Skeptics and the Claims of the Catholic Church

The following comes from The Catholic World:

In today’s world, isn’t it crazy to appeal to scoffers to consider Catholicism? Why would a rational modern man or woman in the 21^st century be attracted to what the world and its enlightened guides consider an outdated, misogynistic, anti-LGBT, anti-science cult?

Is historical momentum on the side of these scoffers? Doesn't history itself demonstrate the allegedly backwards and inhuman nature of the Catholic Church? The modern soothsayers say yes, but here are 17 reasons—hardly an exhaustive list—why the soothsayers are wrong:

1. The Church “conceived” the university, the hospital, and countless institutions to assist the world’s suffering.

2. Catholic martyrs—unlike Muslim “martyrs”—never kill, but offer their own lives as a sign of their love of God and their fellow man.

3. The Church, in obedience to its founder, conceived the concepts of universal justice, mercy, and generosity that became the moral foundation of the world’s representative democracies. Prior to this, and in much of the world today, only certain groups or classes are entitled to human and legal rights.

4. The Church survived a multi-century eradication program by the world’s Roman overlords; survived wave after wave of barbarian invaders; survived power-seeking and predatory leaders; survived nation-states that desired—and still desire—to control and manipulate it; survived atheistic Jacobins, communists, fascists, and other tyrants.

5. Unique among religious institutions, the Church treasures Revelation (Scripture), tested Tradition, and reason—all three, with renowned scholars and mystics opening all of these “windows” to the Divine.

6. The Church holds up thousands of physical phenomena and miraculous healings that no one has ever been able to explain or disprove using science alone.

7. The Church fearlessly speaks truth to power: Peter and Paul to Nero, Leo the Great to Attila, Thomas Becket to Henry II, Catherine of Sienna to Pope Gregory XI, Joan of Arc to her inquisitors, Thomas More to Henry VIII, Cardinal Kung to Mao and his successors, Lech Walesa to Jaruzelski and Poland’s Soviet overlords.

8. The Church proclaims angels that aren’t New Age fairies and devils that don’t have pointy tails and pitchforks—powerful spirits who have made definitive choices and who are engaged in the eternal destinies of human beings for good or evil.

9. Pope Francis calls the Church a field hospital for sinners. Catholics are certain that, if contrite, sins—no matter how heinous—are forgiven by a priest in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) in sacramental confession.

10. Catholics enjoy spiritual friendships with thousands of unique and powerful saints who care about their eternal fate and who can assist them in the here and now.