Answering the C.A. Tracts: Christ in the Eucharist

From the Catholic Answers website:

Here at Catholic Answers, one of the most effective methods for countering attacks and clearing up misconceptions about the Catholic Faith have been our tracts. They have been around since the beginning of the apostolate and have resulted in many thousands of conversions. These tracts provide a real point of contact for someone in discovering the truths of the Catholic Faith.

There is a continuous onslaught of Catholics asking the C.A. apologist to explain why something they were told by a Protestant is not true. Catholic Answers biggest fear is that Catholics will be drawn away from the Catholic Church by listening to Protestants, and the tracts on their website play an important role in making sure that does not happen. So wouldn’t it be interesting if Catholics start asking their apologists to answer challenges to their tracts?

If the tracts are the go-to source for clearing up misconceptions, where will they tell them to go when the tracts themselves are shown to be deceitful? Now I’m not talking about misunderstanding or opposing interpretations I’m talking about very intentional well-crafted deceit. For example…

The Bread of Life: Why Many Disciples Walked Away

Catholic apologist, Karl Keating, authored an article titled, “Catholicism and Fundamentalism — The Eucharist,” which can be read here: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0003.html. The subject of the article was John chapter six, the bread of life discourse.

Mr. Keating has a fair amount of respect among Catholics who visit my blog, which is why I want to address his article here. He is the champion of using early church writings out of context, avoiding context within Scripture, and using references of which he seems to have little familiarity to support his arguments. It was his plethora of out-of-context quotes published on his website, Catholic Answers, that inspired me to write a lengthy contextual article on the early church view of the eucharist. Here I just want to respond to some of his arguments on the bread of life discourse. I want to pick up where he commented on why Jesus didn’t go after His departing disciples.