Michael, I am saddened at your polemical argument over here.
Many of us Roman Catholics neither fashioned ourselves as apologists, nor are we inept, as you seem to be asserting.
I am very saddened to read such bashing of Catholics over here.
Dear Danman,
I am sorry that I offended you. Looking once again over the post, it does sound a bit polemical (and a bit out of character for me), although that was not my intention...I suppose my emotions were showing.
I was not directing those comment at all Roman Catholics, and not at you, I have always regarded you to be a gentleman.
Nevertheless my points stand. No, not all RC regarded themselves as Apologists, but it was an apologetics website, and there was no shortage of them, whether they would call themselves by that title or not. There were indeed many RC apologists (or polemicists), coming in waves, ready to kick butt and taking names. But they were often unprepared for Orthodoxy...they were accustomed to debating Protestants. That is (I think) why so many of them were so keen on identifying Holy Orthodoxy with some kind of dissenting bunch of heretics who are phobic over authority. Those were straw arguments, setting up for an easy kill, but unsustainable.
These people did not know what they were dealing with, and had much to learn. They were also unprepared by their own resources. I think Roman Catholic apologetics benefitted considerably by the presence of the Orthodox there.
[BTW, Do you remember that discussion you and I had over the "Letter of Clement to James"? The CAF is still quoting it in their literature
http://www.catholic.com/library/Origins_of_Peter_as_Pope.asp. You told me that you contacted CAF, you said...
Personally, I just want to know the truth about it. Not that the entire primacy of the Bishop of Rome hangs on this single reference, but it would be nice to know the truth either way.
and I suppose you did contact them, but CAF never made the correction.]
If I regret anything about that post early in this thread, it is that I neglected to mention all the fine people I had the pleasure of dealing with on and off for years. Roman Catholic and Orthodox alike.
Michael