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***So the convents were closed and the women were "liberated." A woman, who as the Bible said, should be governed by a man, no longer had any right to any vocation but marriage. The Church as the Bride of Christ was eliminated. From this came a new tragedy for a woman: that is, the tragedy of not being married. You can see how deeply entrenched this Protestant notion is in our own society with the negative connotations of the "old maid." ***

Vapid. As vapid as saying that the cloistered life of Romanism is the cause of rampant homosexuality today.

***The Church as the Bride of Christ was eliminated.***

Really silly.

Cheap Shots and Logical leaps.

Our protestant brethern say: This is a vapid hit piece.

I agree. I haven't recently read anything quite this wrong-headed. And it seems particularly ironic that a traditional Catholic would be attacking traditional protestants over an issue where they both agree. As far as the traditional Catholic view of marriage and family, I find support for it almost entirely among protestants. Many of them would find nothing objectionable in "Casti Connubii." Meanwhile JPII is promoting his absurd "Theology of the Body" which is bringing disrepute upon Catholic theology by making it appear that the Catholic position is at variance with Biblical and traditional mandates. Let's be glad that there are some faithful protestant brethren who are doing yeomen's work to preserve the integrity of Christian marriage at a time when Catholics have almost uniformly abandoned it.

You asked for specific criticisms:

1. I would first request full specific citations (including translator and edition) on the various quotes alleged to be from various Reformation 'names'. The specific reason for this request centers on the fact that Luther wrote both serious theology and popular propaganda (as did his Roman Catholic counterparts). Failure of the author to differentiate between the two would allow an equally sleazy response quoting some of the anti-Lutheran propaganda of that era. Of course neither would be an accurate portrayal of the other side's views, but that doesn't seem to have been Dr. Horvat's goal.

2. Notice how the author fails to differentiate even between Lutheran and Calvinist theology while completely ignoring every other portion (including *ahem* Anglican *ahem*) of the Protestant Reformation. To attempt to put this in Roman Catholic terms, it is the equivalent of saying that SSPX, conservative mainstream Roman Catholics, post-Vatican II activists, and w-a-y left 'liberation theology types' are all really the same and thus we can take any portions of any of their writings as a genuine reflection of what all true Roman Catholics believe. Really. I'm not trying to be inflammatory here - that's really the way the article comes across, and that's really the level of diversity the Dr. Horvat appears to be intentionally ignoring.

3. For a better Protestant understanding of the basics of some aspects of some portions of Protestant theology (including such concepts as sola Scriptura and sola Fides I would suggest you might want to look at the Anglican "39 Articles of Religion" (with the proviso that the 3 articles mentioning English sovereignty are considered null outside of the UK) they can be found at

http://www.episcopalian.org/efac/39articles/39art.htm

another good basic explanation, from a Lutheran, rather than Anglican, perspective is Luther's Small Catechism which can be found at

http://www.bookofconcord.org/smallcatechism.html

you will notice conflicts between the two. When you do please refer to point 2. above. You will also notice that since I lack intimate familiarity with either Calvinist or Baptist theologies I haven't been able to provide pointers to either. None the less, they vary from both of the above in significant and diverse ways - perhaps Dr. Steve J. can be of assistance in these areas.

As you can see from the above shortcomings, the entire article is fatally flawed and contributes nothing toward either Roman Catholic understanding of various portions of Protestantism, or vice versa. To the informed Protestant reader it comes across with all the validity and substance of the average New York Times "john kerry would make a great president" editorial. I just hope this doesn't do anymore damage than some of the uneducated 'fundamentalist' anti-catholic threads we see around here from time to time.