Several months ago I was on my way to Chicago to deliver a talk. During the flight I had the opportunity to share the gospel with a man sitting beside me.
After the flight, at baggage claim, a man named Don Smarto approached me; he said that he was sitting behind me and had overheard my conversation.
Don Smarto as a seminarian.
Don went on to say that he used to be a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church with plans of starting his own religious order! He then informed me that he has since left the Church and is now a Baptist pastor living in Texas.
Last month I happened to be in Texas, and I contacted Don. He arranged for me to be interviewed on his ABC program. A program normally devoted to “parenting today’s youth,” but for me he made an exception. We had a very charitable discussion on what unites and divides us as Catholics and Protestants.
In our discussion we talk on a broad-range of topics:
– The problem of evil
– What is the Church
– The Protestant Reformation
– Why to Catholics believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist
– The authority of the Catholic Church
– Pornography
– Abortion
. . . and much more. It’s about 70 minutes long, so go grab a coffee (or 5), and enjoy!
Click to listen to the interview.
I hope you’ll share this talk with your friends (Catholic and non-Catholic alike), as an example of how we can disagree without being disagreeable, and argue without being argumentative.
Don Smarto and Matt Fradd
* Thinking on my feet, I accidentally said that it was the first council of Constantinople which defined Mary as Theotokos, when it was, in fact, Ephesus in 431.
This article courtesy of FOCUS.org.
