It is an exciting time for Catholics in Australia, with the events of World Youth Day 2008 continuing to yield fruit everywhere and everyday. At Parousia Media, we are working hard to ensure that such blessings are taken full advantage of, so that the revitalisation of our church that began with WYD08 will continue well into the future.

As a part of our post WYD08 Catechesis initiatives, we are proud to present 'Tim Staples in Sydney'. Tim is a captivating Catholic Apologist from the USA and a member of Catholic Answers, one of America’s largest lay-run apostolates of Catholic apologetics and evangelization. Parousia Media will be hosting a week long tour of talks all across Sydney, addressing a range of important topics that will appeal to both young and old!

The full itinerary of the Tim Staples tour will be coming soon, keep an eye out for any updates on this page. For more information about Tim, see below.

Who is Tim Staples?

Tim Staples was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps. During his four-year tour, he became involved in ministry with various Assemblies of God communities.

Immediately after his tour of duty, Tim enrolled in Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and became a youth minister in an Assembly of God community. During his final year in the Marines, however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. That encounter sparked a two-year search for the truth. Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church!

He converted to Catholicism in 1988 and spent the following six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years.

Realizing that his calling was not to the priesthood, Tim left the seminary in 1994 and has been working in Catholic apologetics and evangelization ever since.

Catholic Apologist Extraordinaire!

Tim Staples has given hundreds of talks all over the country and has helped thousands of people find their way home to the Catholic Church. He brings his extensive knowledge of Scripture into his tapes, books, and talks, helping others to see the strong biblical evidences that support Catholic doctrines. Tim’s humorous enthusiasm captivates his audiences, and his unique style has brought him great renown as an engaging speaker.

Tim can speak widely on every Catholic issue and is especially effective in apologetics, Bible study, Mary, and the Eucharist. Some of his talks include:

• The Eucharist: God’s Extravagant Love Revealed Tim defends the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist using the text of John 6 given in its historical context. Tim describes the keys to understanding why St. John emphasized the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist more than any of the other evangelists.

• Catholics and the Culture War: With the increase in awareness of Catholic responsibility to effect change in the culture in which we live, many ask, “What can I do?” Tim shows just how we Catholics can change the culture without the culture changing us. The need of the hour is for Catholics to engage the culture in dialogue on every level—the arts, politics, law, medicine, and more. The New Evangelization that our Holy Father has called us to involves much more than just talking to our separated brothers and members of quasi-Christian sects. Tim will show you what it means to truly confront the “culture war” with which we find ourselves involved.

• The Immaculate Conception and the Dignity of Man: Tim gives the biblical and reasonable evidence for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception against the claims that certain biblical texts render this idea unscriptural. Then, he shows why this doctrine is crucial for us to understand. Not only does Mary lead us to her Son and to the Blessed Trinity, but she also teaches us who we are as Christians. Understanding the Immaculate Conception properly reveals to us our own dignity as children of God.

• The Papacy and the Fathers of the Church: Using Newman’s famous quip “To be steeped in history is to cease being Protestant,” Tim demonstrates overwhelming evidence from the first five centuries of Christian history that the papacy was a central tenet of the Catholic Christian faith in the East and the West from Pentecost to the Council of Chalcedon.