Finally Saturday morning had arrived and I was scheduled to return home from a four-day business convention in Phoenix, Arizona. I arrived at the airport early, anxious to get home to see my wife and kids. The airline I'd chosen had a "first come, first served" policy of seat selection, so I had my pick.

I chose the corner seat in the very last row. This location, I thought, would enable me to study my Catechism of the Catholic Church without interruption for the full two and a half hours we'd be in flight. I needed the time to make sure I was keeping up with our parish catechism class. In addition, I'd recently been asked to speak at a men's conference in Kansas City, so I thought God might give me some in-flight inspiration. Little did I know . . .

As I settled into my seat the stewardess announced that we would have a full flight. Before long two young gentlemen occupied the seats next to me. Tim took the middle chair and his friend Mike sat on the end.

Tim watched as I kept going back and forth from the Bible to the Catechism. Finally he asked, "Are you a theology student?" I was so intent on what I was reading that I didn't reply immediately. But after a few seconds, I answered, "No."

I could sense that the conversation wasn't over, so I muddled something about preparing for a Catholic men's conference. Tim and Mike, as it turned out, were United Pentecostal preachers returning from a convention of their own.

GIVING MY TESTIMONY
Almost immediately on takeoff, Tim launched into his testimony. He explained that a girlfriend had once invited him to attend a United Pentecostal Church. One evening as they had entered the church together, Tim's girlfriend had gone to do something and left him alone.

Wandering through the church, Tim had seen a man being baptized. As he'd approached the baptismal font, he'd felt a hand on his shoulder and looked around expecting to find his girlfriend. But much to his surprise, no one had been there. Suddenly Tim had realized that "it was the Holy Spirit." A "rush" had come on him, and he'd exclaimed to the minister that he too wanted to be baptized.

I listened as Tim finished his story and then began to launch into my own testimony. I wondered if he'd ever heard a Catholic give his testimony. God had done great things in my life, and I was excited that Tim had given me the entrée to tell about them.

I explained how my girlfriend at the time had led me as well into a deeper relationship with Christ. Although I grew up Catholic, my girlfriend was not. Instead, she was the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher.

This had caused me to do some serious studying about my faith and the differences between Catholics and Protestants. I'd been open to going wherever God wanted me to go. But to make a long story short, God had reaffirmed my faith in His Church. In addition, He'd topped it all off last year when Linda (my wife now for seven years) had become Catholic!

Tim looked skeptical, so we headed off into the topic of Church history. I began by asking him when the United Pentecostal Church was founded. Where were its roots?

I relayed how my wife and I took great comfort in the fact that we could trace our Church and its teachings all the way back to the time of Christ. Tim said the book of Acts shows when his church was founded. Having been in this same discussion many times before with people from different denominations, I began to push Tim gently.

If that's your church, I asked him, then why did it take so long to establish it? History shows that your church is less than a hundred years old.

Tim, like so many Protestants, tried to claim various groups throughout history as United Pentecostals. He didn't know their names, but he insisted they were there. I noted that my father-in-law, a devout Southern Baptist, holds the same theory and that people within his own denomination had refuted this claim (see James Edward McGoldrick, Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History, Scarecrow Press, 1994).

I continued by saying that when my wife and I studied the matter, we found that the Catholic Church was being attested to as early as A.D. 100 by St. Ignatius of Antioch when he said, "Wherever there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church."

TALKING ABOUT ST. PETER
Amazingly, Tim switched to Matthew 16:18-19. Before he had finished quoting it, I had the Bible opened to the passage:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Tim espoused the belief that in this passage, St. Peter was being referred to in the Greek as petra, "small stone," and his faith as petras, the large immovable stone.

I asked Tim what language Christ spoke; he answered, correctly, that Christ spoke Aramaic. I said, "If Christ spoke Aramaic, then the original quote would read, "Thou art Cephas, and upon this Cephas I will build my Church." There could be no Greek-based distinction in Christ's words between a "small" and a "large" stone.

Next I went on to Isaiah 22:20-22 to show that Christ was quoting Scripture when He gave St. Peter this unique position. In that text, the Lord says:

In that day I will call my servant Eliakim . . . and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

In my Bible I had underlined in red all the wonderful things given to Eliakim: an office, a robe, a sash ("girdle"), authority and a key. In addition, in verse 21 Eliakim is called a "father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah." Catholics believe, I told him, that this unique office is what Christ bestowed upon St. Peter.

Now Tim began to shift emphasis. The discussion came to seem more like a quiz. "How," he asked, "do you square the Catholic Church's teaching with the Scripture that says, "Call no man father" (see Matt. 23:9)?

"Well, Tim," I began, "one thing is for sure: Jesus wasn't giving us a vocabulary lesson here. Otherwise, why does He use the term 'father' in Luke 16:24 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? Or why does St. Paul refer to himself as a 'father' in the faith to the Corinthians (see 1 Cor. 4:15), or why does St. Stephen repeatedly refer to the men at his trial as 'fathers' (see Acts chapter 7)?"
Tim didn't really think about my answer. He just moved to another question. "How do you justify the Catholic Church's teaching on Mary in light of Scripture?"

