It has been difficult for me, as a Roman Catholic , to abandon the ecclesial tradition.

this blog is not against Catholics, nor against any denomination. The blog is not for ecumenism either.

This blog works for the spiritual growth of Christians in sound doctrine. Eternal salvation is not a game. We believe that every man should spend at least two hours a day reading the Scriptures, Christian literature, praying and working for the salvation of his soul. After all, God will call us in due time. What time is it already? We are passengers on earth and must think of the basics.

This testimony will surely help Catholics and those who have left Catholicism and will strengthen their convictions in the Word of God. The Church in itself does not save anyone. It is Jesus Christ who gave himself as a ransom for the salvation of mankind. The reader will therefore understand that Richard did not abandon Catholicism from the first day he began to understand the significance of the Holy Scriptures on faith. He was committed before God for the Catholic Church and it was after more than 25 years of struggles and research that he finally decided to submit to Jesus Christ alone. Towards the end you understand that whoever leaves Catholicism needs inner healing. 

Very often, when we understand the truth, we blame priests, catechists, to the bishops and the whole system for keeping us captive in traditions that have nothing biblical about them. We mourn the lost years and we feel the burden of making up for the years of distraction as very heavy. Be at peace, he who died for you will make everything work for your good. Who knows if he will lead you as in the case of Richard, to deliver a multitude by your experience of discovering the truth?

We warmly thank Brother Richard for his testimony. God bless him. May also bless you and grant you the discernment of the speech presented here. You are valuable in the sight of God. Love of Christ.

Childhood and family and social influences. Born in Ireland to a family of eight children, I had a fulfilled and happy youth. My father was a Colonel in the Irish Army; I was almost nine when he retired. As a family, we enjoyed playing, singing and acting a lot, all within the framework of the military camp in Dublin. We were a typical Irish Catholic family. My father sometimes knelt solemnly at the end of his bed. My mother spoke to Jesus while sewing, washing the dishes, or even smoking her cigarette. 

Almost every evening we knelt in the living room to say the rosary together. We would never have thought of missing Mass, even in the event of serious illness. So as soon as I was five or six years old, Jesus Christ has become a very real person for me, like Mary and all the saints. I therefore understand all those who come from traditionally Catholic European countries, Latin America, or the Philippines, and who put Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the other saints in the same bag.

The indoctrination of the Jesuit school.

I was taught catechism at the Jesuit school in Belvédère, where I completed all my primary and secondary schooling. Like any boy brought up among the Jesuits, I was able from the age of ten to recite the five reasons that make God exist and that the Pope is the head of the only true Church. Bringing souls out of purgatory was also serious business. We memorized the following words: "It is to have a holy and healthy mind to pray for the dead, so that they may be delivered from their sins", even though we did not understand the meaning of these words.

 We were told that the Pope, as head of the Church, is the most important man in the world: his words have the force of law and the Jesuits constitute his right arm. Even though mass was said in Latin, I did my best to go there every day, I was so drawn to the mysterious atmosphere that surrounded it. We were also told that attending Mass was the surest way to please God. We were encouraged to pray to the saints; there were patron saints for every circumstance imaginable. I hardly invoked them, with the exception of Saint Anthony, patron of lost objects, because I had a tendency to lose everything.

Adolescence and the missionary call.

When I was fourteen I felt called to be a missionary. This call didn't change anything, however, to my lifestyle at that time. From sixteen to eighteen, I had an extremely pleasant time of development, achieving as much success academically as on the sports fields. At that time, I often had to drive my mother to the hospital, where she was undergoing treatment. 

One day while waiting for him, I came across the following verses of Mark 10: 29-30 while reading: “Jesus answered: Verily I say to you, there is no one who has left, because of me and the Gospel, house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children or lands, and who does not receive a hundredfold, now in this time, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and land, with persecutions and, in the century to come, eternal life ”. Having no idea of ​​the true message of salvation, I decided that I had truly received a call to be a missionary.

My attempts to earn my salvation.

I left family and friends in 1956 to join the Order of St Dominic. I then spent eight years learning to be a monk and studying the traditions of the Church, the philosophy, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and some biblical notions from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church. My personal faith was, in a way, institutionalized and ritualized because of the Dominican religious system. Sanctification, I was told, was obtained by obeying the laws of the Church and of the Dominican order. 

Many times I have spoken with Ambrose Duffy, Director of Students, about the law as a means of sanctification. I didn't just want to become "holy"; I also wanted to be assured of my eternal salvation. I memorized part of the teaching of Pope Pius XII who says: "The salvation of many depends on the prayers and sacrifices offered by the mystical body of Christ for this intention." The idea of ​​"winning salvation" through suffering and prayer is also the fundamental message of Fatima and Lourdes; I therefore sought my own salvation and that of others in suffering and in prayer.

