A.C.T.S. Is Back!

 After more than three months, I finally got the help I needed to get the ACTS website fully back online!

 

The site will soon have a complete overhaul, but the way it was back in December is back online now!

https://www.americancatholictruthsociety.com

ACTS Website is Moving!

My provider since 1998 is retiring! Therefore I am moving www.a2z.org and www.americancatholictruthsociety.com to a new provider - the transfer process has begun, but there is nothing on the new host yet, so stay tuned here for updates!

This blog is NOT moving!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Well, I'm a bit late - "today" is nearly over, but I did not want to let this day go by completely unnoticed! Today is the day we celebrate the ORIGINAL SANTA CLAUS!

That's right! St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Turkey during the 3rd to 4th Centuries.

I encourage you to go to the ACTS Website to see an article I posted there years ago, which references several other articles documenting the origin of Santa Claus. You can't post comments on the website, but you can here!  After you read the article(s), come back here and share your thoughts.

In JMJ,

Scott<<<

20 Years Blogging!

​Well, I'm not sure what happened to this article! It was posted on October 1st, (the anniversary of the first blog post is October 18th, 2002), and somehow it all but disappeared! So, I am rewriting it and republishing it now.

In 1966 my father-in-law, Francis, (who became my father-in-law in 1981) started the Arizona Catholic Truth Society, or ACTS for short. This was, as we call it today, a "snail-mail" group. He had many subscribers and he sent out a monthly newsletter. 

In 1988, shortly after my conversion to the Catholic Faith, I was starting an apologetics apostolate of my own and was looking for a good name (Proverbs 22:1) and Francis offered me "ACTS" as he was no longer active in his mailing list. I like the name and accepted his offer to take it over. I started the ACTS Email list in 1988. Within a year or two, ACTS was going nationwide, actually worldwide, so I changed from "Arizona Catholic Truth Society" to the "American Catholic Truth Society." ACTS continues to this day as a website and host to several forums, including this one, Qui Locutus.

Qui Locutus was originally started in October of 1992 as the "CathApol Blog." However, my nickname was also "CathApol" and I was not the only one blogging here, so in 2017 I renamed the blog to Qui Locutus, which is taken from the Apostles Creed in Latin "qui locutus est per prophetas" ("who spoke through the prophets") so in short, the name means "Who Spoke."

Outside participation has slowed here in the last few year, I think mostly due to my going back to school in 2016, receiving my masters degree in 2018, and the same year I started working on my doctorate - which as of this writing is nearly complete (working on my dissertation). Hopefully things will pick up again soon - but if you are reading along and see something you wish to comment on, PLEASE DO! Do not wait for me to finish the doctorate! I still jump in as I can and post things of interest to me - and I hope to you too. 

May God bless all those who read along here and guide them to the fullness of Truth - which can only be found in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

In JMJ,

Scott Windsor<<<

Original Founder of ACTS

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.
May his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed,
Rest in peace.
Amen

---

A Tribute to the Original Founder of A.C.T.S.
Founded in 1966

Francis Marks founded the Arizona Catholic Truth Society in 1966 to promote the Catholic Truth in the Diocese of Phoenix. This was largely in response to the changes that were taking place since the recently consumated Second Vatican Council. The New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) was not yet released by Pope Paul VI, but there was an "attitude" of change errupting, at least in his local parish (which I will leave unnamed here).

A story that was related to me involved a parish gathering to discuss the education in the "Catholic" school, run by the parish. Francis asked something about "Guardian Angels," and the priest responded, "And Frank, would you have us next teaching them about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?" Needless to say, that was the last parish meeting the Marks family attended. 

The Marks began attending the Ukranian Catholic Church (an Eastern Rite in union with Rome), and did so for many years - in fact my wife and I were married in the Ukranian Catholic Church in Phoenix (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

Francis was very instrumental in my conversion. We used to sit across from each other at his kitchen table and debate, and sometimes (actually, more often than not) the debate would get quite heated. I am not one who backs down easily from a position I am holding, I will defend it till I am absolutely proven wrong. I had the audacity to tell Francis HE was wrong! (Any family members, or others who knew Francis that are reading this,knows what that results in!) Let's just say I raised Francis' blood pressure a notch or two on many occasions. Well, for seven years I fought the Church. I raised about every question I, as a Protestant (Lutheran upbringing) could think of, but Francis always had an answer. I can honestly say that I don't recall even once that he said, "I'm not sure, let me get back to you on that one." He always could answer or knew exactly where to look for a source to support him.

My biggest stumbling block was Mary. I couldn't see the Catholic side of how she has been and is used in the Church. I had heard of the Memorare, (a prayer to Mary asking her help, and that anyone who sought her assistance, it would be granted - click here to see the whole prayer). I didn't know how to pray the Memorare, so I just made up my own version. I said, "Mary, if you are what the Catholic Church says you are, and your role is what they say it is, show me somehow." Keep in mind, I am still a Protestant at this time, so I followed up that prayer real quickly with: "Jesus, if I have offended you in any way by praying to Mary, then please forgive me." I then went to sleep, and didn't really give the prayer another thought.

