Biblical Foundations International - Catholic Apologetics - Gerry Matatics.org

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PO Box 569, Dunmore PA 18512 USA
phone (570) 969-1724   fax (570) 969-1725
www.gerrymatatics.org   e-mail: GerryMatatics@gerrymatatics.org


Report on Sept 27 - Oct 27 lecture tour

Report on Sept 27 - Oct 27 lecture tour

From September 27 to October 27 I was on what was not only my longest lecture tour of the US, but also my final such lecture tour ever. I want to share with you, not only a few highlights from this nearly coast-to-coast tour (which took me through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri), but also an opportunity you have to help a friend of mine who made a great and generous sacrifice to help make this trip a reality.

After I'd spent two entire months planning this trip, making countless phone calls to literally hundreds of hotels in over 30 cities in order to find and secure meeting space and sleeping rooms, making the thousand other preparations necessary to spend a month on the road, and packing my minivan to the ceiling with every last CD and book I had to sell, I had a problem: when it came time to leave on September 27 I still didn't have the needed funds in hand even to cover the trip's first week of expenses.

Rather than see the trip canceled and all that hard work come to nothing, a generous friend at the last minute, on his own initiative, offered to loan me the money so I could leave as scheduled, with the expectation that I'd strive to raise enough donations during the trip, and also (if need be) once I got home, to pay him back in full this month.

And so I left on September 27. And God blessed the trip with much spiritual fruit:

● In every city where I spoke people saw the logic of the "consistent Catholic" position -- once it's clearly, patiently, charitably explained and all objections to it are answered. By God's grace many as a result have already broken or are in the process of breaking free from the counterfeit Catholicism of both "the left" (i.e., the Vatican II establishment) and "the right" (the unauthorized clergy and chapels of the "traditionalist movement"). I have already received phone calls, emails, and letters from people who attended my talk who have very kindly described it as a turning point in their lives. I will be sharing some of their stories, with their permission, in coming weeks.

● A top seminarian -- a brilliant and exceptionally gifted young man -- in his final (7th) year of preparing for the priesthood at an SSPX seminary, with whom I spent an afternoon at a stop on my trip, pointing out to him the hopelessly inconsistent and indeed illegitimate nature of the SSPX, has left the seminary and returned home, apparently sending a few shock waves through the SSPX seminary community and beyond.

● Other SSPX loyalists I met on the trip have begun to reconsider the Society in the light of the Church's perennial teaching; supporters of the CMRI, of the SSPV, and of other traditionalist clerics have begun to similarly scrutinize the Catholic credentials of these groups. (See below.)

● While in the Twin Cities in Minnesota I was able to have a private dinner (in his home) and hours of insightful conversation with Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society, author of G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense (and host of the EWTN television series by the same name, now in its fifth season), and a truly gracious host. I believe the evening may well have provided me with a missing puzzle piece to the mid-boggling mystery of what's been going on in the Church over the last 50 years - a mystery which would, I believe, have taxed even the deductive powers of the great Father Brown, let alone our lowly gray cells. (More on this later. I hasten to add, out of fairness to Mr. Ahlquist, that his hospitality towards me should in no way be construed as an endorsement by him of my rad-trad, recusant Catholic stance. Think of it rather as akin to Our Lord's willingness to eat with tax collectors and sinners -- though I'm sure it never entered Mr. Ahlquist's humble head to see himself as doing anything so magnanimous as that.)

● The following morning I met with Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant; Mike is a former student of mine (at Christendom College in the 1980's) and a former colleague for many years at Remnant conferences and on the annual Chartres pilgrimages. For two and a half hours over coffee we had a friendly, honest, in-depth discussion of our different perspectives on the Second Vatican Council, the New Mass, and Benedict XVI. As a result Michael is working to arrange a debate on these issues between myself and a champion of the opposing position -- possibly author John Salza -- to be sponsored, perhaps, by the the Twin Cities' "Argument of the Month" Club, which typically draws an audience of several hundreds. My suspicion is that on this topic attendance will easily exceed a thousand, with people coming from as far away as both coasts. A similar debate, with a similarly well-known "name," and likely to draw an equally large crowd, is being discussed for Cincinnati.