In our Dominican monastery of Tallaght in Dublin, I therefore engaged in painful exploits in order to win souls: I took cold showers in the middle of winter and flogged my back with a steel chain. The student director knew what I was doing; his austere life was as inspiring to me as the Pope's words. With rigor and determination, I studied, I prayed, I did penance, and I tried to keep the Ten Commandments as well as a host of Dominican rules and traditions. Auspicious outside, and empty inside.

In 1963, at the age of twenty-five, after having been ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, I completed a course of studies on Thomas Aquinas at the Angelicum University in Rome. There, I began to experience difficulties: it was the splendor outside, and the emptiness within. For years, I had made myself, through books and images, a representation of the Holy See and the Holy City. Was it the same city? I was also shocked to see some who came to Angelicum University in the mornings while appearing to be completely disinterested in theology. They read "Time" and "Newsweek" during class. Those interested in teaching only did so to obtain a degree or a position in the

One day I went to the Colosseum, to stand on the very spot where so many Christians had shed their blood. When I got to the Forum, I headed for the arena. I tried to imagine these men and women who knew Christ so well that rather than deny Him, they gladly consented to be burned alive or devoured by beasts; but the joy of that experience was tarnished by young thugs who, as I came back for the bus, called me "dung" and "junk". I sensed that they were doing it not because I had taken a stand for Christ like the early Christians, but because they saw in me the Catholic system.Roman. I quickly shook those thoughts away, but the teachings I had received about the present glory of Rome now seemed to me futile and illusory.

Soon after, I spent two hours in prayer during the night in front of the high altar of the Church of San Clemente. I thought about the call I received in my youth to become a missionary, as well as the promise of the "hundredfold" harvest of Mark 10: 29-30. I decided not to take my theology degree, which had been my ambition since I started studying Thomas Aquinas. I made this important decision after praying for a long time, and I was sure it was the right one. 

The priest who was to supervise my thesis did not want to hear anything, and to make things easier for me, he suggested that I pass off as my own a thesis written by someone else a few years before. It would be as if I wrote it myself, as long as I support it in front of a jury. This proposal made me nauseous. I stuck to my decision, finishing my studies at the University at the ordinary level, without the diploma. Shortly after, I was ordered to go to La Trinité Island, in the West Indies, as a missionary.

Pride, fall, and a new hunger.

I arrived in La Trinité on October 1, 1964. For seven years I tasted success as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, fulfilling all my duties and attracting many people to mass. As early as 1972, I got involved in the Catholic charismatic movement. At a prayer meeting in March that year, I thanked the Lord for making me such a good priest and asked Him, if it was His will, to make me more humble. That same evening, in an unbelievable accident, I had a fractured back of my skull and several spinal cord injuries. It was only later that I understood it: if I had not come close to death, I would never have come out of this state of self-satisfaction in which I took pleasure before accident. The prayers ready made and learned by heart turned out perfectly hollow, as in my pain I cried out to God.

The search for God and the understanding of God's salvation. In this suffering that gripped me for weeks after the accident, I began to find some comfort in personal prayer. I have stopped saying the breviary, the official source of the prayers of the Roman Catholic clergy, as well as the rosary. I began to use Bible passages to pray. It took me a long time: I couldn't find my bearings in the Bible; the teaching I had received year after year made me distrust of it (the Bible) rather than trust it. My training in philosophy and scholastic theology did not help me any more, so entering the Bible to find the Lord there was a bit like entering a huge dark forest without having a map.

When I was appointed to a new parish later in the same year, I reunited with a Dominican priest who had long been a brother to me. For almost two years, we worked side by side, seeking God as best we could, in this parish of Pointe-à-Pierre. We read, study, pray, and apply what we learned from the teachings of the Church. We have established communities in several villages. In the sense that we understand it in Roman Catholicism, we were very successful: many people came to mass and catechism was taught in many schools, including state schools. I myself continued to study the Bible, but it had little impact on our work:

Christ died in my place.

So it was wrong to try to atone for my own faults, or to add some payment for my sins myself.
Richard Peter Bennett.
The charismatic Catholic movement was growing, and we introduced it to almost all of our villages. Because of this movement, some Canadian Christians have come to La Trinité to share their faith with us. Their messages have given me a lot, especially in the area of ​​prayer for healing. 

