Most folks seem to be uninformed about the fact that adult conversions to Roman Catholicism are common, usually occurring one individual or one family at a time. On occasion, though, whole groups do convert. Adult conversions to Catholicism in the US totaled some 171,000 last year. That is ONLY adult conversions. By far, most additions to the Catholic Church are by the "baptism" of their own children... and 70 million Roman Catholics in the US generate a LOT of children every year, who are "baptized" into the Roman Catholic Church as infants.

For the past 40 years evangelicals have generally ignored the truth concerning the growth of Catholicism in the Americas. There are over one billion Roman Catholics in the World and over half of these live in the Western Hemisphere. The US has the third largest number of Catholics of any country in the world. Catholicism’s ecumenical activity is merely a smokescreen to cover up the growing threat of this religion's false gospel.

In Catholic dominated areas of South Louisiana and South Texas, evangelicals are fast losing their own children to marriage into Catholic families. This is one of the most subtle fruits of ecumenism, and it is gradually, surely emptying missions and churches in Catholic dominated areas. While most mission organizations in the US are focusing on less traditional methods and efforts, some historic mission works are being abandoned. Why? Because of a growing attitude of ecumenical acceptance of Catholics as Christians.

But, think about it... if the basis for the ECT is correct, then really, why have we been wasting our mission money and personnel all these years in Catholic dominated areas? ...if Catholics are Christians too, then we certainly don't need to be competing with the Catholic Church for converts, right? I guess our forefathers were wrong after all...

NO! Ecumenists such as Richard Neuhaus, Charles Colson and their ECT cohorts are wrong. Practicing Roman Catholics trust in a system of sacramentally merited grace that is foreign to biblical Christianity. For all their biblical-sounding terminology, Roman Catholics are not biblical Christians, but rather, they are sacramentalists. Sacramentalism is another gospel and was confronted by the apostle Paul, as recorded in Galatians 1-2.

Here is part of an essay published in FIRST THINGS by RCC priest Richard John Neuhaus (ECT co-author)....

Has tension between ecumenism and evangelization kept us quiet about the growth of our Church? by Richard John Neuhaus

The number of adult converts to the Catholic Church per year – including 171,000 in the past year – has been growing steadily and is testimony, in part, to the success of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), a program of evangelization and catechesis begun after the Second Vatican Council. This is one of the important untold stories in contemporary America.

In my experience, most Catholics are not aware of this story. Both "progressive" and "traditionalist" Catholics, for their own reasons, generally depict a Church that is embattled, besieged and struggling for survival, when in fact, at least by numerical and institutional measures, Catholicism is flourishing and even burgeoning in America.

Individual Catholics, I have discovered, are very "convert-minded." There is hardly a devout Catholic who does not have several people for whom he is regularly praying that they will "come into the Church." There is, however, uneasiness about talking in public about the adult-convert phenomenon.

Part of this has to do with the memory of a time when Protestant America questioned whether Catholics really belong here. Anti-Catholics regularly raised the specter of a Catholic "takeover" of America. That memory inhibits any "triumphalistic" drawing of attention to Catholic growth. Another important factor today is that, since Vatican II, Catholicism is deeply and irreversibly committed to the quest for Christian unity, and many Catholics sense a tension, if not a contradiction, between ecumenism and conversions.

Neuhause is a master at masking what he is really saying. (This was necessary to coerce evangelicals into endorsing the ECT, with its promotion of baptismal regeneration.) But in his Catholic publication Mr. Neuhaus’ meaning is normally much closer to the surface. The interpretation of what he is saying is that while Roman Catholicism has been aggressively seeking the conversion of others – particularly Protestants – there has also been an effort to keep this out of the public eye so as not to hinder the progress of ecumenism.

And what is the progress of ecumenism? What is Rome’s ecumenical agenda? Mr. Neuhaus well knows that the goal of ecumenism, clearly spelled out in Vatican documents, is to incrementally draw the "separated brethren" (Protestants and evangelicals) into full visible unity with the Vatican. Neuhaus is himself a former Lutheran minister. He has been working to advance Rome’s ecumenical agenda since converting to Catholicism as an adult several years ago.

Richard Neuhaus and every other Roman Catholic priest in the world have the same ecumenical directives from the Vatican. Here are some excerpts from Ut Unum Sint (1995), Pope John Paul II’s official guide for ecumenical activity.

"The Catholic Church bases upon God’s plan her ecumenical commitment to gather all Christians into unity."

"Everywhere, large numbers have felt the impulse of this grace, and among our separated brethren also there increases from day to day a movement, fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the restoration of unity among all Christians. Taking part in this movement, which is called ecumenical, are those who invoke the Triune God and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior... almost everyone, through different ways, longs that there may be one visible Church of God, a Church truly universal and sent forth to the whole world that the world may be converted.... It is a unity constituted by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and hierarchical communion."

"The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him....despite our divisions, we are on the way towards full unity.... [This unity] will not be perfect until the obstacles to full ecclesial communion are overcome and all Christians can gather in the common celebration of the Eucharist."

Ut Unum Sint, an official 50 page handbook for Roman Catholic ecumenical activity, has been a public document since the Vatican released it in 1995. But still today, most evangelicals just ignore its clearly ecumenical agenda.

With a stated goal of converting evangelicals to an unbiblical sacramental faith, one has to wonder why many of our leaders continue to give credibility to those who promote such heretical betrayal of the Gospel of our Lord, men such as Charles Colson, co-author/founder with Richard Neuhaus of the ecumenical ECT alliance, who state...

"We together... confess our sins against the unity that Christ intends for all his disciples.... Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ.... We acknowledge that we do not know the schedule nor do we know the way to the greater visible unity for which we hope... we can, we must, and we will begin now the work required to remedy what we know to be wrong in that relationship [between evangelicals and Catholics]."

"There are different ways of being Christian.... For Catholics, all who are validly baptized are born again and are truly, however imprefectly, in communion with Christ.... Those converted – whether understood as having received the new birth for the first time or as having experienced the reawakening of the new birth originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism – must be given full freedom...." (ECT foundational statement, March 1994)

As a follower of Christ, I am under obligation to obey His instructions as they are given in the Bible. Thus, setting aside any personal malice or pridefulness, I must say that anyone who would endorse such heresy and then ask for support from me or from the church I pastor needs to be ready for a biblical reaction... like the reaction of Paul when he publicly confronted Peter for giving credibility to the sacramentalistic faith of the Judiazers. (Galations 2:11-21)

Brethren, we need to not only preach the truth, but live the truth...

"Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

RADEN is compiled and edited by Jerry Moser, and is a part of the ministry of the Bayou DuLarge Baptist Church. To receive this FREE service simply request it by e-mail. <-- Click "e-mail" to request RADEN.