Question:
What should be our guidelines for discussing or defending our faith. I have a friend who is a fundamentalist protestant. He basically fully accepts what is presented by his pastor as truth without question. They take a very literal interpretation of the Bible (where "they" deem it literal). He has an anti-Catholic attitude that is based not on his attempt to verify the facts but solely what he has been told. Then there are the common arguments that we worship Mary, why do we have to go to confession to a priest, the church is wealthy, why does the church put so much money into the structures themselves, Catholics won't go to heaven, etc.
I have provided copies of documents that provide the truth about our faith (most I assume he doesn' t read) but he still seems to sing the same song. I believe he is more interested in a simple answer with a guideline of yes and no (i.e.- all sins are equal; if you accept Jesus as your saviour, no matter what you do after that, you will go to heaven). I don't believe he wants to deal with the complexities and I don't feel I have made much headway over the years of altering his conception of Catholicism. By his own statements Catholicism is to complex. Should I just drop any discussions entirely, or try a different approach?
Jeremiah:
To quote the Bible, which Catholic aren't suppose to do 
, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
First, just a technical point. Since this person is a Christian what you are doing is not evangelization, it is apologetics. Evangelization is to non-Christians.
In any event, the realities of both evangelization and apologetics are the same -- it is not our job to convince anyone of anything; that is the job of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to be the messenger. We should present the faith in as convincing and persuasive way as we know how, but leave the actual convincing to the Holy Spirit.
Thus, in a situation like you are describing all you can do is present the truth to this person in a convincing and charitable way and leave it at that; the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
This means doing what you have already done -- talk to him, explain the faith, refer him to documents, and then commit him to prayer.
If you have not already done so, I would refer him to:
Scripture Catholic: Providing Scriptural Evidence for the Teaching of the Catholic Church
Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
If this person has any integrity he will read these sources; if not, he won't. Do not count on him reading the resources. I can tell you as a former fundamentalist Baptist that Protestant fundamentalist-types really do not have much intellectual honesty or Biblical knowledge, come close to being brainwashed and only know what has been drummed into them by their pastor or whomever they like as a preacher, and tend to develop hard-core arrogance sometimes to the point that some of them believe or act as if even other parishes in their own denomination are wrong, except them. These types tend to focus on how everyone, except them, are wrong, instead of focusing on preaching the Gospel.
The problem with talking to many of these people is that you are up against a brick wall of unmitigated prejudice without a shred of reasoned thought.
In the end, all we can do is to present the truth, refer them to resources, and then let them go without further argument and pray that their eyes will be opened and enlightened someday.
God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary
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