Boston Catholic support of Billy Graham's "Crusades" in the 1950's and 60's

OUR VANISHING SEMINARIANS
A Catholic priest and a Protestant minister have certain things in common. These things are: the “Reverend” in front of their respective names, the clerical discount on their monthly bills, and the Jewish rabbi who insists on being mentioned every time a priest and a minister are. Apart from these accidentals — their mode of address, their 10% off, and their vocational classification with bearded Hebrews — a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister are necessarily unlike.

A Catholic priest is a teacher of dogmas; a Protestant minister is an expresser of opinions.

A Catholic priest can forgive your sins; a Protestant minister must excuse them.

For heritage, a priest has Christendom’s saints, its cathedrals, and its glorious crusades. A minister is left with the Reformation’s pillage, some hymns, and the Ku Klux Klan.

A minister’s success can be measured by his ability to maintain his reputation in the community. A priest’s greatest achievement lies in losing his reputation, and, ultimately, his life, for Jesus.

The majority of American Catholics, however, will not agree that there is any basic unlikeness between a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. It is the loudly protested opinion of most American Catholics that a priest and a minister are both equipped to serve God and save souls. The only differences they will admit are those of equipment. To do his job well, a priest requires an altar, vestments, candles, Latin, and the power to turn bread and wine into God. To do his job, and the assumption is that it is done equally well, a minister needs none of these.

This lack of faith among American Catholics, this depredation of the Sacraments of Holy Orders, is beginning to have its logical effect on vocations to the priesthood. Vocations are everywhere taking a drop. Everyone has a theory about why this is so, yet no one has mentioned the fundamental reasons for our vanishing seminarians: the prevalent Americatholic teaching that there are people who can reach Heaven without the aid of a priest.

The call to the priesthood is no longer an imperative and zealous awareness. It is no longer an impetuous abandoning of family, wealth and self; no longer an alert eagerness to defend the honor of God and His Blessed Mother. An American boy’s decision to be a priest is now too often determined by (a) an attraction to the courtesies accorded to a Roman collar, or, (b) the double lure of a room at the rectory and a locker at the country club, or, (c) the expectation that the sacerdotal “glamour jobs” will soon need some new Bishop Sheens and Father Kellers.

America’s seminaries are turning out not apostles but apologetes; not pastors, but business men; not lovers of Jesus and Mary, but proponents of “divinity” and “religion.” A young priest is not encouraged to “preach in the highways and the byways,” and win America to the Faith. He is asked to study under atheists at heretical universities, to let everybody know how American and how intellectual a man can be, despite the fact that he is, at the same time, a Catholic priest.

The Catholic Faith did not come blazingly to our country the way Saint Patrick brought it to Ireland, or Saint James to Spain. The Faith disembarked here timidly, as an immigrant. It filled out all the forms, complied with all the regulations, and, after a couple of generations, lost all of its objectionable European qualities. The seminaries have been the chief instruments for this Americanization of the Faith. Now that it has been accomplished, a priest can walk down Main Street, America, and feel as much a part of the milieu as any Protestant minister might. Still, vocations to the priesthood are falling off.

Each year it is becoming more difficult for seminaries to interest young boys in a One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church which is just one of many ways to Heaven, and in a priesthood which has only advantages of liturgy over Billy Graham.

Our concern is not prompted solely by the prospect of empty confessionals, vacant tabernacles, and unanointed deaths. For the tragedy of America’s vocation problem is not just the shortage of laborers for the harvest. It is the belief that, even without laborers, the harvest can come in by itself.

The Catholic Faith did not come blazingly to our country the way Saint Patrick brought it to Ireland, or Saint James to Spain. The Faith disembarked here timidly, as an immigrant. It filled out all the forms, complied with all the regulations, and, after a couple of generations, lost all of its objectionable European qualities. The seminaries have been the chief instruments for this Americanization of the Faith. Now that it has been accomplished, a priest can walk down Main Street, America, and feel as much a part of the milieu as any Protestant minister might. Still, vocations to the priesthood are falling off.

columba wrote:

The Catholic Faith did not come blazingly to our country the way Saint Patrick brought it to Ireland, or Saint James to Spain. The Faith disembarked here timidly, as an immigrant. It filled out all the forms, complied with all the regulations, and, after a couple of generations, lost all of its objectionable European qualities. The seminaries have been the chief instruments for this Americanization of the Faith. Now that it has been accomplished, a priest can walk down Main Street, America, and feel as much a part of the milieu as any Protestant minister might. Still, vocations to the priesthood are falling off.

There are more signs of a revival of the Faith in America than in Ireland. When reading any serious commentary or views concerning the Church and Faith one always finds that in the majority of cases the authors are American.

There Is To Be No Proselytizing

1. "There is to be no proselytizing.." (proselytize: to make a convert of - Webster's New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary)
2. "It does not include freedom to persuade and convert" (The Soviet Constitution on religious freedom).
The first statements comes from Billy Graham Evangelistic Association officials from the prepare counselors for the various Graham crusade. The same applies to officials of other Evangelistic groups affiliated with the Graham Association. This evangelism took place among the French Canadian Catholics of Quebec and those scattered over the New England States. However, the first 'disturbing experience' took place in Boston's Hynes Auditorium during Congress 85, an event sponsored by the Evangelistic Association of New England. During a session, the chairman introduced Don Morgan and Tom Phillips of a Billy Graham Crusade. These expressed appreciation for the EANE'S cooperation in a recent Graham crusade.