Now Tim and Mike couldn't have known this, but the topic I had been asked to address at the Catholic men's conference was "What to Say When a Non-Catholic Says . . ." And the first topic I had planned to address was Mary. Although I think every Catholic must be ready to answer this question, I'd been particularly preparing for just such an opportunity.

Propelled by excitement and maybe too much caffeine (I'd just downed about a quart of Coke while waiting to board the plane), I think I exploded on Tim. I began with Genesis 3:15, pointing out that it was the woman's seed (a strange thing to say, since it is the man's seed that contributes to offspring) at enmity with the serpent. I also noted that the pronoun is unclear in verse 15: It could read "He," "She," or as the King James Version says, "It shall bruise [or crush] thy head . . . ."

Next, to help Tim see the special place of honor and authority reserved in biblical times for the mother of a king, I went to 1 Kings 2:19. That text refers to the queen mother's seat at the right hand of King Solomon's throne. She was called the giberah, which means "Lady."

I asked Tim whether he'd ever heard Catholics call Mary "Our Lady." He had, but I could sense I was losing his interest rapidly. So I switched to talking about Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. As I continued, Mike sat forward with a keen interest.

Up to this point Mike had been quietly listening, but soon I found out why. He said he'd grown up Catholic, and in his native country, they deified Mary, asking her to grant their prayers and petitions. He added that this, along with the worship of saints, was in direct conflict with Scripture.

THE SAINTS AREN'T DEAD
Mike was stern about his condemnation, but he remained kind in discussion. He went on to say he'd been a Pentecostal preacher for nineteen years. No matter how I might "dress it up," he insisted, it was still in conflict with God's Word to pray to dead people.

I told Mike that Catholics don't pray to dead people. They pray to people alive in Christ. The Scripture says that death cannot separate us from Christ (see Rom. 8:38); therefore we have the Church militant on earth and the Church triumphant in heaven in total union as the one body of Christ! "Mike," I said, "the saints are more alive than you and I are!"

Again, Tim and Mike began topic jumping, Mike emphatically said that he couldn't fathom our allowing a mere man (a priest) to forgive our sins, and that this practice also flew in the face of sacred Scripture.
"Christ nowhere gave man the ability to forgive sins," said Mike.

"Well," I replied, "what about John 20:23?"

"Read it to me," he said.

I read verse 22 as well as 23. Mike didn't have a good response, so he tried to dismiss it casually.

Finally I grew tired of being on the hot seat. So as Tim began another challenge, I stopped him.

"Now, wait a minute," I said. "I've answered your questions about calling no man father, about Mary, about the saints and the papacy. Now I have a question for you. Show me where the Bible says that everything should be contained in sacred Scripture alone."

Tim quickly retorted, "Show me where it says I should follow your Church's traditions!"
Well, I couldn't let that go before I made him show me sola scriptura, so I quickly quoted 2 Thessalonians 2:15: "Therefore brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions you received from us, either by word or by letter."

"Now," I insisted as I handed them my Bible, "where does it say that Scripture alone should be our sole authority?" Tim said nothing, and Mike sat back in his seat. I waited through a few seconds of silence, then I looked over Tim to Mike. "You've become very quiet," I said jokingly.
"I'm thinking," responded Mike.

After more discussion, Mike looked intently at me, and the conversation seemed to come to a screeching halt. "Kevin," he said sincerely as he pointed to Tim and himself, "then how do you view us?"
I knew that if I showed Mike some kind of triumphalistic attitude he would easily dismiss me. So I looked lovingly at Mike and said, "I view you as separated brothers in Christ."

Mike quickly retorted, "Separated?"

"Yes, Mike, because you don't hold to the authority of the Church that Christ founded. You're still my brother, but separated from the Church that is 'the pillar and foundation of truth,' as it says in 1 Timothy 3:15."

"Read that verse to me," Mike said. When I did, he just shook his head and said, "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree."

GOD'S LITTLE SURPRISE
We'd been talking now for over two hours, and I didn't want to let it go that easily. Yet I recalled that it is good to talk to Christians in a loving manner even if we disagree, so if an unbeliever overhears us he won't be driven away. So for the last few minutes of the flight we made small talk, and I wondered whether I'd come on too strong.

Even so, I thought, they were firing questions at me. So I said a quick prayer as the plane landed in Kansas City.

I was home, but Tim and Mike were traveling on to Chicago, so they let me out of the inside seat and we shook hands. As I gathered my possessions, I noticed a man in front of me staring at us. I'd been so engrossed by our discussion that I'd hardly noticed the man before. Yet as I look back on it, I remember now seeing him turn his head and place his ear between the seats as if straining to hear our discussion.

When I grabbed my coat and passed the man, he quietly said, "God bless you."

I didn't quite hear him, so I said, "Excuse me?"

Again he gently said, "God bless you."

I replied, "Thank you," and began the long trek down the aisle to exit the plane.

As I walked along, I was filled with excitement and awe at the ways of God. Maybe that man in front of us was Catholic, and his faith had been strengthened. Maybe he'd been away from the Church for years, and he was now thinking about coming back. Maybe he was a non-Catholic, and the arguments had pierced his soul.

Only God knows.