Catholic Answers is a Catholic advocacy group based in El Cajon, California. It purports to be the largest lay-run apostolate of Catholic apologetics and evangelization in the United States. It publishes Catholic Answers Magazine, a bimonthly magazine focusing on Catholic outreach, religious formation and apologetics, as well as the website catholic.com. It also produces Catholic Answers Live, a radio show answering callers' questions on a variety of topics related to the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church. Catholic Answers Live is syndicated on the EWTNradio network. Catholic Answers operates with the permission of the Diocese of San Diego. It is listed in the current edition of The Official Catholic Directory, the authoritative listing of U.S. Catholic organizations, priests, and bishops.
History
Catholic Answers was founded in 1979 by Karl Keating in response to a fundamentalistProtestant church in San Diego that was distributing anti-Catholicpropaganda in the form of tracts placed on the cars of Catholics attending Mass. He first started by writing a modest tract titled "Catholic Answers" to counter the arguments he saw in the anti-Catholic tract. He distributed it on the windshields of the cars in the fundamentalist Protestant church's parking lot. Due to the feedback he received from that tract, he published 24 more tracts. In 1988 he quit his law practice and turned Catholic Answers into a full-time apostolate, with an office and full-time staff. The Catholic.com website receives approximately 471,000 visitors per month in an October 2012 estimate.
Staff
currently working for Catholic Answers include Director of Apologetics Tim Staples; Senior Apologist Jimmy Akin; Catholic Answers Live radio host Cy Kellett; and staff apologists Michelle Arnold, Karlo Broussard, Trent Horn, and Peggy Frye. Notable Catholic figures who formerly worked with Catholic Answers include Mark Brumley, Matthew Pinto, Patrick Madrid, Gerry Matatics, Rosalind Moss, and Jim Blackburn.
''Catholic Answers Magazine''
Catholic Answers Magazine, which was titled This Rock until 2011, deals with various aspects of Catholic theology, practice, apologetics, and evangelization. The magazine formerly published ten issues per year; in 2009, it was reduced to six issues per year. The current editor is Tim Ryland. The first issue was dated January 1990. The original title This Rock referred to Matthew 16:18, in which Jesus tells the apostle Peter: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." In the January 1990 inaugural issue, publisher and then-editor Karl Keating stated the magazine's mission: "Our desire is to mirror the Rock which is Peter, which rests upon the Rock which is Christ, and to explain clearly and accurately the Catholic faith."
Other businesses
The organization operates an online store where it sells apologetics merchandise. It also sponsors ocean cruises featuring on-board inspirational speakers.
The ''Voter's Guides'' controversy
Before the 2004 US presidential election, Catholic Answers published the Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics. It was produced both in pamphlet form and as an insert to the newspaper USA Today. This publication promoted five "non-negotiable" issues that were also major political questions in the election cycle. The five "non-negotiable" issues explained and discussed were abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, same-sex marriage and human cloning. The term "non-negotiable" is used by Catholic Answers to describe issues that are "intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by law." Catholic Answers maintains that there are many more "non-negotiable" issues but these were "selected because they involve principles that never admit of exceptions and because they are currently being debated in U.S. politics." While "The Voters Guide for Serious Catholics" made no endorsements of any candidate or political party, the organization came under strong attack by liberal organizations and Democratic Party candidates as a partisan and right-wing publication. In 2004 complaints were filed by Catholics for a Free Choice with the IRS claiming that it was in "blatant violation of its charitable status" in an attempt to revoke Catholic Answers' tax exempt status. An IRS investigation resulted in no action against Catholic Answers; the IRS ruled that the Voters Guide for Serious Catholics could be safely distributed by religious organizations because it did not qualify as political intervention. The VGSC is not an official publication of the Catholic Church and was not authorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The authorized voters guide, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" was approved by the full body of bishops at its November 2007 General Meeting and was authorized for publication by Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, JCD. In it, the Bishops encourage Catholics to seek authorized voter guides rather than the VGSC:
