A reader writes:

You can post this on your blog if you prefer, but I wanted to ask you since you’re much more attuned to things in the Church than I am. Here’s my question (hopefully simple): are there any known apostolates that are focused on countering the Protestant efforts to proselytize Catholics in our country and/or others? I ask because at my wife’s church (she’s Protestant), a group of church members visited a 90% Catholic country in order to convert the population to “Christianity”. This bothers me to some degree, and I know that there are Catholics-in-name-only in any country, and an effort to bring these people to Christ has at least some merit, etc. etc., but what bothered me more than anything was that this was a medical mission and before any medical aid was given, the patients had to attend a sermon where ‘the gospel’ was presented to them. Anyway, I just want to know if there is any way for us rich Americans to give to an organization who actively counters these efforts by American Protestant groups. Just wondering.

I think this is part of Catholic Answer’s mission. It was, after all, started by a guy who walked out into his parish parking lot after Mass and found the cars covered with anti-Catholic leaflets. However, I think it’s important to remember that the Catholic faith is primarily a positive message of salvation that stands on its own. Our task (and Karl Keating would agree) is not so much to react to anti-Catholics (whether Christians fundamentalists or atheist fundamentalists) as to declare Christ (which the Church has been doing since before there were fundamentalists. To be sure, we should be prepared to address the manias of the hour. But those manias will not be around all that long. Instead, there will be new manias since the world does not progress, but merely wobbles.