Anti-Catholicism - A religion for some?

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Correct, I have yet to hear of an anti-Islamic who dedicate their lives to it like some anti-Catholics. The muslims are ready to “kill” for their faith. I often wonder if Catholics are ready to “die” for their faith.

PAX
Rand Al'Thor:
Ah, that’s true. I thought I had put that down too. Fortunately for Muslims, though, most people who are anti-Islamic don’t usually dedicate their lives to it (at least not that I’ve seen; I’m sure there’s some).
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Thank for the minor correction. 🙂
mark a:
A local news broadcast did a short story about a lighted sign at a local church that stated “The Koran should be flushed”, an appearant reference to the Guantanamo /Afghanistan / Time Magazine fiasco.

The pastor declined to be interviewed, and said he didn’t intend to offend anyone. He changed the sign to “Jesus is the way”.

I did a little repair on the above quote, because I personally have a few Baptist friends that are not at all thrilled that I’m going to burn in hell.
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mark a:
A local news broadcast did a short story about a lighted sign at a local church that stated “The Koran should be flushed”, an appearant reference to the Guantanamo /Afghanistan / Time Magazine fiasco.

The pastor declined to be interviewed, and said he didn’t intend to offend anyone. He changed the sign to “Jesus is the way”.
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hahaha. That’s like putting up “f*** you muhammad” on the sign and telling people it’s not meant to offend.
 
I feel that I must say something. Getting to know all the opinions in the world concerning Catholicism has opened my eyes to things I never knew existed, such as the topic of this thread.

Where I live, in the Northeastern United States, minds are open to allowing anyone his or her religion. I have never met anyone that truly disparaged the Catholic religion, although there are many who disagree with it. It would be fair to say that I live in the most heavily Catholic populated state in the Union. But along with this statistic, there are also many different non-Catholic denominations and non-christian religions. We live in harmony and exchange ecumenical services.

I have found out that many christian religions include anti-Catholicism in thier daily practices. Some recite anti-Heterodox prayers during certain liturgies, others include anti-Catholic sentiment during religious studies. Still others go as far as to include anti-Catholicism in both prayer and practice as a whole foundation of thier religion.

The Catholic Church does not do any of this. I have never heard a word from priest or practitioner that derided any other religion, contained within the auspices of the Church. There are no teachings, prayers, or opinions stated during mass, sermon or homily that in any way denigrate another religion.

This church teaches love among all people. It’s primary example of this teaching is the Pope, especially John Paul II, God rest his soul. This, in my opinion, is all the proof I need that shows the power of the keys and the guiding light that comes from them. IT MUST BE PETER. How can it be otherwise?

This is why I will never ever consider moving to another religion. I would have to lower my standards, The standards that were taught to me by the Holy Catholic Church. This church walks in the words, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

From what I can see, there are not many others that do.

Subrosa
 
I have NEVER understood why certain other religions spend so much time talking about and memorizing the Bible yet never seem to learn anything about love.

I could never be a part of a religion that bashes other religions in the seemingly hateful way they do with ours. I was taught to love all and have never heard the Catholic Church criticize or critique any other. It would be wasteful and going against what Christ taught.

Some friends went to a christian church meeting and the first thing they saw on a counter was a leaflet all against the Blessed Mother. They were shocked and left immediately.
Don’t these christian churches realize this is the Mother of Jesus Christ and they are disparaging her?

My brother married a woman who goes to a calvary church and she is just like those anti-catholics who talk all day about how much they love Christ yet her behavior says another. My mother who is a devout Catholic went to visit and on sunday, my brothers wife was refusing to take her to Mass. My brother finally did but I was shocked!

I am so happy that I am in the true Church of Jesus Christ. I say thank you every day that I am Catholic.🙂
 
If you have a strong belief in the Church you attend, then you won’t need to bash other faiths.
If your faith is weak, then you need to keep the fire burning, by fanning the flames with anti-Catholic stuff.

Some non-Catholics just get on with it, but others do seem to make a religion out of being anti-Catholic.

Well if thats their faith,so be it, but from this side of the fence, "it’s no faith at-all "

I wonder where all this anti-Catholic stuff comes from, :hmmm:http://bestsmileys.com/eyes/11.gif

Has any Catholic Convert ever heard a Priest at Mass run down other faiths ?

I personally haven’t -----nuff said. 🙂
 
Here in Spain Protestante Digital is very anti-catholic, and others like webislam bashes catholicism many times, for example to the members of Opus Dei.
However I don´t know many times what is the difference between bashing and freedom of expression.
 
Slightly off topic but along the lines of the thread,

The first time I went to mass was Midnight Mass and my mom went with me. I was flipping through the missal and on the inside of the front cover was a very nice page of greeting, to fellow Catholics, and to Orthodox, and then to non-Catholics, and then non-Christians. Basically a big fat hello, and who could and couldn’t partake in communion. I showed it to my mom and she whispered,

“You don’t see any Protestant churches with nice little welcomes to Catholics, now do you?”

Here in redneck central and closer to the south, terms like “whore of babylon” and “cult” prevail. I’ve never heard a whole sermon based on what’s wrong with Catholicism but I know they exist.
 
I think so many break-away Christian denominations have anti-Catholic elements because they sense the Catholic Church, by its very existence, standing in silent judgement against their private brands of Christianity. The Church teaches that it alone has the full truth, and that really riles up a lot of folk.

Here’s what John Henry Newman had to say about anti-Catholicism (in England, but still relevant):
Present Position of Catholics in England
 
It is scary - because a lot of the people that make up these denominations where once Catholic.

We need to do a better job explaining and teaching our awesome faith … it the responsibility falls on all of us … not just the priests. Parents have a bigger responsibility to teach and pass down the faith to their children and teach them to defend their faith - but having them know their faith!
 
