Expert: George A. Card,sfo, M.I - 4/25/2008

Question
QUESTION: I recall my, now long deceased, maternal uncle mentioning sometime in either the late 50's or the early 60's that the Catholic Digest had had an article in it that mentioned that the Catholic church had surveyed all of the Protestant denominations to determine which one was closest to Catholicism in doctrine, and practice, and had decided that a very small Lutheran denomination, the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church of America, was the closest to it in practice and doctrine.

If my memory, and his information, is correct, could you find out which copy it was published in and what did it determine the order of the  other denominations was. Better still could I be e-mailed a copy of the article.

Thanking you in advance.

Arthur Pyhala

139 Edwards Store Road
Lyman, SC 29365-9573

864 879-0644 res
864 431-0380 cell

<artpyhala@hotmail.com>

ANSWER: Peace


dear Arthur,
      Your question is indeed one of more challenging ones I have gotten. With that in mind, I request that you give me some time, to formulate a plan to find answer, if there is one to be had according to the information you have supplied. I will contact you again in about a week or so, and tell you of my progress.
         your servant but His first
         George


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: George: I may have missed your answer to my question, but I am still very much interested in your answer. I do not believe that I was dreaming about the situation which I mentioned in my previous transmission to you.

If you are able to find the article that my uncle was quoting from I am still interested in receiving a copy of the original article, along with a reference where I can find it, date of artice, and page number if possible.  

The answer of "Peace" given, may be of advantage to my soul, but hardly puts my intellect at rest.

Sometimes important issues get buried in the deluge of junk mail that clutters the internet. If it became relegated to my "junk mail file", I may not have opened that file prior to the "system" deleting it.

Could you check your own files and resend your reply to me.

Thank you in advance. once again,

Art

ANSWER: Peace

dear Arthur,
   It appears I didn't send you a reply. Why, cause I lost the address you said I should send a reply to. Sorry.
    My answer is several-fold. My first answer would be Anglican before the Edwardian changes in the liturgy, which opened wide the doors to Calvinistic Protestantism. Another good answer might be a group known as "Old Catholic" that have origins in Holland. The broke union at the time of Vatican I (1868-1870's, mainly over the role of the bishop of Rome. Since then it has splintered  in smaller groups. Most noted groups being:  "Old Catholics" who has a head bishop in Holland, and has some Calvinistic tendencies in relation to the sacraments.  Another group is the " Polish National Catholic Church. This second is very pro Poland. It has member in the the US. It splintered into two groups, one that's Masonic, the other is more to its roots.

Well that my humble answer, there may be others but its hard to know for sure. Why, there are about 38,000 Protestant sects. That not counting Sects such as Mormons, who are not Christian but call themselves Christians.

         your servant but His first
         George



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: George: I have a maternal uncle who's first name was also "George", although in the language of my ancestry it was spelled Yrjo, perhaps just to make things "less uncomplicated" for us youngsters growing up in Northeastern Minnesota. We also had quite a few Georges in our school.

What I was actually attempting to find out was if article of that subject matter had ever appeared in the publication known as the Catholic Digest, or was my uncle just repeating something mentioned by someone else who was just "shooting from the hip", hoping that he could at least hit the outskirts of the target. Is there someway to access the back copies of the Catholic Digest over the Internet to peruse them for information such as what I am looking for? Does such a publication actually exist? Do they have an archive of the back copies available to the general public for "research" purposes.

Thank you once more,

Arthur Pyhala  

Answer
Peace


dear Arthur,
  First, sorry for the extra information you seem not to need, I guess I read  the question wrong.

  Second: Yes, there is a publication called: Catholic Digest. I used to subscribe to it. When I had to cut expenses a few years ago, I dropped it a few other magazines (e.g. Inside the Vatican and  Laywitness). Below is a link to their site, perhaps they have a data base they can look search for you.

http://www.catholicdigest.com/


    again thanks for your patience.

         your servant but His first
         George