Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble - Radio Replies

Radio Replies

Second Volume

The Rev. Dr. Leslie
Rumble, M.S.C.

Imprimatur:	John Gregory Murray
Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota
July 10, 1940

Copyright 1940 by Fathers Rumble and Carty.

Copyright 1979 by TAN Books, an Imprint of Saint Benedict Press, LLC.

Originally published in 1940 by Radio Replies Press Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 79-51938

Complete and unabridged.

TAN Books

Charlotte, North Carolina

2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND VOLUME

The avalanche of letters pouring into my office from every nook and corner of the United States speak in high praise of the valuable and much needed book, Radio Replies, which has been the medium of bringing lapsed Catholics back to the Church and of enlightening those who still remain out of the Church or those who have become converts to Catholicism. Many Protestant Publishing Houses have written in for copies for distribution to Protestant Seminaries.

ITS VALUE FOR MIXED MARRIAGE CASES

The First Volume of Radio Replies has cleared away many misconceptions of Catholic claims, especially in so many cases of Mixed Marriages, where the non-Catholic party holds strong grievances against living up to the signed promises. Where religious animosity reigned in the home of the Catholic and non-Catholic parties, many have written in stating that the accidental picking up of a copy of Radio Replies lying around the house and the reading of but a few questions and answers changed the atmosphere of misunderstanding and prejudice towards things Catholic. Wherever religious discussions became nigh intolerable in some Mixed Marriage cases the silent use of the printed word brought about the desired conversion. Converts are made today more through what they read than through what they hear .

TEACHERS AND PROFESSORS

Teachers and Professors throughout the nation have found this volume of apologetics invaluable as a stimulus to religious study on the part of the high school or university student in the classroom where Radio Replies has been used to divert the student from the monotony of the usually dry Christian Doctrine textbook. In order to equip Seminarians with an understanding of the Protestant mind, many Seminaries have adopted Radio Replies as an official textbook for apologetics. The reading interest of the student or the man in the street in many cases was so aroused that the book was read in one sitting because of the startling sharpness of the quizzes and the clear-cut logical brevity of the replies.

ITS POPULARITY ENCOURAGES PUBLISHING A SECOND AND THIRD VOLUME

The widespread use of the First Volume in hospitals, study clubs, novitiates, retreat houses, seminaries, high schools, academies, colleges and homes throughout the nation has encouraged us to give to the public a Second Volume which amplifies the First Volume by another thousand new and more instructive replies. In Street Preaching for the past three summers throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin I have found very few inquiries which are not contained in this handy text and source book. The material presented to me and not found in the First Volume has been embodied in this Second Volume of Replies, which will soon be followed by a Third Volume . These Three Volumes of five thousand and more replies will serve as a ready encyclopedia for Catholic Apologetics.

IMITATING OUR ENEMIES

I have been campaigning in the spreading of literature in the parish churches through the Archdiocese of St. Paul, speaking at all the Sunday Masses wherever I go. Getting apologetic literature into the hands of our own Catholic people has reaped great spiritual benefits in bringing many back to the Sacraments and into the Church. This campaign has brought more results for good than I have observed in the years spent in Radio work, Street Preaching and in preaching missions to Catholics and non-Catholics. The printed word has been the weapon of those attacking Catholic claims and it is my conviction that the Apostolate of Spreading Literature in imitation of our enemies is very vital today more than ever in brushing aside the false notions about Catholicism and in stimulating Catholics to equip themselves with the proper literature to reply to the questions and charges proposed in the Office, the Shop, the Club, the Street and the Home.

NON-CATHOLIC TRIBUTES

Professors, rabbis, and ministers have personally discussed with me points brought forth in Radio Replies and they after careful perusal of the book confided to me before leaving their locality after a week of street preaching that Radio Replies was the strongest and clearest presentation of Catholic claims they ever studied. It is strange that in spite of open air campaigning in the cause of Catholicism no noteworthy intellectual charge or refutation of any statement in the First Volume has been made by anyone of its readers within or without the Church, and this observation shows that the Catholic Church the world over is suffering most from the great lack of intellectual opposition, and is facing the growing, gnawing cancer of Religious Indifference rather than Differences of Religion.

BEING BOUGHT OVER

Were Dr. Rumble and I offered funds beyond counting to go out and deny the content of these books, we would both be acting against our own consciences in a most dishonest way, did we accept. Only by indulging in a campaign of deliberate lies could we undertake to refute what we have written; and in conscience, therefore, we could take no step but defend the position upheld by these books.

GRATEFUL CONVERTS

Since many readers of Radio Replies who have not even heard Dr. Rumble or myself in the pulpit or on the public platform have come into the Church as a result of studying and debating this work in apologetics, it would be greatly appreciated if these converts would join the long list of those who are sending in a few words of acknowledgment to my office.

WE MEET AT LAST

For many months Dr. Rumble and myself have been corresponding from the extreme ends of the earth concerning the American publication of the First Volume. It is a deeply appreciated privilege to meet at last and to be associated in person with him in getting before the public this Second Volume, and the Third Volume which will be published in the nigh future to complete the series on apologetics.

R EV . C HARLES M ORTIMER C ARTY

PREFACE

T HE present volume is a continuation of the fascinating study of problems in religion that engage the attention of all thinking men. Those who have had the privilege of reading the first volume of Radio Replies, which proved so stimulating to Catholic and non-Catholic alike, will find in the present book a more comprehensive study and explanation of subjects that were presented in essential outline in the first volume.

The high motive that has dominated the author is the desire to share with others the treasure of truth that he himself has discovered from personal experience in the process of research in finding his way to the source of truth. Having sought to develop within himself those principles of religion that he had cherished in youth outside the Catholic Church, and finding them inadequate to satisfy all the promptings of his soul, he went through the bypaths that finally led him to the full vision of the personality, the truth and the love of the God-Man, a full vision to be found only in the Catholic Church.

While the topics discussed in his work are necessarily controversial because they were suggested by inquiries from millions of radio listeners all over the world during a period of more than ten years, the method of treatment is not controversial but expository with a view to presenting truth and principle in that objective and inherent value that will bring conviction to an open mind.