Danny Manthei - A little about myself, my faith, and why I love the Cath...


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Refuting Mike Gendron's "Are Catholics Deceived?"

Mike Gendron will be quoted in black; my responses will be in red . Deception will always be exposed by Truth. Have you ever realized that you could be deceived and not even be aware of it? Those who are deceived will never know it unless they are confronted with the truth. Many go to their grave deceived about the most important issue we all face, and that is, locating the narrow road that leads to eternal life. Who are you trusting to show you the way and the truth to eternal life? What is your source for truth? Is it absolutely trustworthy? Will it protect you from the schemes and lies of the master deceiver?    The prophet Jeremiah gave us wise counsel for choosing whom we should trust. He said if you trust in man you will be cursed liked a bush in the parched places of the desert. But if you trust in God you will be blessed. You will be like a tree planted by water always bearing fruit, whose leaves are always green. No worries or fears will come upon you in a year of...
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Pastor Charles Lawson on the Virgin Birth

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My wife and I were sent a video link to a Fundamental Baptist preacher's sermon on the Virgin Birth, and what that means for Christians. ( The Virgin Birth as explained by pastor Charles Lawson.)  I half-expected the sermon to be the usual anti-Catholic hate-speech that I am sent from time to time by anonymous readers.  But instead of an anonymous person, this was sent to us by a good friend of my wife's, someone who genuinely cares about us and for whom we also care and pray daily.  So it should not have surprised me when the sermon was far from the usual.  While he did accuse Catholics of "worshipping" Mary a couple times, he spent most of his time sounding Catholic on the topic of Mary.  Compared to the usual, it was music to my ears.  In watching the video, I was excited to find that we have so much common ground on such an important person as Christ's Mother. I couldn't help but wonder if this pastor kn...
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The Early Christians Believed in Hell - Refuting John Lilley

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I was recently directed to a website belonging to John Lilley, an author of at least three books on Christianity. One of those books is titled “ Hell is a Mistranslation ”. One article on his website, titled “ The Early Christians did not Believe in Hell ” served as a sort of prologue to the book, explaining why Lilley believes “hell” to be a mistranslation and explaining that neither Christ nor the early Christian writers from the first several centuries believed in “hell” as we understand it today. I have attempted several times to re-access his webpage lately, but have been unable. I continue to get a message that the webpage (johnlilley.org) has expired. Whether the page will come up again, I do not know. What I do know is that there are at least a handful of people who have recently read his article and were misled by it, and so I am going to refute it. Actually, I’m going to let Jesus and the early Christians refute it; I’ll just post their words. Christ, Himself, as w...
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A Catholic Response to “The Scandal of NFP”

On “The Vortex” episode released September 5, 2013, Mr. Michael Voris discusses what he feels is a scandal in the making centered around a Catholic couple’s welcoming, or not, of children per Catholic Doctrine. In all honesty, I believe Mr. Voris is sincere and is focused on what SOME Parishes SEEM to be doing…which is advertising NFP as a form of “Catholic Birth Control”. But, his Vortex episode does not make this distinction…that’s my own appraisal, giving him the benefit of the doubt. If we take his episode at face value, not only does he misrepresent what NFP is, but he crosses over a boundary in trying to discern for every Catholic couple whether they can use NFP or not. Here’s just a quick overview on NFP: NFP is information that can tell a couple whether they are fertile or infertile, whether they can increase or decrease their chances of conception, on any given day (by engaging in an act, or abstaining from it). Sex is an act. Contraception is the acting-against...
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The Dying Wish of my Brother, Danny Manthei

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My brother died on Sunday, August 10, 2014. Just a week prior, on the feast day of St. Alphonsus Liguori ( August 1 or 2, depending on the Liturgical calendar you use ), he wrote a letter which he intended for all the Catholics in his area to read or hear from their respective Priests. Part of his dying wish was that all Catholics would be encouraged to learn their faith more deeply and thoroughly in order to grow closer to God and prepare for our eternal destination. By this time, he had held a catechesis meeting with the local parishes, and led a discussion with a local Confirmation class, which I had the honor of sitting in and listening to. Shortly after writing this, on Tuesday, August 5, he had a friend record a video message in which he delivered a catechesis/apologetics lesson, followed by a Q&A session. I made minor edits [in brackets] to this letter, but the message was not changed in any way. This is my brother's death-bed letter: [Recipients' na...
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Child Sexual Abuse - Where Should Our Focus Be?

I once read a comment from a combox in a discussion about clerical abuse that read something very similar to this: “ When Catholics are attacked about the sex-abuse scandal, we should only focus on the Church, not other organizations, because it only comes across as ‘making excuses’ or trying to draw the focus off of ourselves. It doesn’t help the cause .” I could not disagree more. I think we should focus on ALL areas where child sexual abuse is occurring. Anything less would be hypocrisy.  We should absolutely hold the Church accountable and keep a watchful eye. But ONLY focusing on the Church will only harm the cause, because we otherwise neglect over 62,000 other victims each year . There are an average of 8 reported sex abuse cases each year at the hands of Catholic Priests (see item #3 in that link), according to the CARA report . That’s obviously 8 too many, and we need to continue to do something about it. But in ONLY focusing on the Church here, we are doing tw...
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A Deeper Relationship with Christ

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God has given me a most wonderful experience in growing closer to Him, and I simply must tell you about it. I had been feeling dull for some time, as though the world was honing away at my steel faster than God was sharpening it. I knew that it wasn’t a problem of God not keeping up, that it was with me; that I was becoming lazy in my faith life. Ever so gradually I had allowed myself to skip out on a prayer here, a prayer there, a mindful presence of the Lord from time to time. I was allowing myself to become too lax, too comfortable. It was nothing immediately noticeable, but looking back over the past couple years it was clear. I tried to get back into prayerful habits and exercises of piety, but continued to fail time after time. What I needed was a retreat. Just like the armies of man-made warfare who are too worn to continue, I was worn from spiritual warfare and needed to back off from the front lines and take time to heal, to rest, to revive, and to rekindle that deep...
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