Karl Keating - Anti-Catholic Junk Food

Karl Keating

Copyright 2015 Karl Keating

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

Portions of this work appeared in The Usual Suspects.

Published by Rasselas House

San Diego, California

RasselasHouse.com

ISBN 978-1-942596-06-6 Paperback

ISBN 978-1-942596-05-9 Digital

You are what you eat. That is as true of the mind as of the body. Eat enough greasy food, and your silhouette will betray your culinary preferences. Give credence to enough greasy ideas, and your mind will be as flabby as your waistline.

This book looks at eight examples of religious junk food, things that have come across my desk during my career as a Catholic apologist. You likely will find these morsels unconvincing and unpalatable, as you should. The problem is that plenty of peopleincluding people on your blockconsider such stuff to be intellectual high cuisine.

Looking for a good religious novel, one with strong characterizations and a convincing plot, the kind you cant lay down? Well, I dont have any I can recommend, but I do know about a real pot-boiler. Its called The Secret of Vatican Hill, and its a book with a message. The message is that the papacy is a sham because Peters bones arent in Rome. But thats only part of the message. Thats the archaeological part. The other part is concerned with the immediate future. The author, Charles Allen Berry, gives us what might be called Fundamentalist prognostication, sort of what Lord of the World might have been had Robert Hugh Benson been a devotee of Loraine Boettner or Hal Lindsey.

Berrys story begins in first-century Rome. Lucius, a fuller, is burying his wife, Petronilla. She is laid to rest on Vatican Hill, and the seller of the plot writes her name in charcoal on a tile placed on the grave. There isnt room for the whole nameall he puts is Petrobut Lucius doesnt care since he cant read anyway. Years later, Lucius is buried near his wife.

We skip forward nineteen centuries. Regis Hartigan, an Augustinian priest from America, is assigned to Rome, where he exhibits a surprisingly broad ignorance about the Vatican and its history. He learns from a priest that theres nothing in the tomb of the apostlewhat is referred to as the tomb being the covered opening, known as the Niche, which one may see by peering over the railing into the Grotto that is in the center of the Basilica. (This happens to be true: Peters grave isnt in that Niche. Its further underground, near the tile with Petro on it.)

The revelation about the Niche disturbs Hartigan. His friends words had gone to the very jugular vein of the Church. The doctrine of the primacy of the Pope stood or fell on this simple fact. If St. Peter died and was buried in Rome, then all the subsequent bishops of Rome have been his successors, and have inherited his authority, his primacy over the other apostles. But if he is not buried in the Niche, then where is the proof that he was ever in Rome? Where is the proof that the bishop of Rome has authority to create or dethrone other bishops? Where is the proof of his infallibility?

Hartigan is a worried man, and he should be worried, having such an understanding of the theory of the papacy. Assume, perimpossibile, that Peter died elsewhere than Rome. Say his bones were discovered in Jerusalem. What would this mean with respect to the papacy? Nothing at all. Why nothing? Because Peter would have been the Bishop of Rome no matter where he ended his days.

Consider the case of Pius VI, kidnapped by Napoleons men and dying in France. Did he cease to be Bishop of Rome because death came to him at an unwelcome locality? What about the popes who resided and died at Avignon? Did they retroactively cease to be popes when they died away from the Eternal City? Or maybe all these men lost the papacy as soon as they left Romes city limits? If that were true, we havent had a pope since a few days after the current pope was elected. As soon as he left townpoof!it was all over.

Okay, so were taking the principles to their absurd conclusions, but thats one way to determine if youre dealing with absurd principles. If principles lead to a ridiculous conclusion, the principles need revision, maybe even scrapping. What many critics of Romanism fail to dowhat Berry fails to dowhen they explain Catholic doctrines is to test the accuracy of their explanations by extrapolating from the principles they have outlined.

The proof of the existence of the papacy has never depended on Peter dying in Rome. It does depend on his at some point being in Rome. If Catholics can show he died there, so much the betterthat establishes he was in Rome. But it isnt necessary for us to prove where he died or where his bones are. The happy facts are, though, that we know he died in Romeall the evidence, including scriptural, points to thatand we also know where his remains are.

Back to The Secret of Vatican Hill. In a flashback we see Hartmann Grisar, the famed scholar, leaning on the marble railing of the Grotto, looking down with profound emotion at the vault below. The year is 1892. Grisar receives permission from Leo XIII to do some excavating in the Niche, and he findsnothing! Grisar cannot deny that the Scriptures bear overwhelming evidence that St. Peter was never in Rome for any significant period of time, neither did he establish the Church there, nor rule it.

Here we have what is termed faction, a little fact mixed with a little fiction. The fact is that Grisar was in Rome and made investigations. The fiction is the sentiment attributed to him. Did Grisar really think the Bible contains overwhelming evidence that Peter didnt rule the Church in Rome? If so, why did Leo XIII even give the man the time of day?

Grisar, we are told, returns to Austria a sad and disillusioned man. His search has proved the very fact that he had sought to disprovethat Peter is not buried under the little shrine, the so-called Tomb of Peter. Neither is anyone else. But all the while, the bones of Petronilla lie hidden under the foundation of the back wall, waiting still to be discovered. End of chapter two, to a distant roll of drums.

We return to recent times. Hartigans friend tells him that since Peter died a martyrs death, his body would have most certainly been tossed into the Tiber, which was the custom in those days with the bodies of executed criminals. Any attempt to rescue it, to give it a decent burial, would have been suicidal for the rescuer. The attempt would have marked him as a member of the same condemned sect. The same would apply for any attempt to honor his burial place, or even visit it. But most important, you dont build a memorial to someone without putting his name somewhere on it, or it would be self-defeatingthe person and place would soon be forgotten.

Hartigan doesnt know what to say to such arguments, but John Evangelist Walsh, in The Bones of St. Peter, does. Walsh explains why such arguments are groundless. Your grave, for instance, might be forgotten soon whether or not your name is inscribed on the tombstone, but the location of saints graves can be passed on by word of mouthand would be, if Christians didnt want pagan authorities to know where people such as Peter were buried. To mark Peters grave with his name would have been like putting a neon sign atop it: Dig here for bones of traitor to Rome.

Hartigan is further confused when Pius XII first issues a statement that Peters bones have been located, then admits later that the uncovered bones belonged toa woman! (Petronilla, of course.) If it was Christs plan to have a vicar on earth, in Rome, Hartigan muses, then that pope had to be infallibleit was a dogma of the Church! Oh, maybe not infallible about insignificant thingsand maybe nearly anything could be called too insignificant, if it was found later to be in error. But not this. It was much too important. Poor Hartigan! He thinks popes exercise their infallibility when commenting on archaeologists reports. But should we be surprised by this, when Hartigans creator tells us, for example, that Pius XI was killed in 1939 by lethal injection?