Bible Baptist Church of Nashua had rented a booth and installed a four-by-eight-foot banner that read, 'The Roman Catholic and Evangelism.' A virtual storm burst when officials realized the 'Evangelism' in question was to proselytize and make converts. The 'almost incredible story' was published in the May 1985 issue of ' The Baptist Bulletin.' (10)

Wilson Ewin, a former Catholic (Apologist), applied for a booth to present "The Roman Catholic and Evangelism' at the Graham sponsored Congress 88 in Chicago. A reply, dated November 16, 1987, came and read in part: "We appreciate your interest.. However, in view of the fact that Congress 88 is supported by both Protestant denominations and the Catholic "Evangelization" Association, it would be inconsistent with our goals to single out one of our supporting groups to be targeted for evangelism.. But since we are working together with Roman Catholics who believe in evangelism, we do not feel we can grant your request to exhibit at Congress 88."

A Billy Graham Crusade was scheduled to be held June 3 to 10, 1990 at Quebec's Montreal Forum. Rick Marshall, a member of the Billy Graham Minneapolis - based staff said that, "it is being made clear to all staff and volunteers there is to be no proselytizing.. (and) counseling offered to those who come forward in response to Graham's invitation will not include any criticism of the church a person may be attending." (11)
No conversion! The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's gradual transition from a policy of zealous conversion to one of zero conversion has taken place quietly over the past three decades. During this same period, negotiations between International Communism and the Church of Rome also produced a mutual decision. Both would benefit if a global religious unity would take place. It is now in an advanced stage of achievement.

In order for this to succeed, all religions would cease competition and adopt a state of peaceful coexistence This must include a halt to all proselytism or conversion. "Bravo Billy" printed Catholic Cardinal Cushing in 1950 on the front page of his diocesan paper. "He and I became close, wonderful friends," wrote the Cardinal and in 1964 at the Boston Crusade, Graham stressed his own "tremendous admiration" for the cardinal. At their joint T.V. presentation, Cushing stated, "no Catholic can do anything but become a better Catholic from hearing him.. I'm one hundred percent for Dr. Graham." Cushing was Graham's instructor on Pope John XXI-II's Second Vatican Council and the progress of ecumenism. In 1964 on T.V. in Boston, Graham named Cushing "the leading ecumenist in America." The evangelist's biographer states the evangelist "lavished further praise on Pope John XXIII and his recent successor, Paul VI, and heralded Vatican II as a major step in dissipating the clouds of resentment and mistrust that had separated Catholics and Protestants."

Though carefully shepherded by the cardinals, Billy Graham's outstanding foster was Fulton Sheen. The Archbishop served as American Head of the Vatican's Society for Propagation of the Faith.. Commenting on Sheen's passing in 1979, Graham said his death was "a great loss to the nation and both the Catholic and Protestant churches. He broke down many walls of prejudice between Catholics and Protestants.

No longer can the work of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association be called New Testament evangelism. Decades ago it removed itself from any valid claim to Christian evangelism. George H. Williams states in his 'History of the Christian Church' that "Christianity is a strongly proselytizing religion". The BGEA's official position is one of no proselytism, that is no converting: its gospel is a perversion of the true gospel. Already on October 17, 1960, Newsweek magazine had reported, "Dr. Graham make clear that he and his fellow crusaders have no intention of doing any proselytizing". The die had been cast; the monstrous forgery of ecumenism was to replace Christian evangelism. From that moment on, it would masquerade under Christian dress and preach the counterfeit gospel of ecumenism. This was painfully evident during the 1990 crusade in Quebec and later in Roman Catholic South America.

The 1965 Vatican II Ecumenical Council is now revealed as a strategy for building the New World Order. Its religious wing, in defiance of the Bible's command to do so, forbids the conversion of anyone from falsehood to truth. To participants, evangelism is a code term meaning 'global religious unity'. Pope John Paul II calls this 'United Prayer and Action for Evangelization'. Billy Graham is honorary chairman of the 'Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization' - that is New World Order evangelism. Its multiple components and other international groups affiliated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association are active in New World Order Evangelism. Rick Marshall, a BGEA official, organized the 1990 Quebec crusade. Marshall told the press "It is being made clear to all staff and volunteers there is to be no proselytizing."

Billy Graham spent January 8-13, 1990 "for meetings with a number of Vatican officials." Included was a private meeting with Pope John Paul II. Reporting on this the Boston Archdiocese stated that, "Dr. Graham said it is particularly evident in the pope's speeches that his attitudes and decisions are based on his great personal spiritual life.. He bases his work and messages and vision on biblical principles.". Using the phrase "bridge builder" from his close friend, Cardinal Cushing, Graham referred to Pope John Paul II as "indeed a bridge builder, and that is something our divided world desperately needs.."