 |
| Karl
Keating with his right-hand-man Phil Lenehan |
When
Karl Keating started Catholic Answers in the mid 1980s,
he wasn’t setting out to create a new Catholic apostolate
with an international outreach. He just wanted to hide
behind a name. What started as a simple response to an
anti-Catholic tract twenty-one years ago has blossomed
into the largest Catholic apologetics and evangelization
organization in North America.
At the time, Keating was working behind a desk as a general
civil lawyer. After Mass one Sunday morning he discovered
an anti-Catholic flyer had been placed on the windshields
of all the automobiles by a local Fundamentalist church.
Upset by the misinformation in the flyer, Keating took
matters into his own hands and wrote a response. In order
to have the tract taken seriously he rented a post office
box, created the name Catholic Answers, and distributed
them at the nearby church on a subsequent Sunday morning.
“Somehow,” explains Keating, “the tract got beyond the
church where I had distributed it. People positive about
its contents wrote letters asking for more tracts.” In
the end, Keating wrote two dozen.
Keating then proposed a three-part series for The Wanderer
about Fundamentalists and Catholics. The series resulted
in a total of thirty weekly installments and became the
first draft of his successful book Catholicism and Fundamentalism:
The Attack on Romanism by Bible Christians, published
in 1988.
For several years, “Catholic Answers” was simply a part-time
endeavor, something Keating worked on in his spare time.
From 1986 to 1989, he sent out a monthly newsletter called
Catholic Answers. In 1990, it turned into This Rock Magazine.
In 1988, after twelve years practicing law — a vocation
he did not enjoy — Keating made the transition to Catholic
apologetics. The rest, as they say, is history.
Today, Catholic Answers promotes and defends the Catholic
faith through myriad books and tracts; two magazines,
called Be and This Rock; a variety of audio and video
materials; seminars by staff apologists; and Catholic
Answers Live, a Catholic radio program carried on more
than fifty AM and FM stations nationally. “Our goal,”
says Keating, “is to explain the Faith, make good Catholics
better, and bring the Faith to those who are lukewarm
or who aren’t Catholic at all.”
The magazine called Be, says Keating, “ is aimed at lukewarm
Catholics. They might go to Mass regularly, but they do
not receive any other Catholic publications. It’s designed
to help them see the importance of faith in their life
and understand the basic tenets of their faith better.”
Unlike most Catholic magazines, Be is free, and it currently
goes out to 70,000 subscribers.
This Rock is for the advanced reader and focuses on Catholic
apologetics and evangelization. “Our hope is to graduate
readers from Be to This Rock,” says Keating.
Keating admits that he doesn’t do nearly as much public
speaking as he once did. Rather, he’s devoted his energies
to writing. To date, he’s published four books. His first,
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, was among the first to
take the Fundamentalist threat seriously.
“Many Catholics ignored the threat,” explains Keating.
“That was a mistake. At the time nearly 100,000 Catholics
a year had been leaving the Church for Fundamentalism.
The book dealt with the concerns of Fundamentalists in
their own terms.”
Keating adds that the book was a timely one and continues
to be. “There may be as many Catholics leaving the Church
today,” suggests Keating, “but there are a lot more coming
back. Eventually, the return rate will overcome the exit
rate.”
In addition, Keating has published a collection of his
essays titled Nothing but the Truth; a follow-up to Catholicism
and Fundamentalism titled The Usual Suspects; and a book
that answers the common misconceptions held by most Catholics
titled What Catholics Really Believe.
One of Catholic Answers’ most popular publications is
only thirty pages. The booklet Pillar of Fire, Pillar
of Truth has out-sold all other Catholic Answers’ publications
combined and serves as the apostolate’s “calling card.”
A simple explanation of the Catholic faith, the little
book has sold more than three million copies. “A parish
in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, bought one for every house
in town,” Keating notes with pleasure.
The apostolate’s next planned project involves publishing
a college newspaper insert that explains the Catholic
faith for the average college student. Their hope is to
distribute the supplement at the nation’s hundred largest
colleges. “It will examine the issues and problems facing
college students today,” explains Keating. “Whatever problem
you’re facing, the answer is where you may least expect
it — in the Catholic Church.”
