Conversations with Catholics: How Tradition Affects Catholic Beliefs and Practices

Mr. McCarthy, a former Catholic, provides a Biblically based, engaging and informative book about Catholics. Unlike The Gospel According to Rome, this book is conversational in nature and focuses on Catholics rather than Catholicism.Catholicism is defined. The RCC stated their beliefs in the Catechism of the RCC, 1994. On the other hand, Catholics don't necessarily know the Catechism or believe it.Mr. McCarthy does an excellent job of explaining this phenomenon, addressing key doctrinal issues and building the reader's understanding of Catholicism.A GOOD READ!

Catholicism is thought by some to be merely another denomination of CHRISTianity. This is what I believed until I read "Conversations with Catholics." In my search to find out why Catholics did such things as praying to Mary and confession of sins to a priest, I found out that those "oddities," as I deemed them, were only the tip of the iceberg of beliefs and practices that separate Catholicism from Biblical CHRISTianity. In reading this book as a CHRISTian, I found that there were many different areas and instances in which the Catholic church has erroneously strayed from sound Biblical doctrine, taking with it unfortunate masses of believers, in many cases in the dark of what the church teaches, and what they themselves believe. If one is looking for ammunition to "bash" Catholicism, please look elsewhere. But for the CHRISTian striving for knowledge and understanding about Catholicism, and for the Catholic in search of the TRUE Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, this book is a must read. This is definitely worth reading and passing along to a friend. And for the CHRISTian with a Catholic friend, I urge you to study it for yourself and pass it along to that friend. I believe it is what GOD would have you do.

The book is structured in such a way that each chapter is an entity in itself. But each chapter has a different focus on a unique doctrinal belief or practice of the Roman Church. The author uses a testimony of the experiences of individuals and the problems they had with the Roman Church. The major Roman doctrine or practice is then briefly highlighted and critiqued with the applicable Scriptural viewpoint. A good easy to read presentation of some of the unique Roman Church doctrines and practices that will give one a general understanding of both basic Christian doctrine and the traditions of the Roman Church from which these unique beliefs evolved.