● The talk I gave in every city on this tour, "Deadline 2012: Decoding the New World Order's Hidden Agenda," was [unexpectedly] videotaped by third parties in two different cities on this trip, was uploaded to YouTube by one videographer in Oregon, and is being serialized by another videographer on cable TV in Nebraska.

● I was able to have some long conversations, explaining how and why I'd come to my concerns regarding the revolutionary nature of Vatican II, with two well-known Novus Ordo apologists at this year's "Deep In History" conference in Columbus, Ohio (put on annually by the Coming Home Network, which specializes in helping Protestant clergy convert to Catholicism): Marcus Grodi, founder and president of the Coming Home Network and host of EWTN's television series on the same theme, "The Journey Home," and Patrick Madrid, another EWTN TV personality, speaker, author of several apologetics books, and editor of Envoy magazine. I also had briefer conversations with other speakers and attendees.

● The tour ended on a bang at my final talk on October 25 in Cincinnati. So many people showed up that every seat was filled, people had to stand in the rear of the room and out in the hotel hallway, and we had to set up additional chairs in the adjoining breakfast area and open up a side door through which those sitting in the overflow area could listen. Many of the dozens who came were congregants or former congregants of the various traditional chapels in Cincinnati, as well as a smattering of Novus Ordo Catholics and stay-at-home Catholics (modern-day recusants whose Catholic principles prevent their attending either the "New Mass" at the local parish or the unauthorized traditional Masses at traditionalist chapels, which they believe to be as illegitimate as the former). Some came from the neighboring states of Kentucky and Indiana -- some of these driving as far as 9 hours round-trip to get to the talk -- and one couple actually drove all the way up from Florida (2000 miles round-trip), since this was advertised as my last lecture tour in the US and Ohio was as close to Florida as I would be getting! (I had already taken my megatour around the entire state of Florida in 2008.) The Q & A session actually went on until past 2 am, and afterwards some continued the conversation with me at the all-night Waffle House restaurant down the street until 5 am. Several of those attending have begun to see the problems with the traditionalist movement's lack of mission and jurisdiction, which is the one topic that occupied nearly the entirety of the almost 5-hour-long Q & A session.

So I'm deeply grateful to my friend whose generous loan made this entire trip possible. Without that loan, none of the above would have taken place.

Why was I willing to drive over 7000 miles through 17 states to speak in 30 cities in 30 days -- often driving 8 or more hours a day before speaking that night, and after my talk sometimes driving all night as well? I gladly underwent this exhausting ordeal because I think our country has a very limited time to repent and embrace the true Faith or quite literally perish. My study and preparations, my time and energy, my labors on the trip, the physical punishment the stresses of the trip entailed, my month-long separation from the rest of my family -- all these I gladly sacrificed to Almighty God out of my (all-too-little) love for Him, love for our Holy Mother Church, and love for the Catholic Faith which has changed my life.

I pinched every possible penny, often eating only one meal a day, getting discounted hotel rooms for as little as $59.95, saving some additional bucks by not even getting a sleeping room some evenings after my talk but simply driving through the night to the next city, bargaining hard with each hotel to get the meeting space as cheaply as possible. Several hotels let me have their meeting room for free, most charged in the $50-$75 price range, the hotel in Cincinnati charged $175 ($25 an hour, which seemed like a good deal until the Q & A session went to 2 am!). But the gas and tolls on this lengthy trip came to nearly $1000, the postage to mail out fliers cost another $1000, and there were other necessary miscellaneous expenses (two 3,000-mile oil changes & check-ups for my car, a new tire, etc.). The trip's entire expenses added up to over $10,000 -- about what I'd estimated before I set out. (Long experience has shown me that each day's expenses on such a wide-ranging trip average a bit over $300.)

More significantly (and unexpectedly), however, the trip cost more than double what it made in sales and donations. That left me with a nearly $6000 shortfall, which made my friend's loan doubly appreciated (and obviously necessary), but also makes repaying it an interesting challenge.