The Apologetics Service
Many
times people come demanding a simple answer
to what they insist is a simple question. But
Keating insists that the faith sometimes requires
complex answers even to simple questions. He
observes that faith is both simple and complex
because that's the way life itself is.
|
Aside from such publications, however, Keating notes that
the apostolate’s Apologetics Service is one of their most
important tasks. As their name implies, their business
is providing answers, and provide answers they do, employing
a staff of thirty-one full-time employees, including apologists
James Akin, Rosalind Moss, Peggy Frye, Jan Wakelin, Jason
Evert, and Father Vincent Serpa.
Keating estimates that they receive approximately six
hundred phone calls each month and respond to more than
1,500 people with individual questions monthly via email,
phone, and letters. The apologists also travel, conducting
an average of twelve seminars per month at the invitation
of parishes and other organizations.
Keating admits that much time is spent on the phone. “Recently,
one of our apologists spent a great deal of time conversing
with a couple facing marriage difficulties. The apologist
spoke with the Baptist husband whose wife had just returned
to the Catholic faith. As a result of the conversation
it looks as if the marriage may have been saved,” explained
Keating.
Although providing answers is their business, Keating
admits that occasionally they’re asked questions that
stump them. “If we are unable to answer a question, we
look it up and get back to people.” That can be a time-intensive
process, but in the end, it helps the apologists as well
as the inquirers to grow in their understanding of the
Faith.
Overcoming Misconceptions of Non-Catholics
Keating says that the misconceptions about the Church
held by many non-Catholics is a hereditary-like thing.
“Non-Catholics are told that the Church is either evil
or foolish, and therefore they are prejudiced against
it. Such misconceptions,” he says, “can be overcome
by engaging them on their own terms, answering their
questions, and sharing what we really believe.” He’s
seen many cases in which individuals who are taught
the truth, while not becoming Catholic, at least cease
to be anti-Catholic. “That is a kind of conversion in
and of itself,” says Keating.
Many times people come demanding a simple answer to
what they insist is a simple question. But Keating insists
that the faith sometimes requires complex answers even
to simple questions. He observes that faith is both
simple and complex because that’s the way life itself
is.
Catholicism, he explains, is suited both to those who
want a simple faith and to those who want the maximum
depth of understanding. “Fundamentalism, on the other
hand, has no deep theology. It has no theory of spirituality.”
Keating recalls how Fr. Ray Ryland once commented that
when he was a Protestant seminarian, all his seminary’s
spirituality texts were by Catholics. When Ryland asked
a professor why that was the case, the professor responded,
“Because only Catholics write about spirituality.” “Protestants
have no parallel,” Keating insists. “They focus on how
to get saved and drop out all the rest.”
Karl
with most of the Catholic Answers family.
|
Overcoming Misconceptions of Catholics
Yet non-Catholics aren’t the only ones with misconceptions
about the Faith. Keating notes that many Catholics as
well are uninformed, and he blames the problem on poor
teaching. Catholic Answers, he explains, provides answers
that people aren’t receiving from the pulpit.
“If people were getting all the answers they needed
from the pulpit, there would be no need for a lay organization
such as Catholic Answers. However,” adds Keating, “we
no longer live in a Bing Crosby kind of Church,” the
kind of idealized parish portrayed in old movies such
as The Bells of Saint Mary’s.
“Even with those fine priests who represent the Faith
as they should, it is no longer enough. It used to be
that in places like Chicago you could find four Catholic
Churches at one intersection — German, Polish, Irish,
and another. We no longer live in that kind of a Catholic
ghetto.
“Most Catholics do not receive a Catholic education,
and even Catholic schools are insufficiently teaching
the Faith. By default there is a need.”
The Second Vatican Council, in its Decree on the Apostolate
of the Laity, called for lay men and women to “exercise
a genuine apostolate by their activity on behalf of
bringing the gospel and holiness to men” (par. 2). As
Keating sees it, that’s why it’s so important for a
lay organization such as Catholic Answers to do the
work of evangelism and apologetics.
“Ninety-nine percent of the Church is made up of lay
people,” he points out. “We, as lay people, need to
be active. This is what Vatican II was talking about.”
For
more information about Catholic Answers, visit www.Catholic.com
or write KKeating@Catholic.com.
|