Their teaching was mostly experiential, but it has blessed me as it has prompted me to place a deep trust in the Bible as a source of authority. I started to relate the Bible passages to each other, and even to quote chapters and verses! Canadians often quote Isaiah 53: 5: "By His stripes we have healing." By studying Isaiah 53, I discovered that the biblical cure for sin is substitutional death: Christ died in my place. So it was wrong to try to atone for my own faults, or to add some payment for my sins myself. “If it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. "

(Romans 11: 6).
“We were all wandering like sheep, each one followed his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the guilt of us all ”(Isaiah 53: 6). I often sinned by getting angry with other people; I sometimes even got angry. I asked, of course, forgiveness for my sins, but I had not yet realized that I had a sinful nature, that nature that we all inherit from Adam. Here is the scriptural truth: "There is not one righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10). And again: "For all have sinned, and do not reach for the glory of God." (Romans 3:23).

 The Catholic Church had taught me that the depravity of human nature had been removed by the baptism received at my birth. Intellectually, I still believed it, but deep in my heart, I knew that my depraved nature had not yet been overcome by Christ. It was then that this verse from Philippians 3:10 became the cry of my heart, "My purpose is to know Him, and the power of His resurrection." I understood that it is only by His power that one can live as a Christian.

 I stuck on the dashboard of my car and in other places this verse which expressed my purpose. In His fidelity, the Lord responded to this cry. I put on the dashboard of my car and in other places this verse which expressed my raison d'être. In His fidelity, the Lord responded to this cry. I put on the dashboard of my car and in other places this verse which expressed my raison d'être. In His fidelity, the Lord responded to this cry.

The discovery of the authenticity of the Bible.

I first discovered that the Bible, the Word of God, has absolute value and is free from all errors. I had been taught that the Word had only relative value, and that in many areas its veracity was questionable. Using Strong's Concordance, I began to study what the Bible says about itself. It made me understand that she is, on the contrary, perfectly reliable, that she comes from God and that she teaches absolutes.

 The historical facts which it reports are true; all of God's promises are true, as are the prophecies, and biblical commandments to live righteously. “All Scripture is inspired of God and is useful for teaching, for convincing, for redressing, for educating in righteousness, so that the man of God be adapted and prepared for every good work. (2Timothy 3: 16-17) The Bible, the Word of God, is the source of supreme and absolute authority in all matters concerning faith and the conduct of life. I made this discovery during a visit to Vancouver and Seattle. 

It was the first time I grasped this truth and felt free to talk about it. In front of about four hundred people in a large Vancouver ward, I proclaimed, Bible in hand, that the Bible, the Word of God, is the source of supreme and absolute authority in all matters concerning faith and religion. conduct of life. Three days later, the Archbishop of Vancouver, James Carney, summoned me to his office and forbade me to preach in his bishopric. He me also said that my punishment could have been much harsher had it not been tempered by a letter of recommendation from my own Archbishop. I returned to La Trinité shortly after.

The conflict between the Church and the Bible.

When I was still a parish priest in Pointe-à-Pierre, Ambrose Duffy (the man who had given me such severe training when he was director of students) was asked to assist me. It was a turnaround. After some initial difficulties, we ended up becoming good friends. I shared with him what I discovered. He listened and commented with great interest, wanting to know what motivated me. I saw in him a channel of communication with my Dominican brothers and even with the staff of my archdiocese.

He died suddenly of a heart attack, which was a great grief to me. I saw in Ambrose the man who could have explained to me and my Dominican brethren the contradiction between the Church and the Bible, as well as the truths with which I struggled so hard. I preached at his funeral, but my despair remained deep.

I continued to pray on Philippians 3:10: "... to know Him, and the power of His resurrection." But to know Him better, I had to understand my sinful state first. I saw in the Bible (1Timotée 2: 5) that if my priestly role of intermediary corresponded well to the Roman Catholic doctrine, it was perfectly contrary to the biblical doctrine. I really liked to be respected, almost idolized. 

I justified my sin by saying to myself, “After all, if this is what the greatest church in the world teaches, who am I to question it? However, my inner conflict escalated. I was beginning to see that it was a sin to worship the Virgin Mary, saints and priests. And while agreeing to renounce invoking the Virgin and the saints as mediators, I could not renounce the priesthood, because I had invested in it all my life.

The years of internal conflict.

