William Hogarth, The Good Samaritan (1737). Oil on canvas: St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London
I must say this is the lowest of the low, from our anti-Catholic brethren in Christ. I could tell stories from interacting with anti-Catholics for 15 years online that would curl your hair (or straighten it if it is curly), but this is the bottom of the barrel. I've been told in the past that I would definitely go to hell, and shouldn't be prayed for. One Ron Van Brenk, in the first comment in the combox of John's recent pathetic post bashing the Catholic Church (precipitated by the Penn State sex scandal) wrote an entire post (linked there) that a certain Catholic should not be prayed for, even mocking her various health problems. In his post, Bugay stated:
Scott Hahn and Bryan Cross and Devin Rose and Taylor Marshall and Mark Shea and Dave Armstrong and “Catholic Answers” and all of you who are defending the Roman Catholic Church and trying to win converts to it ought to stop now what you’re doing . . . And while you’re at it, you ought to examine your own lives and beliefs and motives.
Of course I responded at length to this sort of nonsense. It so happens that John's wife Bethany is suffering from leukemia. The contrast between John's asking for donations because of their present resulting financial problems, and this associate of his wickedly urging others to not even pray for someone else who is having health problems was so striking and revolting to me that I decided to try to break through the wall of anti-Catholic ill will and exercise some tangible charity, even towards one who had so severely insulted my Church and myself and my fellow apologists.
Serious disease is something we all fear and can sympathize (or, heaven forbid, empathize) with. My sister-in-law Judy died suddenly of a brain tumor in 1988. My brother Gerry (her husband) died of leukemia in 1998, and my father of lung cancer two years ago. I've lost many other loved ones, including a very dear aunt, at too young of an age. It has nothing to do with theology. It is helping a fellow human being in love, in obedience to Christian injunctions to care for the needy and to be compassionate towards those who are suffering. Thus I wrote at the end of my reply:
Now, I desire to illustrate the love of Christ in a way far different from that. I say we should show love towards John Bugay, despite the lies he is uttering against us and our Church. His wife Bethany is struggling with a very difficult health issue: leukemia, and John has been writing about it a lot on his web page, sharing the tremendously difficult struggles that they are both going through. Just yesterday a bone marrow donor was found.
I happen to know a lot about this procedure because I was a bone marrow donor myself in 1995 for my brother Gerry, who also suffered from leukemia. It enabled him to live another year, but his case was more advanced. There is considerable hope for a good prognosis with a bone marrow transplant. John Bugay has said that his family is suffering financially (30-40% loss, plus any time he has to be off work) because of loss of work for Bethany. He is asking for donations through PayPal. [originally a link was provided here] Please strongly consider donating to this important cause, and demonstrating the love of Christ. I would send something myself but I am flat broke at the moment. Perhaps I will be able to in the near future. This is one way we communicate the fullness of Catholic truth: by demonstrating the love of Christ in a tangible way.
We strongly disagree with John's unfair and irrational criticisms, but at the same time we should show Christian love. I have nothing against him personally. I just don't think he has thought through these issues properly (as is universally the case with anti-Catholics). And I give him a large pass, particularly considering the agony that he and his wife are experiencing at the present time.
Please pray for John and his wife Bethany's illness, and seriously consider sending them a generous amount of money during this difficult time (to his PayPal account) [originally a link was provided].
I cross-posted this statement with a link to PayPal on my Facebook page (3200 friends), even making an entire entry devoted to it, in an effort to raise some money for John's family. I also made a post on my Twitter page (700 followers). Both of these had direct links to his PayPal account, so people could immediately donate money.
As I stated above, I am broke at the moment (apologetics not being a lucrative profession), but I received a donation yesterday, as I do periodically, because that is a needed part of my income, as I continue my full-time work in apologetics (my ten-year anniversary of full-time service in this fashion is just three weeks away). Thus, I was going to donate $50 myself today, from a credit card that I had just paid off after several years. I wanted to "put my money where my mouth is." If someone is trying to raise money and asking others to contribute, then it is reasonable to expect them to join in as well. And that is the reason I mention this (along with the pathetic response from John Bugay); otherwise I would have done it without at least revealing the amount.
But, lo and behold, I came onto my blog today and discovered that John Bugay is rejecting with scorn any donations that Catholics give to help his family in their time of need. We are too evil for him to dream of accepting acts of charity from us in the form of financial assistance (that he has publicly requested). John wrote in my combox today:
In the meantime, please take down the link to our PayPal account. One donation has come in from this bunch of mockers, and I’ve returned it. And I will return other donations if I can identify them from you or yours as well.
It's the same old story from our profoundly Christlike anti-Catholic friends. The most sincere attempts by Catholics to express Christian love to them are mocked and scorned. Now we have someone refusing "evil" Catholic money to help his family as his wife suffers from serious illness. Even an atheist would accept that with thankfulness and gratefulness (just as they will sometimes graciously accept a Christian prayer, thinking, "what do I have to lose?"). But not anti-Catholics: they detest us too much to ever dream of accepting a gift of charity. Or at least John does . . .
Catholic Brent Stubbs made a reply in my combox:
John,
Your lack of understanding of Christian love is saddening. If you think we would give to your wife out of mockery, your hate for Rome has poisoned your judgment. We all have families and lives and can sympathize with the situation you are going through. God's grace empowers us to put down the apologetics sword for a moment to offer genuine support--not to win converts--but to offer genuine support. I hope that last dollar you returned wasn't the last dollar you will need. Lord have mercy.
Bugay fired back within 15 minutes (before proceeding to bash the Church some more):
Brent, you'll have a hard time convincing me that anything coming from this group is Christian.
Brent replied (twice) with Christian charity:
That's fine if I cannot convince you . . . I will pray for your wife this morning. . . . God bless you and your wife. Take care.
Devin Rose, whom Bugay had also bashed in his piece, was the person who donated to his family; whose money was returned. He also responded in my combox:
John,
Well, I was the one who made the donation, which no one here knew, and I intended it to be anonymous, but I saw that you rejected the donation earlier today. That's your prerogative.
But know that I did not make it in mockery or cunning. We happen to have enough right now to help others with, and that includes Catholics, Protestants, non-Christians, whoever is in need. So I donated a small amount to help y'all. I understand that you think Catholicism is evil and so you didn't accept it. God bless.
John saw fit to take another shot, judging my entire apostolate, in my combox below:
Dave, I'm sorry about the loss of your brother, and the other tragedies in your family. But rather than allow such tragedies to exhort you to humility, your whole enterprise may be summed up with this verse: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' I want to remain as far away from you as possible.
That's me, folks: a self-righteous, spiritually prideful moron. This explains my thirty years of Christian apologetics (the last 21 years, Catholic apologetics, and the last ten, full-time). I'm only in it for my own glory (thus I endure an avalanche of relentless personal attacks from people like John and his cronies, because I am so full of myself). Right.
What can one do? Well, we can still pray and do acts of penance for Bethany (for her healing by natural or supernatural means) and the financial situation in the Bugay household. I urge all to do so, and I will, myself. We can still bless them with prayer and the aid that God gives as a result of it. I have left the link to John's website above (here it is again) and it will stay, even if he asks to remove that, because it is public material, anyway. Anyone can learn of Bethany's medical progress there, in order to better know what to pray for.
Meanwhile I will go now and remove all the links to John's PayPal account and my appeals for help for his family, on my three different sites. Wonders never cease . . . the devil delights in such atrocious bad relations among Christians. Divide and conquer . . .
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