Saturday, December 02, 2006

Catholic-Mormon dialogue

I was approached by a Mormon in the street who asked if I had a couple of minutes. I said yes, so we had the following conversation:

Mormon: Tell me, do you have any religious beliefs at all?

Gildas: Well, yes, actually; I'm training to be a Roman Catholic Priest.

Mormon (having taken a step backwards): Oh...that's interesting. Have you ever wondered why there are so many different denominations in Christianity?

Gildas: Yes, I find it so sad that they've all broken away from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ and continued in the unbroken Apostolic Succession to our current Pope.

Mormon rather feebly counters by querying the succession from Peter to Linas. Gildas quotes Irenaeus. Interesting discussion ensues on the authority of scripture and tradition, infant baptism and Mormon beliefs on the Holy Spirit. Mormon eventually gives up on attempt to convert Gildas.

5 comments:

Mulier Fortis said...

Aha! But was there any chance Gildas converted the Mormon to Catholicism?

;-)

I got your comment on my blog - thank you so much for the spiritual bouquet (it really means a lot to me) and I shall keep you all (? five of you) in my prayers as you progress towards Ordination. Reading your posts, I know you will be truly inspirational priests some day.

puella said...

Next time, please record this and put it YouTube. Please? *grin*

DP said...

A friend and I have a tradition of inviting the Jehovah's Witnesses over for tea whenever we're home from our studies for the holidays. "Tea" can drag on for four hours, but we always leave feeling a deep peace and a sense of profound gratitude for being Catholic. The conversations usually end with us stumping the Jehovah's Witnesses and them saying "We'll have to get back to you on that. . ." They usually do in fact "get back" to us but their answers never satisfy.

Anonymous said...

All seminarians are eligable to volunteer to go on Legion of Mary PPC projects,

on these a group of 10 Catholics are sent to a parish in the UK and spend 7 hours a day for a week visiting as many homes as possible in a parish- they invite all people they meet to become Catholics, the lapsed to return to the faith and have many discussions with people.

Perhaps you would think about voluteering to go on one of these projects.

Gildas said...

Hmm, wish I could separate out responses to different comments. I'll do it manually:

1) I was really pleased to hear that your day of renewal of vows was so good. I've now given my part of the spiritual bouquet, but you remain obviously very much in my prayers. Thank you also for yours.

2) lol. It would be quite fun to do videos of some of my more entertaining interactions with people.

3) I love your tradition of inviting the Jehovah's Witnesses round for tea. Alas I've never had Jehovah's Witnesses knock at my door (and they don't seem to call at the seminary for some reason :P) but they knocked at my brother's who told them he was a Catholic. "But not practising" they said. "Well actually..." - my bro goes to daily Mass and cheerfully ran theological rings around them :)

4) I have a deep love and respect for the Legion. Thank you for inspiring my latest post!