Mary, the saints and the priesthood were only a small part of the immense struggle I faced. Who then was Lord of my life: Jesus Christ and his Word, or the Church of Rome? This last question especially, has raged in me during my last six years as a parish priest in Sangre Grande (1979, 1985). The idea that the Roman Catholic Church is the supreme authority in matters of morals and faith was instilled in me from my earliest childhood. Apparently no one could change that. Not only was Rome the supreme authority, but it was also always necessary to call it: "our Blessed Mother". How could I rise up against her, while dispensing her sacraments, I who had to be the guarantor of the fidelity of an entire people?

In 1981, during a spiritual renewal session in a parish in New Orleans, I went so far as to renew my consecration to the service of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet when I returned to The Trinity and found myself facing the real problems of existence, I returned to the authority of the Word of God.

The tension was growing inside me, so that sometimes it was the Roman Church that was the absolute authority for me, and sometimes it was the Bible. My stomach gave me a lot of pain during those years; my emotions were a reflection of this conflict. I should have known that one cannot serve two masters at the same time, and that I was bound, as a Catholic priest, to place the absolute authority of the Word of God lower than the supreme authority of God. 'Church of Rome.

This contradiction is found in what I did with the four statues of the Sangre Grande church. I removed and destroyed the statues of St. Francis and St. Martin, because the second commandment of the law of God states in Exodus 20: 4: “You shall not make a statue”. But when some people refused to give up the statues of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary, I left them there because of the superior authority of the Roman Catholic Church, including the law, in Canon 1188, states, “The practice of displaying sacred images in the church for the worship of the faithful must continue. I did not see that this was an attempt to subject the Word of God to that of men.

Christians from across the ocean attended mass; they saw our holy chrism, the holy water, our medals, our statues, our priestly clothes, our rituals, and found that everything was going very well! There was something fascinating about the captivating style of the Catholic Church, its symbols, its music, its aesthetic sense. The scent of incense does not stop at enchanting our sense of smell: it immerses thought in a deep feeling of mystery.

Turning.

One day, a woman called to me. She is the only person to have challenged me during my 22 years of priesthood. “You Roman Catholics have the outward form of godliness, but you don't have the power,” she told me. These lyrics troubled me for quite a long time, because I loved candles, banners, folk music, guitars and percussion. No priest in La Trinité had liturgical vestments or banners more shining than mine. It was very obvious: I was not putting into practice the verses I had in front of me.

In October 1985, the grace of God prevailed over the lie I was trying to live out. I went to Barbados to pray about the compromise I was trying to stay in, and where I did feel trapped. The Word of God is truly absolute. It was to her alone that I owed obedience; yet it was to the same God that I had promised to obey the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Church according to the Bible

In Barbados, I read a book explaining the meaning of the Church according to the Bible: she is "the community of believers". In the New Testament there is not the slightest trace of a hierarchy, nor is there any “clergy” above the “laity”. Rather, as the Lord himself says: “One is your Master, and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23: 8). Considering the church as a community, that left me free to reject the Roman Catholic Church as the supreme authority, to depend only on Jesus Christ, the Lord.

The work of Christ is perfect, no one can add anything to the perfect personal salvation that Christ offers. “It is by grace indeed that you are saved, by means of faith. And it doesn't come from you, it's the gift of God. THIS IS NOT BY THE WORKS, SO THAT NOBODY IS GLORIFY. (Ephesian 2: 8-9). I finally understood that by biblical criteria, the bishops I knew in the Roman Catholic Church were not believers. 

They were, for the most part, pious men, loyal to Rome and filled with devotion to the Virgin Mary and the Rosary; but none of them understood that the work of salvation was finished, that the work of Christ is perfect, and that no one can add anything to the perfect personal salvation that Christ offers. They all preached confession of sins and repentance, human suffering, religious acts, “the human solution” rather than the gospel of grace. By the grace of God, I saw that it was not by the Church of Rome or by any kind of merit that we were saved.

 It is “by grace indeed that you are saved, by means of faith. And it doesn't come from you, it's the gift of God. It is not by works, so that no one can boast. ”(Ephesians 2: 8-9). New birth at forty-eight. we are saved. It is “by grace indeed that you are saved, by means of faith. And it doesn't come from you, it's the gift of God. It is not by works, so that no one can boast. ”(Ephesians 2: 8-9). New birth at forty-eight. we are saved. It is “by grace indeed that you are saved, by means of faith. And it doesn't come from you, it's the gift of God. It is not by works, so that no one can boast. ”(Ephesians 2: 8-9). New birth at forty-eight.