I cannot leave my friend holding the bag for his sacrificial loan. So I offer the following proposals:

1) If you can make an after-the-fact donation towards this trip of $100 to help me close the deficit gap between the trip's expenses and income so as to be able to repay my friend, I will send you a 2-CD recording of my "Deadline 2012: Decoding the New World Order's Hidden Agenda" talk before it becomes available for purchase from my online store, plus a copy of Fr. Dennis Fahey's crucial book The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism, which just came back into print as I was leaving on my trip, enabling me to sell it at every location where I gave my talk. In my estimation this book is the single most important book ever written on the current economic, political, cultural, and spiritual crisis engulfing our world today. If you have not read any of Fr. Fahey's books, the general consensus among students of his work is that this volume is the very best introduction to his thought; if you read only one book by him, this should be it. (To put my money where my mouth is, I am currently reading this book out loud to my family during our daily family prayer and study time, a few pages each day.)

2) If you can donate $200, I'll send you not only the 2-CD set and Fr. Fahey's book but also copies of two additional books crucial for understanding the New World Order's history, methods, agenda, and real identity: The Secret Powers Behind Revolution and Freemasonry and the Vatican, both by the great traditional Catholic French nobleman, writer, and leader, the Vicomte Leon de Poncins. These two books are must reading if you wish to understand what's going on today, and are not currently available from my online store. 

3) If you can send $300, I'll send you the 2 CDs on 2012 and the New World Order, all three books, plus my 16-CD set "The Plot Against the Church, Parts One and Two."

If you wish to donate, please do NOT use the "PayPal" button on my website, as I currently have an issue with PayPal that I need to resolve. Instead, please donate either by credit card (we accept Visa, MasterCard, and Discover), or by check or money order, per the following instructions:

1. If donating by credit card, please call me at (570) 969-1724. If you get my voicemail because I'm away from my desk, please leave your name, address (both snail mail and email address, if you have one), phone number, credit card number -- including the 3-digit security code on the back -- and expiration date, and the amount you wish to donate.

(If you choose to supply this information via email, I advise people against supplying their complete credit card information in a single email, for security reasons. I would suggest including only the first half of your credit card number, i.e., the first 8 digits, in one email, and then provide the second half of the credit card number, together with the 3-digit security code and expiration date, in a second email. Don't forget to supply the other needed information -- full name, address, phone number, amount of donation -- in one of the two email messages!)

2. If you prefer not to use a credit card, please send a check or money order, made out to "Biblical Foundations International," to: Gerry Matatics, PO Box 569, Dunmore PA 18512.

Thank you so much for whatever you can do. We must all make great sacrifices to help save souls, and to save our country from God's wrath. (I hope you don't think the recent mid-term election results here in the US are sufficient to save us, since the same globalist elite effectively controls both major parties in this country, as they do around the world.) I am happy to offer the meager sacrifice of this lecture tour, like all the hundreds of similar lecture tours I've taken over the past quarter of a century. I hope that you can join me in this sacrifice by your financial assistance. With the possible exception of a short lecture tour (funds permitting) of Alaska and Hawaii (and one of all five boroughs of New York City and Long Island) this coming spring to complete my megatour of all 50 states, this recently completed trip is the last speaking tour I plan on taking of the US, and thus the last such trip I'll ever be asking you to donate to.

If enough people respond quickly and generously to this appeal (it would only take 60 people donating $100 each, for example), I hope to spend the rest of November and December completing my 25-CD set "Riding the Train of Truth All the Way to the End of the Line," the 8-CD set "The Plot Against the Church, Vol. 3," and a small book on the lack of mission and jurisdiction possessed by the SSPX, SSPV, CMRI, and similar traditionalist clergy, to get these products out by Christmas, and to finish designing the new website so as to launch it, God willing, by January 1.

May God richly bless you as you consider helping my friend recoup his spiritual and financial investment in the work of extending God's kingdom and sharing God's truth while we still have the freedom to do so. We pray for all our donors and their loved ones, living and deceased, every day in our rosaries and other prayers. 

Yours for the conversion of our tottering nation to the One True Faith, before it's too late,

Gerry Matatics

Updated On: November 13th, 2010

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March 28th, 2024

Donations are to Gerry Matatics as a speaker and writer, dba ("doing business as") Biblical Foundations International (BFI). BFI is not a 501 (c) 3, tax-exempt, non-profit corporation, and donations to it are not tax deductible as such.

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Date Added: Monday, November 04, 2019

Broadcast tonight (Thurs, Oct 31) at 9 pm Eastern

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Dear Friends:

 

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Date Added: Tuesday, October 29, 2019