Well, about a week later (by this time I had all but forgotten about the prayer to Mary) I woke up in the middle of the night, actually about 2am. I couldn't get to sleep. So I went into the living room and turned on the TV. The movie, Song of Bernadette came on. I had never seen it before. Well, I was mesmerized. Mind you, this is a rather LONG movie and I had to be up for work by 6am, but I could not stop watching this movie. It is the story of Our Lady of Lourdes - and as I was watching, I was thinking about how the Lord has performed GREAT miracles that are even recorded in secular media (Fatima too), and were confirmed by secular officials (doctors verifying miraculous or "unexplainable" cures). These things were happening through the Catholic Church and through Mary! Well, about another week went by, I kept thinking about this movie and the miracles - and how I had heard of these things even before becoming involved with Catholics. It was remarkable, you just don't hear about such things happening in Protestantism. Then it hit me! THIS was my answer from Mary! I had asked to be shown, and she found a way to show me!

Within a day or two of this revelation, I went back to Francis and met with him in our "usual spot." I had not told him about the events of the last couple weeks (my prayer, the movie, the revelation) I told him that I wanted to convert. Well, he about fell out of his chair! After several weeks of counselling with his priest, I was accepted into the Roman Catholic Church on July 1, 1988. Francis was my Godfather/sponsor.

To challenge my convictions I began "debating" local Protestant apologists on Bible Foundation BBS (bulletin board system - the precursor to Internet. This is where I ran into James White for the first time. \ (One of my thoughts back then was, "if I made a mistake in becoming a Catholic, James White should be able to show me why it is wrong and 'pull me out.'" Well, that never happened. In fact, I was now finding that every question that James threw at me, I could find an answer for - or - I could ask my Godfather, Francis, and he had the answer.

I became so involved with apologetics that in 1989, I was forming an email list and my own BBS (a subboard on the All Nite Cafe BBS in Phoenix, run by Mike Middleton) devoted to Catholic Apologetics. I needed a good name for the list and Francis said, "how about Acts?" He explained it was the acronym he started back in the 60's and I loved it, so ACTS was reborn in the electronic medium. Shortly after ACTS' new beginning, I attained an "echo number" through CIN (Mike and Sharon Mollerus) and ACTS became a nationwide "echo" and the 'A' was changed from "Arizona" to "American." Since that time we've branched out into online debates on the Internet, more email lists and the #CathApol IRC live chat channel.

Francis Marks

I am eternally grateful to Francis, my Godfather, father-in-law, and good friend. Francis passed on on May 6, 1995. As you can probably figure out from the picture to the right, he was into HAM radio a lot, I hope he's still communicating on this new plane - helping others, as he was always willing to do while he walked this earth. The picture on top is Francis and his wife Mary, whom all in the family would agree, is a saint in her own right.

Lord, grant him eternal peace.

ACTS Gets a Facelift!

Well, it's been at least a couple years since ACTS has had a "new look" so, Scott has been working on one for the last couple weeks and has uploaded it now.  Take a look!  Let him know what you think!  It's still a bit of a work in progress (it always is!) with some pages still using the previous looks.  If there is a feature missing from the new look that you'd still like to see, be sure and leave a comment here for Scott!

http://www.americancatholictruthsociety.com

Here's a preview/thumbnail:

Our First Blog Post

Welcome to our new blog (weblog)!

Addendum, January 10, 2016

Without much fanfare, the above sentence was the first message posted to the CathApol Blog.  Now in the 14th year, the CathApol Blog began on October 18, 2002.  It began as a place to make more permanent discussions from the #CathApol IRC chatroom.  The problem with chatrooms is, while the discussion is live and challenging - they exist only for the moment and for those who happen to be in the channel at the time.  Rather than expending all that time and energy for 5, 10 or even up to 20 to 30 people at a time, I established the CathApol Blog to archive discussions from #CathApol and other chatrooms on the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.  The #CathApol chatroom has since yielded completely to the more permanent blog, but I occasionally still pop into the old networks and stir up some chat.

In the years since the beginning of the CathApol Blog it has also become the place for writers, now called "bloggers," from the American Catholic Truth Society (www.americancatholictruthsociety.com) or ACTS and email discussion lists hosted by ACTS, to post the "current articles" for the ACTS website.  While the latter is still true, the volume of messages in the ACTS email lists has waned in 2015 so there isn't much from the former.  The CathApol Blog remains as a place which apologetically defends the Catholic Church - and a place of "Keeping Catholics, Catholic."  We stand firm in the Catholic Faith, supporting the one, true, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

During 2015 I spent a lot of my time on a BeliefNet forum - and have posted some articles here related to those discussions too.  On October 31, 2015 the BeleifNet forums went into a "read only" status - no more active participation.

So, currently, while I still post articles here, the active discussions are in a bit of a lull, which I have noticed is quite normal.  Discussions have ebbs and flows - so right now there's a bit of an ebb.   I have always been open to the Lord's Will in how busy the forums hosted by ACTS are, and they seem to slow down at times which are opportune to me - allowing me to focus on other (offline) issues.

It must also be noted, while the CathApol Blog began on October 18, 2002 - the ACTS organization began back in 1966!  We're actually in our FIFTIETH YEAR!  Half a century defending Christ's Holy Church!  ACTS went online for the fist time in 1989, so that puts us in our 27th year on the Internet!