I left the Roman Catholic Church when I saw how impossible it is to live in Jesus Christ while remaining faithful to Roman Catholic doctrine. When I left La Trinité in November 1985, I only had enough to go to Barbados, a neighboring island. There, I was lodged with an elderly couple; I prayed for a costume and the money to go to Canada, since I had, in all and everything, a hundred dollars and clothes for the tropical climate. These two prayers were answered without my having to make my needs known to anyone except the Lord. Coming from tropical temperatures in the thirties, I landed in snow and ice in Canada. A month after my arrival in Vancouver, I arrived in the United States.

I spent six months with a Christian couple on a farm in Washington State. I explained to my hosts that I had just left the Roman Catholic Church, that I had accepted Jesus and His Word in the Bible as being entirely sufficient; and all this in an "absolute, final, definitive, and resolute" way. However, without being in the least impressed by my four adjectives, they wanted to know if there was any hurt or bitterness left in me. Through prayer, and with immense compassion, they took care of me, knowing, for having taken the same step, how easy it is to let in bitterness. 

Four days after I arrived there, by the grace of God, I began to experience repentance and see the fruit of salvation manifested. I not only had to ask the Lord for forgiveness for my many years of compromise, but also to accept His healing in areas where I had been so deeply hurt. In short, at the age of forty-eight, on the authority of the Word of God alone, by grace alone, I accepted the death of Christ who became our substitute by giving Himself in our place on the cross. . To Him alone is all the glory.

After I was physically and spiritually refurbished by these two Christians and their families, the Lord gave me a bride, Lynn, also "born again" by faith, blessed with wonderful dispositions and a beautiful intelligence. We traveled to Atlanta, Georgia where we both found work.

A true missionary, with a true message. In September 1988, we left Atlanta to be missionaries in Asia. It has been a rich and abundant year in the Lord as I never thought possible. Men and women came to know the authority of the Bible and the power of Christ's death and resurrection. I was amazed at how effectively the grace of the Lord can work when the Bible alone is used to present the Lord Jesus Christ. What a contrast to the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, which like spider webs had darkened my mind for nearly twenty-one years! Missionary as I was, in La Trinité, I had no true message.

In order to explain the abundant life that Jesus spoke of and which I enjoy now, there are no words more expressive than those in Romans 8: 1-2: "There is therefore now no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus, and who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death. I am not only freed from the Roman Catholic system: I have become a new creature in Christ. It is by the grace of God, and only by his grace, that I have passed from dead works to new life.

Today.

My job, the one the Lord has prepared for me, is to be an evangelist in the Pacific region of the Northwestern United States. What Paul said about his fellow Jews, I can say about my dear Roman Catholic brethren: my heart's desire and prayer is that they be saved. I am a witness that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is based on the tradition of their church rather than on the Word of God. If you understand the devotion and the terrible suffering that some of our brothers and sisters in the Philippines and South America experience in their religion, you can understand the cry from my heart: "Lord, give us this love that will understand. the pain and the torment of these brothers and sisters who seek to please You. "Understanding the pain of the Roman Catholic heart,

My testimony shows how difficult it was for me, as a Roman Catholic, to abandon the ecclesial tradition. But when the Lord asks in His Word, we have to surrender. The "outward form of piety" manifested by the Roman Catholic Church makes it difficult to pinpoint the problem. Everyone must come to a personal conviction as to the authority which gives us to know the truth. 

Rome declares that it is only under her authority that the truth can be known. In his own words (Canon 212, Section 1), “The faithful and responsible Christian is bound, out of Christian obedience, to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of faith, or decide as leaders of the Church. »(Code of Canon Law, based on the Vatican Council II, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, 1983). And yet, according to the Bible, it is the Word of God itself that is the source of truth. It is because of these traditions of men that the Reformers took as their motto: "Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, in Christ alone, and to God alone the glory." "

The most difficult step for good Catholics that we are is to repent of thoughts of "merit", "gain", "being good enough", in order to simply accept, empty-handed, the gift of righteousness that we find in Jesus Christ. The refusal to accept what God commands is the same sin as that of the religious Jews of Paul's day, who “ignoring the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, did not submit to the righteousness of God ”(Romans 10: 3). Repent and believe in the gospel!

You can contact Richard Bennett by e-mail at the following address: verneliz@juno.com

His website can be found at: http://www.bereanbeacon.org

Other Resources on Catholicism

Various comics in English

The Godfathers, the hidden face of Catholicism; Comic strip The prophet, in the origins of Islam; Comic strips Testimony of three former Catholic priests Testimony of Achilles, ex-yogi ex-catholic Other resources on Catholic magic Testimony of Bakajika Muana Nkuba, ex-magician initiated by a priest Testimony of Françoise, ex-Mahikari, ex-Catholic ex-none, ex-Rosicrucian Testimony of Pastor Jonas, ex-satanist