuff that's come along the way:

1. Protestants apparently have an issue with us calling priests "father"?

2. 3-part rebuttal of a Protestant critique of Catholicism...well a misconception of Catholicism, but you get it.

I don't like reading religious articles that only cite Bible verses without quoting them, so I'll try to quote the verses I mention directly unless I find my chapters are getting too wordy. I'll quote the KJV, NKJV, NIV or ESV versions when responding to Protestant arguments. However, I will generally use the Catholic Douay-Rheims.

Like I said, I do my best to research, but if anyone, especially Catholic or Orthodox, has new info to offer, I'd greatly appreciate it.

And if you know of any common myths and/or misconceptions people have about the faith, please comment as well! It's always important to correct people, especially on matters as great as the faith.

This isn't a hate book or anything like that, but if you have counter arguments, especially if you're a Protestant, or if you're a Catholic who's unsure of things or has forgotten your Catechism, please feel free to comment respectfully. And if you're neither of those, well, feel free to do so as well!

I think that's it for now...so without further ado, here's chapter 1.