I can say that I have never heard a priest disparage another faith. I have never heard a nun disparage another faith. I spent 8 years in Catholic school (K-8) and our education was spent learning about our faith! When other faiths were mentioned it was to mention the commonalities or to pray that Christianity will be one again.

The first time that I experienced anti-Catholicism was from a Presbyterian youth leader when I was 12. She took me and two Catholic friends into a stairwell when we were on an overnight youth trip and started to tell us that the Pope was satan and that we needed to be saved to be “Christian”. I had never heard this kind of ignorance and these kinds of lies about Catholicism before. This was a mainstream denomination - Presbyterian - and she started off by calling Pope John Paul II “satan”! This was the only anti-Catholicism that I experienced at that youth group - in privacy away from our Presbyterian friends. For this reason, I’ve concluded that all Protestant churches are anti-Catholic to the core. It’s just a matter of degree and subtlety. The extreme cases have made anti-Catholicism an all-encompassing feature of their faiths so much so that it supercedes the message about Jesus. How sad for the innocent souls who go to their churches to strengthen their faith in Christ but are poisoned with this instead!

I think that fear and suspicion of the Catholic faith are sometimes the only thing that keep good Christians who feel the emptiness of Protestant faiths from exploring the fullness of truth in our Church. Unfortunately, I also think that our Catholic schools need to address anti-Catholicism to innoculate us against aggressive Protestant “evangelism”. We have so many Catholics who are lured into Evangelical faiths, etc. by these kinds of messages because they are oblivious to the hate behind some of these churches.
 
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Eden:
These kinds of posts about Southern Baptists (and also Evangelicals) are exactly what started me thinking about the time and energy that some “Christian” churches devote to attacking our Church. Their religion becomes negatively focused on Catholicism to the detriment of Christianity to the point that you have to wonder, “What is their religion all about? Christ or anti-Catholicism?”
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For some people, the best “defense” is a good “offense.” The idea is to get the Catholics off guard right from the get-go, and to further reinforce the idea to their own people that they are “in the right.”
 
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Eden:
The first time that I experienced anti-Catholicism was from a Presbyterian youth leader when I was 12. She took me and two Catholic friends into a stairwell when we were on an overnight youth trip and started to tell us that the Pope was satan and that we needed to be saved to be “Christian”. I had never heard this kind of ignorance and these kinds of lies about Catholicism before. This was a mainstream denomination - Presbyterian - and she started off by calling Pope John Paul II “satan”! .
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A similar thing happened to me when I was 17 years old. I posted before that I didn’t grow up Catholic but due to the influence of a Godly Catholic woman I was exposed to Catholisim at 16 and wanted to convert. A priest told me to wait until I was 18(Something that I completly understand)

I had a good friend that was SOuthern Baptist. Most weekends I would spend at her house. Anyway, she started bombarding me with weird accusations like that Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is risen. For the most part, I was able to refute these silly accusations. Sadly I didn’t have the experience to realize that attending SUnday School with her would be a bad idea. The teacher started right off blasting Catholics. He asked if there were any Catholics in this small class. Everyone turned to look at me(I suppose that this was a planned attack) The teacher bombarded me with questions that I couldn’t answer. As a southerner, I had always been taught to be extremly polite to adults and to never argue with anyone older then me, so this man had me at a disadvantage. Also, I was very shy and hated attention drawn to me, so I was completly mortified. :mad:

Now that I am older, this memory angers me. If you have to use such tactic to win converts what does that say about your faith? Not only that, but it shows a lack of compassion and empathy for another human being. We all know the saying “The means don’t justify the end” I think for some people the hatred of what they believe Catholisim is completly obliterates their knowledge of right and wrong.
 
STIOFÁN:
Has any Catholic Convert ever heard a Priest at Mass run down other faiths ?

I personally haven’t -----nuff said. 🙂
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Nor have I. In fact, in our Good Friday Service one of the prayers always said is “We pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the Word of God.” And also in our missals the first page welcomes people of other denominations or faiths to take part in the mass.
 
There is a book out entitled Anti-Catholicism The Last Acceptable Prejudice but I don’t remember the author’s name. If youre interested in this subject, you’d enjoy the book.
 
Just a thought, catholics, like muslims have a sense of unity and nationhood…an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us…and we are so very many…Maybe thats why other groups feel so threatened.

An old saying, “Everyone know’s the weakest dog barks the loudest”
 
Thanks for the book suggestion, Little Mary! I found two on the subject on Amazon. One is entitled Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice by Mark S. Massa and the other is entitled The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice by Philip Jenkins. Both look very interesting!
 
Anti-Catholics are so because they are “children of rebellion.” Just as children rebelling against their parents have to prove how wrong their parents are, those broken from Holy Mother Church want to prove how wrong she is. It is the only way to justify their own decision. I have even had a protestant aquaintance tell me that he had to prove the Catholic Church was wrong because either his denomination was the true church or the Catholic Church was - there was no other that could be right. His faith then was truly based on the fact that the Catholic Church had to be wrong. He claims this is a teaching of his Church - Seventh-day Adventist.

It seems to me that if you have the truth, you proclaim it and it attracts others. If you are attracted by proving others wrong, then you are not attracted by the truth, but a cleverly disguised hatred. Hatred belongs not to God but to the Evil One. Carrie
 
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Eden:
Has anyone else noticed that anti-Catholicism has become a religion of its own for some non-Catholic Christians? Have you also noticed that some churches spend an inordinate amount of time attacking the Catholic faith rather than preaching about Christ? What is the explanation for this misdirected emphasis?
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Their faith is defined in opposition to The Catholic Faith. They have no faith of their own. All they believe is that The Catholic Church is wrong.
 
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