My dear Catholic, non-Catholic Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, etc. brothers and sisters, Please answer the following question:
Were you taught negative information about any other faith(whether or not you deem it to be truth) at church by your priest, pastor, minister, rabbi, etc. or other religious person in charge of your religious formation? Please explain your answer if you wish.
As a Catholic child, I never heard anything negative about other religions and always just thought different people had different ways of worshiping the Lord. In adulthood, I began to hear from friends and acquaintences that they were taught from the pulpit and Sunday school teacher negative things specifically about the Catholic faith. I have yet to have a priest say anything negative about another faith during Mass and since I’m now almost 38, I’ve attended a lot of Masses.
your title does not reflect the question in your OP. Certainly, as a Catholic, I have been taught the negative or incorrect aspects of doctrine taught by other religions, and the negative or incorrect moral teachings of those who propound against God’s laws. Never ever in 16 years of formal Catholic schooling, in graduate work in theology, in 60 years as a church-going practicing Catholic, in formation as a catechist, have I ever, ever been taught to hate anyone for any reason, for their morals, their beliefs, or for any other reason. I have been taught to speak the truth in love. Lying to someone about something essential to their health, happiness and eternal destiny is about as hateful as you can get.
I was baptized United Pentecostal Church, and you betcha, very few sermons didn’t have some reference to that ol’ debil Roman Catholic Church, or some Protestant church. Those folks were just plain ornery! Because of them, I learned to be extremely disdainful of every other church, especially Catholic, and not far behind Catholics were mainline Protestants, and not far behind mainline Protestants were the softcore charismatic non-denominationals, and other touchy feely Christians, like Unitarians and Christian Scientists.
Catholics, from my perspective, are pretty comfortable in their own skin without having to resort to slamming other faiths. My experience has always been to learn about our faith and have the confidence to reason with others without having to be defensive. Basically, I guess what I am trying to say here is that we are too busy studying 2000 years of history to incorporate other faiths into our already overflowing workload.
My Seventh-Day Adventist mom used to teach me defensive maneuvers for when the time came when all the Catholics finally revealed their global conquest plot through Sunday worship … I now know how to evade every kung-fu move a priest (or even the Pope himself) can throw at me …
Just kidding.
My mom’s a Baptist. And yes, more so than from the pulpit, my mom was (and still is, though I am usually quick to retaliate) accustomed to filling my head with negative conceptions about the Catholic Church. She refused to go to Mass with me my first trip. Luckily, I ran into my friends the Haygoods, some of the nicest people I know, and so I wasn’t alone. She also is scared of Pentecostals and their “tongues,” which I find quite amusing …
I was taught in my Baptist Church that every non-Christian is worshiping the devil. I was also taught a lot of false things about Catholic beliefs and history.
Nope, never heard anything negative about any other faith–but I have heard tons of positive stuff about mine and how I should be living it!
One reason I like apologetics is because it is a defense. I think it’s best to positively share your faith and then answer any objections rather than attcking someone else’s faith. I have to be careful sometimes that I don’t get angry and go on the attack. Prayer, patience, humility, and charity are necessary! :crossrc:
Never! I grew up in a predominently Italian/Irish Catholic neighborhood in Brooklyn NY with a few Jewish families sprinkled in. One Jewish woman on my block was a Holocaust survivor. I remember asking her as a young kid what those numbers were tattooed on her arm. She told me, a kid, what she went through. I thought at the time how terrible…anyway…
Not until I moved to the Bible Belt at the age of 15 was I ever confronted for being “Catholic”. My boyfriend’s mother asked me “if my father was murdered by a gun would I wear a gun around my neck?” I was totally confused by the question at first & then realized she was talking about the crucifix. At that time I told her that the crucifix represented what Jesus went through for us & that I stood by it. She pretty much had no more questions after that.
Flash forward 25 years later. I was out of the Church for 25 years, have recently returned, married the said boyfriend back in 1986 & MIL still believes the Catholics are still are wrong…:eek:
I was raised a Baptist and I never heard negative teaching in my church about other religions until I was an adult. Even then it was not within the church setting, most the the negative teaching I received was in informal settings. As I started learning more about theology, then the differences were stressed. My main exposure to anti-Catholicism came from “ex-Catholics” and those dreaded Chic Tracts. I did have a pastor once that gave a class on cults and he included the Catholic Church as an example of one. I still have the handout he gave us and it had misrepresentations about the Church’s teachings on faith and works, worshiping/devotion of Mary and worship of images, etc. (Funny the handout was from a pentacostal brochure, being a Baptist I never understood why our pastor was using it.)
Of course I’m now in full-communion and very happy to say I’m Catholic.
I don’t think anyone was trying to teach hate, but really thought they were teaching truth, but really were misinformed.
You are entitled to say what you feel. Can you cite a case for us to examine?
I have already seen your response to other issues, so help us understand how wrong we all are.
I have a serious, serious suspicion that everyone who said “no” was basically lying.
In fact, I’m almost totally sure of it.
Wow! God is here among us! Jesus has returned everyone - behold, He knows the hearts and minds of everyone and can judge us all!
In answer to the question; I was raised as a protestant. I attended a Nazarene church when I was young and an Assembly of God youth group in high school. In neither did I learn anything negative about other religions specifically. We were taught that Christianity was the only true religion, other then Judaism, but never entered into what doctrine of what religion was wrong. I also always considered Catholics Christian.
DISCLAIMER: Catholic Answers has turned over the archive to Catholic-Questions.org and no longer owns, manages, or moderates the forums. For additional apologetics resources please visit www.catholic.com.
