Over the past seven years I've received personal e-mails from our web site asking me questions about the Church on a regular basis and I always welcome these e-mails. But every once in a while I'll receive, what I call a buck shot list of questions from visitors who aren't really interested in:

• clearing up any misconception they may have about the Catholic Faith OR
• inquiring about what Catholics believe in a certain area of theology.

I'll even offer them a FREE copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, just to find out they either: have no interest in it OR already have one. Sometimes these e-mails are accompanied by sarcasm and arrogance. Many of these believers are not really believers. In their e-mails they will argue what they are against, but never what they believe in. {Similar to the Protestant reformers, who disagreed among themselves but agreed on what they did not believe in, Rome was wrong. Jesus broke His promise Matthew 16:13-19. One very hard task of replying to the various personal e-mails I get from the web site is discerning sincere faith-sharers from people who are just trying to waste our time.

This second group of people are trying to convince themselves what they don't believe in is correct. We are here to answer questions about what we believe in. We are here on the internet to clear up misconceptions and answer questions about the Catholic Christian Faith Our Lord founded in 33 A.D. Buck shot e-mails with tons of objections to the faith are sometimes, not always, from people with insincere hearts.

Although I believe you can't make any generalizations, many of these so-called believers are ex-Catholics who were never correctly catechized on the Divine Faith. I know this based on my correspondences with them. Some have ministries to pull Catholics from the Faith Our Blessed Lord founded. (This is why Catholic support groups are critical now.) When challenged by our faith, our response should be, (I don't know, but let me ask my Catholic friend and get back to you.) Many, of these people I believe, have been hurt by parents, priests, religious, etc. in the past, and are in denial about it. What we would say to them is, what Tim Staples coined,

Don't leave Peter because of Judas (and Judas behavior.)

We respect all questioners to our site. All we ask for is intellectual honesty, an objectivity to history and a mature attitude. Yes, we can still agree to disagree and still be friends but a faith-sharing dialogue should be honest and true as the model Christ our Lord is Honesty and Truth Himself! If you can't send us a question about the Church with a mature attitude, don't waste your time as it will be ignored.

But we want to be clear, we always welcome the sincere inquirer/faith-seeker of any faith, Christian Catholic, Separated Brethren, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

Mike Humphrey
AskACatholic.com Web Administrator